PATIENCE PAYS OFF FOR BOSTON, FANS

Tom Scholz is seriously misguided.

The guitarist/keyboardist primarily responsible for composing, producing and engineering Boston’s dramatic pop-rock albums contends he’s not a perfectionist.

He must be kidding. What would you call someone who spends six years recording an album? He’s either a perfectionist or remarkably lazy--and Scholz, who was working 20 to 50 hours a week for all those years on Boston’s latest album, “Third Stage,” isn’t lazy.

“I don’t really think of myself as a perfectionist,” he insisted. “But when I’m doing something creative--like music--I do pay attention to details and I don’t mind spending extra time to get something just right.”

Extra time? Recording this MCA Records album (only the band’s third, and its first since 1978) took more than five years longer than the norm. Some have called the six-year sessions for “Third Stage” the other Boston marathon.

But Scholz argued that the album, which was released last fall, wouldn’t have been as good if it had been recorded in less time. Fan response has somewhat justified all the time spent on the album. “Third Stage” has sold over 4 million copies and spawned a massive tour, including Forum shows Saturday and July 20-21 and an Irvine Meadows date July 22.

Working mostly alone all that time wasn’t really fun, Scholz admitted. In fact, he suggested, it was a bit crazy.

“Who really wants to work virtually by himself for six years? It’s something that no one in his right mind would do. I was by myself most of the time. I didn’t even spend much time with my family. (Lead singer) Brad (Delp) was there for vocals about 10% of the time. And I had (drummer) Jim (Masdea) there working on parts with me sometimes. But for the most part I was in the studio alone, working constantly.”

Scholz, who has an engineering degree, approaches recording as he would an engineering project: very meticulously. He fine-tunes and fine-tunes--then he fine-tunes the fine-tuning.

Boston fans, who adore the band’s melodic, rapturous, histrionic rock, see it as time well spent. Boston detractors, however, say the same material could have been recorded in six weeks.

The anti-Boston faction probably doesn’t even acknowledge the greatness of the rock ballad “More Than a Feeling” from the band’s first album. Many of these people still haven’t forgiven Boston for helping create a sound that was liberally copied by bands like Styx, Journey and Toto. It’s a real late-’70s sound, when some pop-rock had mushroomed into something so stately and pompous that it seemed to be aspiring to become a form of opera.

“Third Stage” has that sound, which is to be expected, since Scholz is mired in the ‘70s. It couldn’t sound modern, because he hardly ever hears any ‘80s music.

“What little I’ve heard of new music in the last five or six years has been so terrible that I’ve had no interest in listening anymore,” he explained. “I decided to stay away from it so it wouldn’t effect my writing.”

Scholz’s biggest exposure to current music has come on the basketball court. “Occasionally I’d hear new songs when someone would bring one of those big portable stereos to the court,” he recalled.

While working on the “Third Stage” album, playing basketball was the only form of recreation for the 6-foot-5 musician, who’s a fanatic about the sport. Ironically, Scholz, because of his vocal cadence and laugh, sounds quite a bit like another basketball zealot--Jack Nicholson.

Many have this vision of Scholz wallowing in wealth while working on “Third Stage.” After all, 1976’s “Boston” was the biggest-selling debut album ever at 9 million copies, until Whitney Houston’s came along last year. Boston’s 1978 follow-up sold over 4 million. As a virtual one-man studio machine, Scholz gets to keep most of the artist’s royalties.

But he didn’t have millions at his disposal. Instead, he had to rely on earnings from his company, Scholz Research and Design Inc., a musical electronics outfit that developed the Rockman, a guitar amplifier and signal processor. “The company became my means to survive and finance the album,” Scholz explained.

The problem was that most of his royalties have been tied up because of a lawsuit with Epic Records, which is part of CBS Records. “The bulk of the money from those albums is sitting in the vaults at CBS,” he explained. “They’re still holding some money that was earned back in 1976. I’m not what you would call filthy rich. I wish I had some of that money in my hands. It would have made it a lot easier when I was working on the album.”

Scholz has been involved in this legal battle with CBS, which is charging breach of contract, since 1983. Meanwhile Boston moved to MCA Records, which released “Third Stage.”

Scholz said he doesn’t like being with any record company: “The people in the record business are frightening. There are some good people but there are some real, real bad ones too. I’ve dealt with too many of the bad ones.”

Much of his hostility is reserved for the Epic/CBS executives who didn’t like his taking so long with his albums. Scholz had decided to ignore them. He listened to them once, he recalled, and regretted it. In 1978, he speeded up his working pace on “Don’t Look Back,” the follow-up to Boston’s blockbuster debut album, but wasn’t satisfied with the result. “Don’t Look Back” took about a year and a half to make, which for Scholz is like doing an album overnight.

“I like the songs on it,” he said. “But I wouldn’t necessarily have left all those songs on it. I needed more time, but I didn’t get it. I was stopped before I was finished because they wanted it so badly. I had other material I wanted to develop.”

Fans weren’t that wild about the album either. It sold 4 million--respectable, of course, but less than half the sales of the first one.

Why did Scholz yield to record company demands? “I didn’t have enough confidence in my abilities to handle things, or in my judgment,” he replied. “But I vowed after that album I wouldn’t let those money-grubbing types influence anything creative I did ever again. I rushed that album but I’ll never rush another one.”

Even in the late ‘70s, he wasn’t used to rushing. The first album took even longer than the current one: seven years. Scholz wrote the first song in 1969 and finished the last one in 1976.

Originally from Toledo, Ohio, Scholz migrated to Boston to study engineering at MIT. His passion for music slowly overwhelmed his interest in engineering.

“All I wanted to do was play guitar in a band,” he recalled. “I didn’t want to form a band or write songs. Music was a hobby at first. I learned how to play guitar and keyboards and I learned how to write. Pretty soon I was very involved in music. All the money I was making from being a design engineer went into recording. I wanted a record deal so I could do music full-time. When I got the deal (with Epic), I really got into it. There was no holding me back after that.”

The current Boston features two veterans, singer Brad Delp and drummer Jim Masdea. The latter has been with Scholz since the beginning. “Jim and I were working together in a house in a basement on a dirt floor back in Jamaica Plain, which is just outside of Boston,” Scholz recalled. “That’s when I recorded my first songs.” The band also includes guitarist Gary Pihl, drummer Doug Huffman and bassist David Sikes.

Boston has been through personnel changes since its last tour back in the late ‘70s. The former members were miffed that they weren’t more involved with the recording. “I wasn’t completely happy with those shows on the last tour,” Scholz admitted. “The band was a problem. There was no cohesiveness in it.”

That partly explains why some of the shows were so bad. In those days, Boston didn’t have a reputation for being a good performing band. In concert, the musicians were stiff and dull. Scholz insisted that the new outfit is considerably better.

This tour, by the way, wasn’t originally on Scholz’s agenda. “It was always just a far-fetched possibility,” he said. “It seemed like getting it organized would be an incredible hassle. But the people who work with me organized it and convinced me it was possible. I’m glad they did.”

The tour is doing very well so far. Fans know how rare it is to see Boston in person--as rare as a new Boston album.

So they’re seeing Boston while they can. The group probably won’t tour again until the next album is released--about 1994.