Kim Fowley

Early life

Kim Vincent Fowley was born on July 21, 1939, in Los Angeles, California, Fowley was the son of character actor Douglas Fowley and actress Shelby Payne. His parents later divorced and Payne married William Friml, son of composer Rudolf Friml. Fowley attended University High School.

Career

In 1957, he was hospitalized with polio and, upon his release, became manager and publicist for the local band the Sleepwalkers, which included Bruce Johnston, drummer Sandy Nelson, and occasionally Phil Spector.

He spent some time in the armed forces and, by his own account, worked in the sex industry in Los Angeles in the late 1950s.

In 1959, he began working in the music industry in various capacities for both Alan Freed and Berry Gordy. His first record as a producer was "Charge" by the Renegades, a group comprising Johnston, Nelson, Nik Venet, and Richard Podolor. He promoted records for the duo Skip & Flip (Skip Battin and Gary S. Paxton), including the No. 11 hit "Cherry Pie".

1960s

During the early 1960s, Fowley was involved as co-producer/co-publisher with a string of successful records produced in Los Angeles. With Gary S. Paxton he recorded the novelty song "Alley Oop", which reached No. 1 on the charts in 1960 and was credited to the non-existent group the Hollywood Argyles. In 1961 he co-produced the instrumental "Like, Long Hair", arranged by Paxton, which became a No. 38 hit for Paul Revere and the Raiders. He arranged "Nut Rocker" for B. Bumble and the Stingers, which became a No. 1 hit in the UK in 1962 and talent scouted "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow", a No. 48 hit for the Rivingtons. The following year he produced "Popsicles and Icicles" by the Murmaids, which reached No. 3 in the charts in 1963 and which was written by a pre-Bread David Gates, then a session musician and songwriter who had met Fowley while Kim was hitchhiking in Los Angeles.

During the mid-1960s, Fowley publicized/consulted singer P.J. Proby and relocated for a time to London, England. Fowley wrote the lyrics for the song "Portobello Road", the B-side of Cat Stevens' first single, "I Love My Dog". He produced a Them spin-off band led by two ex-Them members, brothers Pat and Jackie McAuley (who were only allowed to use the band name Other Them in the UK, but called themselves Them on the European continent, releasing an album called Them Belfast Gypsies and a single "Let's Freak Out" under the name Freaks of Nature); an early incarnation of Slade known as the N'Betweens; Soft Machine (he produced "Love Makes Sweet Music", their first single); and the Lancasters, an instrumental rock group featuring a young Ritchie Blackmore. He worked with an up-and-coming band, the Farinas, and renamed them "Family".

In London around 1967 Fowley collaborated with the Seekers' guitarist/arranger Keith Potger. Together (with Potger writing under the nom de plume John Martin) they wrote the lyrics to "Emerald City". Potger has said the song was originally quite unlike the eventual Seekers single, and he heavily "Seeker-ized" the arrangement before presenting it to the group. The tune was based on the "Ode To Joy" theme from Beethoven's ninth ("Choral") symphony.

Fowley worked on occasion as a recording artist in the 1960s, issuing albums such as Love Is Alive and Well. In 1965, he wrote and produced a song about the psychedelic experience, "The Trip". In 1966 Fowley and Gail Sloatman (later Gail Zappa) recorded a spoken word single as "Bunny and Bear". The record is a satire of Sonny and Cher.

1970s

In 1970, Fowley moved to Helsinki, Finland, where he worked with the progressive rock band Wigwam, whom he called "The Finnish Beatles." Fowley produced the band's second album Tombstone Valentine, which was released in Finland on the Love Records label. The album was released as a double album in the US by Verve Forecast, with a second LP of extra tracks from the band's previous catalog. According to Fowley, he gave a copy of the LP to David Bowie, who allegedly utilized the production style of the album for his next album (1971's Hunky Dory). Fowley then moved to Sweden and produced the group Contact's album Nobody Wants to Be Sixteen for Swedish label MNW (Music Network) Records, which landed in the Swedish Top 20. MNW released the Kim Fowley solo LP The Day the Earth Stood Still the same year. Upon returning to Los Angeles, Fowley co-wrote the song "Michoacan" which was recorded by the Sir Douglas Quintet and appeared in the 1972 movie Cisco Pike starring Kris Kristofferson.

In 1971, The Byrds recorded three songs for the album Byrdmaniax that were co-written by Fowley and Byrds member Skip Battin. Fowley produced a re-recording of one of these songs, "Citizen Kane," with Battin later in the year. The re-recording featured the rest of the members of The Byrds (minus Roger McGuinn) as sidemen and was used in the soundtrack of the Edie Sedgwick film Ciao! Manhattan (1972). Signpost Records signed Battin to a solo recording contract in 1972, and the Battin/Fowley team co-wrote every song on the resultant solo album Skip Battin (aka Skip).

Fowley produced the Boulder, Colorado-based rock and roll revival act Flash Cadillac & the Continental Kids for a television appearance in early 1972. The group signed a contract with Epic Records in September of that year, and Fowley produced their self-titled debut LP for the label at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles. Fowley also produced three recordings by Flash Cadillac & the Continental Kids that were included in the film American Graffiti (1973). These songs were "At the Hop", "She's So Fine" and "Louie Louie". The first two tracks were also featured on the film's soundtrack album.

In May 1972, Fowley was signed to Capitol Records for a long-term solo recording contract. Capitol released Fowley's LP I'm Bad in June of that year. Fowley's follow-up solo LP, International Heroes, was mixed in February and released in March 1973.

While on tour to promote his solo album I'm Bad in the summer of 1972, Fowley met Boston disk jockey Maxanne Satori, who introduced him to a pre-fame Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. Fowley returned to Boston after the completion of the tour and arranged to have engineer Stuart "Dinky" Dawson record a demo with The Modern Lovers in Dawson's home studio. Later in autumn 1973, Fowley worked with the band again, this time recording them in Los Angeles at Gold Star Studios on behalf of Warner Bros. Records. Tracks from these sessions were released as bonus tracks on later issues of The Modern Lovers (1976), the album The Original Modern Lovers (1981), and the Warner Bros. Loss Leaders compilation Troublemakers (1980).

1980s

In the 1980s Fowley moved to Australia where he announced he was "looking for the new Beatles or ABBA". His search turned up power pop band Beathoven who were still under a recording contract with EMI. Changing their name to the Innocents, he secured a new record deal with Trafalgar Records and produced several songs for the group. They too became a cult band in later bootlegs/reissues. Fowley produced the first demos for the iconic power pop band, Candy, which featured Gilby Clarke and Kyle Vincent. Vincent was Fowley's personal assistant. Producer Fowley and attorney David Chatfield recorded the first album for Steel Breeze at Rusk studios in Hollywood and got Steel Breeze their recording contract with RCA. Casey Kasem, on the edition of March 12, 1983, of American Top 40, describes how Fowley discovered Steel Breeze while going through approximately 1200 demo tapes that were about to be discarded by a local Hollywood nightclub, Madame Wong's. "You Don't Want Me Anymore" was the first single from the band's self-titled album and quickly jumped into the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 supported by a video that was a favorite of early MTV, and peaked at No. 16. The next single, "Dreamin' Is Easy", also made it into the Top 40.

In 1984, still owning rights to the name "the Runaways", Fowley rebuilt the image around Gayle Welch, an unknown teenager from New Zealand. Adding Denise Prior, Missy Bonilla (then a typist for Denny Diante at what was CBS Records) and Cathy DiAmber (Catherine Dombrowski) with David Carr on keyboards, a Chicago guitarist Bill Millay and numerous session musicians. Fowley, assisted by New Zealander Glenn Holland, sought to cash in on the fame of the former Runaways members who had gone on to significant success in their individual solo careers. In 1985, he returned to the United States and recorded further songs with the Innocents' David Minchin.

In 1986, Fowley spotted the band Shanghai (consisting of Eric Leach and Taz Rudd of Symbol Six, Brent Muscat of Faster Pussycat, Patrick Muzingo, and Todd Muscat of Decry) at the Troubadour. After seeing their performance he asked, "Are you ready to make a record?!" They immediately moved in with Fowley and began writing and recording songs. David Libert, Alice Cooper's ex-road manager and agent for George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, was recruited to come in to handle the day-to-day babysitting chores. Shanghai played the reopening of the Whisky a Go Go in April 1986 with Guns N' Roses and Faster Pussycat. Their last show was at the Scream in Los Angeles in 1987.

2000s

Fowley is featured in Mayor of the Sunset Strip, a 2003 documentary about the disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer.

Also in 2003, Fowley made a return trip to London, where he made an in-store appearance at Intoxica Records on Portobello Road and curated and performed an evening of music and entertainment at the Dirty Water Club at its then base at the Boston Music Room in North London.

Fowley became an experimental filmmaker after the DVD release of Mayor of the Sunset Strip. His written and directed works include: Black Room Doom, Dollboy: The Movie, Satan of Silverlake, The Golden Road to Nowhere, Frankenstein Goes Surfing, Trailer Park's On Fire and Jukebox California. Video clips/scenes from these movies can be seen on YouTube and Myspace, and feature a cast of regulars including but not limited to musical oddities such as the Fabulous Miss Wendy, Giddle Partridge, Richard Rogers (Crazy White Man) and Clown Porn Queen Hollie Stevens.

Fowley released the 21-track solo album Adventures in Dreamland on WEED/Innerstate Records in 2004. It contains the songs "Mayor of the Sunset Strip", "Terrors in Tinseltown", and "Ballad of Phil Spector".

In 2008, Fowley was reunited with Cherie Currie at Harry Houdini's mansion in Los Angeles. He played three dozen gigs between June 2007 and February 2009 as the act Crazy White Man, a duo featuring him on vocals and Richard Rogers on guitar. The bulk of the Crazy White Man shows took place during 2008 and included the Tribute to Gidget Gein, which raised funds for Gidget's Hollywood Forever memorial.

Capitol re-released several of his titles, and director Guy Ritchie used his song "The Trip" in the 2008 film RocknRolla. Fowley was regularly heard on Sirius Satellite Radio with a four-hour show on Saturdays and Sundays.

Currie wrote a memoir of her time in the Runaways, which was turned into the film, The Runaways, released on March 19, 2010. The film featured Michael Shannon as Fowley, alongside Kristen Stewart as Jett and Dakota Fanning as Currie.

2010s

In his last years, Fowley worked on writing and publishing his autobiography, which he divided between three distinct books. He released the first volume of his autobiography, Lord of Garbage, published by Kicks Books, in 2012. It covers the years 1939–1969 and describes his early childhood and beginning years in the music business. The second volume of his autobiography was intended to be called Planet Pain and to cover the years 1970–1994. The last volume was intended to be finished on his deathbed and to be released posthumously because, as the 2010s began, Fowley was terminally ill. On September 24, 2014, Fowley married longtime girlfriend and music executive Kara Wright-Fowley, in a private ceremony in Los Angeles.

Death

Fowley died of bladder cancer in Hollywood, California on January 15, 2015, at the age of 75. He is interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Sexual misconduct allegations

In a 2001 interview, Michael Steele of the Bangles claimed Fowley fired her from the Runaways for refusing his sexual advances.

In July 2015, six months after Fowley's death, Jackie Fuchs (who performed under the stage name Jackie Fox with the Runaways) claimed Fowley had raped her in 1975 during a New Year's Eve party while he was involved with the band. Fox also alleged Joan Jett and Cherie Currie witnessed the rape. Jett denied seeing the incident, but songwriter Kari Krome, along with other bystanders who did not intervene, corroborated the allegation. Currie stated she spoke up and then stormed out of the room. Look Away (2021), a documentary about sexual abuse in the rock music industry, features Fuchs' story.

In 2023, Kari Krome filed a lawsuit against Fowley's estate alleging he had repeatedly sexually assaulted her when she was 14 or 15 years old.