POP EYE SPECIAL : Irving Azoff, This Is Your New Life

Irving Azoff couldn’t believe it.

He’d just sent out a release announcing his new record company and here he was--barely an hour later--getting a long-distance call from record producer Gary Katz, holed up in a studio 50 miles south of London.

“What city are you in?” demanded Azoff. “It’s a tiny town you’ve never heard of,” replied Katz, who produced Steely Dan’s hits. “I just wanted to say congratulations.”

Azoff wagged his head in wonder. “How’d you find out? You’re in the middle of nowhere!”

In Hollywood, where information is power, the telephone is king. The music business runs on schmooze, gossip and chatter. Whether it’s in the car, office or corporate jet, the phone is the industry’s axle grease, the 30-weight motor oil that keeps the star-making machinery purring smoothly.

If anyone could win a Grammy for phone wheeling ‘n’ dealing it would be Azoff, the former chairman of MCA’s Music Entertainment Group. When Pop Eye heard that the colorful pop mogul was announcing the formation of his own record company--it’s a multimillion-dollar joint venture with Warner Bros. Records--we camped out in his temporary digs for a behind-the-scenes look at a Day in the Life of a Rock Mogul.

Azoff operated out of a tiny cubicle--just a floor away from his old MCA throne room--at his pal Howard Kaufman’s HK Management offices (which features a sign saying “MCA Government in Exile”). He spent Tuesday perched on a small sofa, wearing jeans, Nike sneakers and a six-day beard, running a telephone marathon. He gave interviews, accepted accolades, made lunch dates and cannily pumped his network of show-biz insiders for valuable nuggets of information.

Call it the ultimate Hollywood talk show. Dawn Steel called and told jokes. Ahmet Ertegun called with congratulations. David Geffen called with advice.

Every 10 minutes, secretaries would hurry in with a new stack of messages. Azoff’s longtime adviser, Larry Solters, would coach him before he spoke to reporters. Azoff’s loyal assistant, Susan Markheim, would conduct business between calls--all kinds of business.

(“Irving, this is very important,” she said, after he finished a call from an influential TV producer. “For your ski passes in Aspen--which mountain do you want them for?”)

In the midst of it all, pop star Glenn Frey (whom Azoff managed when Frey was with the Eagles) popped in, wearing a white linen suit and a loud pink tie. “This is unbelievable,” Frey said after he surveyed the scene. “What do you do for an encore?”

Azoff would jump on and off lines, shout out call-back priorities and receive hourly typed updates of messages still in need of being returned. When a caller bored him, he’d begin skimming the trades, check memos or stuff mail into his post-MCA-era briefcase--a Big Dog polka-dot backpack borrowed from one of his kids.

It wasn’t hard to figure out a pecking order. When you’re hot, you’re hot: Arsenio Hall’s call was waved through immediately (and the talk-show host got invited to Tuesday’s Lakers home opener). And when you’re not: Jerry Weintraub called, but his message went unreturned, at least that day.

By 5:30 p.m., when Azoff wearily departed, he had fielded nearly 60 calls--with 130 more to be answered later in the week (not counting calls made from home, beginning at 7 a.m.).

What follows are some revealing, cinema-verite highlights. (At Azoff’s request, several sensitive conversations remain off the record. Other callers were informed that a reporter was on the line.)

9:55 a.m. Eager to reach his British callers before they leave for the night, Azoff instructs his secretary: “Start east and move west. Let’s take England, then New York.”

10:15 a.m. After making overseas calls, Azoff has a cozy chat with Tom Pollock, chairman of MCA’s Motion Picture Group, who wonders when Azoff will be expanding into film production. “The record company’s the key thing now,” Azoff says. “The movie route is Phase 2. But I have the attention span of a gnat, so I may go through the record-company phase in about two weeks.”

10:40 a.m. Lee Phillips, a top industry attorney and the key player in Azoff’s negotiations with Warners, checks in to discuss various job candidates. “You were brilliant on this deal,” Azoff says. “And you were sick the whole time too.” Azoff adds: “The great thing about you is that, unlike most lawyers in this business, you don’t blab about every deal.”

11:05 a.m. Azoff takes a call from an MCA exec. “So what are they saying about me? Am I a Benedict Arnold around here or what?” Azoff listens for a moment. “Look, I hope I can make so much money that I can afford to steal you from ‘em!”

11:15 a.m. Azoff takes a congratulatory call from Ahmet Ertegun, chairman of Atlantic Records, which is also part of the Warners empire. “That was a nice story in the New York Times this morning,” Ertegun says, unaware that the piece ran before Warners officially announced the deal, ruffling feathers at rival publications.

Suspecting that someone at Warners had tipped off the paper, Azoff is peeved: “The reporter jumped the gun. Maybe a press release blew out of the top floor of your building.”

11:25 a.m. A man with a long, Hasidic-style beard and baggy trousers enters the room--John Kalodner, a top A&R; executive at Geffen Records. He grabs Azoff, gives him a kiss and hurries out, late for a meeting with a songwriter down the hall.

11:35 a.m. A secretary brings in a new phone sheet. Azoff frowns. “I’m running about 15 calls behind.” He takes a call from a local newspaper reporter. “We want to sign artists that are unique and special. . . We’ll be different from MCA. A little more rebellious, a little more sensitive.”

When he hangs up, Azoff mutters: “Geez. I’ve talked to high school reporters who were smarter than that.”

11:50 a.m. Glenn Frey stops in to say hello. Azoff immediately puts him on the phone with Jim Wyatt, president of the ICM talent agency. Frey pushes the wrong button and disconnects him. “Well,” he laughs, “there goes my acting career.” They call Wyatt back, who makes plans with Frey to have lunch. “Irving’s my new guru,” Frey says when he gets off the phone.

Azoff laughs. “Glenn’s decided I’m his new manager again. For the record--I’m not his manager. We’re just doing some projects together. Managers get paid. I’m working for free.”

Azoff takes a call from an out-of-work promotion man who pitches him for a job. Frey, who played a promo man on “Wise Guy” this year, jokes about the show: “It wasn’t exactly authentic, was it? I mean, we couldn’t show any hookers and blow (cocaine).”

12:20 p.m. A call comes in from an old pal, Dawn Steel, president of Columbia Pictures. She jokes with Azoff, telling him, “Listen, things are really exciting at my place.”

Azoff: “Hey, did you read about me in Spy magazine?”

Steel: “What’d they say--that you were shorter than me?”

Azoff: “No. They claimed I was going to be the next Phil Spector-type lunatic in the music business. (Laughter.) It was the nicest thing anyone ever wrote about me.”

Steel: “I wish they’d say such nice things about me. Irving--congratulations. And promise me. Don’t (mess) this up!”

12:30 p.m. Azoff takes a two-hour lunch with Warners execs Mo Ostin, Lenny Waronker and Michael Ostin. They’re meeting with a rival label head who might join Azoff’s new company. When he returns, he’s mum about his impression of the job candidate, except to say “I like him. I just want to make sure his vision of the company is the same as my vision.”

Picking up the phone, he jokes: “It was pretty dull. Mo was there, so we couldn’t have any food fights.”

2:55 p.m. Azoff takes a call from an A&R; exec he’s courting, who’s still at another label. He asks cagily: “Are you employed? Happily employed?”

3:20 p.m. Azoff receives congratulations from Warners distribution chief Henry Droz. “We’re so elated that we opened a bottle of champagne,” Droz says. “Unfortunately, it had to be Korbel because we’re still in a lot of debt.”

3:35 p.m. A call comes in from David Geffen, a longtime ally who’d been an adviser on the Warners deal. Azoff picks up the phone, saying: “So it’s the Great White Wonder.” Azoff informs him of his lunch with the job candidate.

Azoff: “I want to talk to Mo about him. I want to hear his gut reaction.”

Geffen: “Sure, but don’t only go with Mo’s gut. Go with your own. What do you think?”

Azoff: “I like him. But he’s asking for a lot. And with the lawyers involved--ugh! Listen. I’m going to New York. So I’m leaving you in charge of my wife and kids for a week.”

Geffen: (Groans.) “That’s like telling me I’m in Dante’s Inferno!”

3:50 p.m. The Hollywood Reporter calls for an interview. “The company doesn’t have a name yet,” Azoff says. “It just has my mouth.”

4:15 p.m. Arsenio Hall is on the line.

Azoff: “Hey, Chunkie! I’m running off to New York, but I’ll be back for the Lakers game Tuesday night. So if you want to go. . . .”

Hall: “You’re inviting me?”

Azoff: “Sure. I’ll hold tickets.”

4:40 p.m. Geffen Records president Eddie Rosenblatt calls to say: “Mazel tov.” Afterwards, Azoff asks for O.J. Simpson’s phone number so he can see him when he’s in New York. He also reminds his assistant: “(Guns N’ Roses manager) Alan Niven had a baby. Let’s send him something.”

5:25 p.m. One final press call. Azoff slumps down on the couch. “I’m about at the end of my rope.” He tells the reporter: “We’re going to start small and build from there. . . .”

When the interview’s over, he stuffs a pile of papers into his Big Dog backpack and heads for the door. He’s exhausted. “That’s it for the phones,” he says. “I’m going trick-or-treating with my kids.”