Pics of Ricky
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Salter tracked Ricky down and brought Waite to meet him in a
Hollywood music store where Ricky had begun working for $100 a week. Phillips
recalls, "I grabbed a bass off the wall...price tag swinging and walked
across the street where they'd been holding auditions for three weeks. We
played two new songs 'HEAD FIRST' and 'RUN TO MEXICO' and then Waite, Cain,
and myself sang the chorus to 'ISN'T IT TIME' and something else... I don't
remember what... They left the room for five minutes and came back with
their manager Chip Rachlin and asked me to join the band."
In Ricky's words:
For me The Babys was the best musical experience of my life. It was five guys rocking out, playing, and writing music at all hours. John Waite would say, "Ricky, I don't care if its 3:00 AM...if you've got a song in your head we'll put the coffee on and go for it". Wally would give me idea tapes with so many good musical bits on it I wouldn't know where to start. Playing as a rhythm section with Tony was magic. Jonathan, who we called Jay in those days, was like my big brother. We were constantly touring, hosting television shows, chasing women, and indulging in things we would eventually have to quit...but I wouldn't change any of it.
Chrysalis Records was too small of a label to handle its talent so we really
only sold records when we were on the road. We got airplay with no problem
and were also a great opening act so we always got the opening spot on whatever
the top grossing tour in the country was. We would set out to win over the
fans of whatever band we opened for. You could chart our record sales according
to what part of the country we were touring. The frustrating thing for us
was to go into record stores and find our label hadn't shipped product.
Eventually problems like this would affect the band internally and we threw
in the towel. The memories however are still golden and I'll always love
those guys like brothers.
The Babys band members were: Ricky Phillips (bass guitar), John
Waite (lead vocals), Jonathan
Cain (keyboards) , Wally Stocker (lead guitar), and Tony Brock (percussion).
The Babys notable albums include: Union Jacks, Head First, On The Edge
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