Desmond Child: Rock’s Hot New Hired Gun : Labeled unorthodox, he’s written hits for Cher, Aerosmith and Bon Jovi

Desmond Child was pacing around the studio, up against a deadline, trying to help budding rock starlet Sandi Saraya finish a torrid ballad called “Timeless Love.”

Obviously uncomfortable with the song’s tempestuous emotions, Saraya kept attacking the song, take after take, without much success. Finally, Child had an idea. He sent an assistant off to a nearby hardware store, with orders to buy the biggest set of chains he could find.

“I wanted a huge chain, like they use to tie up a mean dog,” said Child with an impish grin. “I told her that doing this song was like being in a play, where she was playing a character--a woman all tied up in knots over this guy.

“Then I wrapped her up in the chains and she got the song on the first take.”

Child flashed a satisfied smile. “Later on, when she had to do some overdubs for the song, she came to me and requested the chains. She said she couldn’t sing without them.”

If you want to hear Desmond Child, just turn on your radio. A shy, elusive perfectionist who had to be cajoled into having his picture taken for this story, he has emerged as one of the hottest songwriters in the record business.

Over the past few years, he’s co-written three No. 1 hits for Bon Jovi (including “Living on a Prayer” and “You Give Love a Bad Name”), two Top 20 hits for Joan Jett (including “I Hate Myself for Loving You”) and a pair of Top 15 hits for Aerosmith (including “Dude Looks Like a Lady”), plus hits for Cher (including her latest single, “Just Like Jesse James”), Kiss and Alice Cooper (his Top 10-bound comeback single, “Poison”).

That track record, industry experts say, puts Child in the elite $1 million-a-year club, making him one of the most highly-paid songwriters in the business.

He’s also a songwriter with an intriguing history. Raised in Miami, where his schoolmates included actor Mickey Rourke, he dropped out of high school to hit the folk music circuit. After a brief stab at a solo career, he took off for India, seeking spiritual enlightenment. Even at this time last year, he was living in a commune in Virginia, to which he donated all of his early songwriting profits.

Alice Cooper admits he was a bit shocked last year when he was greeted by his new writing partner--and his guru--in a room decked with flowers.

“It was quite a meeting,” Cooper said. “I guess they wanted to look me over, to see if I was going to come in there swearing or pouring beer on the floor. There were flowers everywhere and Desmond had his guru on hand to protect him from any bad vibes.

“I remember he warned me right away, saying ‘I don’t want to do anything anti-social.’ And I told him that was fine--I just wanted to do songs with a lot of sex.”

Now working as a producer, Child oversaw Cooper’s new album, several tracks on Cher’s current record and the soundtrack album for “Shocker,” the new Wes Craven horror film. He’s also finishing negotiations with Elektra Records to make his own album (his first since 1979, when he was the leader of a short-lived white soul act called Desmond Child and Rouge).

Child’s songs, with their infectious melodies and clever lyrics, are probably too glossy and mainstream to make him a critic’s favorite. But he’s getting raves from industry fans.

“He’s a brilliant songwriter, not only because he has great melody ideas, but because he can work with so many different people,” said Geffen A&R; exec John Kalodner. It’s this uncanny skill at hand-crafting hit songs--insiders call him “the ultimate hired gun”--has music publishing execs and A&R; hotshots wooing him to work with their top artists.

“Working with Desmond Child is what I imagine working with Brian Wilson or Phil Spector was like,” says Bob Pfeiffer, the Epic A&R; exec who put him together with Cooper. “He’s a mad genius. But I don’t see him self-destructing. He’s remained a real human being.”

Child is signed to an exclusive longterm contract with EMI April Music, a leading music publishing firm. But even EMI’s rivals are eager to use his talents. “I wouldn’t mind having a Desmond Child song on every Chrysalis record,” says Tom Sturges, senior vice president of Chrysalis’ Music Group and head of its publishing company. “If I thought the new Billy Idol album needed something extra, I’d go right to Desmond and ask him to write with my artist.”

Child is so hot right now that no one will publicly criticize him. Privately, insiders describe him as a prima donna, reknowned for budgetary excesses and obsessive perfectionism.

“He’s brilliant, but he’s also very crazy,” said one top record company exec, who asked to remain anonymous. “He has the same megalomania and childlike paranoia that many great producers before him had, but he has such great instincts that people put up with him.”

Child admits he’s demanding. “I am a total perfectionist,” he said. “Alice is still complaining about the night I made him sing one note for three hours till he ended up coughing up blood. All I ask is that the artist care as much as I do.”

But Child finds the term “hired gun” insulting, pointing to his work with unknowns like Kane Roberts and Maria Vidal, who doesn’t even have a record contract. “I think ‘hired gun’ is a pretty crass image,” he said. “There are lots of people I’d never work with, no matter how successful they are, because they have a reputation for rudeness or ruthlessness.”

As a self-proclaimed “spiritual seeker,” Child has few regrets about spending five years as a founding member of Akwenasa, an artists commune on a restored plantation in Virginia.

“We wanted to create an environment without conflict, where people spoke the truth without any organized philosophy or religion,” said Child, who dresses all in black and is rarely seen without a baseball cap perched on his head. “It was a very simple life. We shared cars, we never had our own room. All you had were your own clothes--and not many of those. It made me very self-sufficient.”

The commune’s leader was Bill Barber, a singer and voice teacher. When Child met with potential rock songwriting partners, Barber would accompany him. “He’d want to make sure the people I was working with weren’t going to be a destructive force in my life,” Child said in a soft, earnest voice. “He never told me not to work with someone. But there were people he’d predict I would have trouble with--and he’d be right.”

Still, Child began to have second thoughts last year, especially after meeting his songwriting counterparts in the Soviet Union--and seeing the drawbacks of a collective society.

“I found I had never fully let go of my needs for intimacy, sensuality and my artistic ego or pride in ownership,” he said. “So I found I had a secret life churning up inside me.”

Child left for good last November. “I walked away with zero assets,” he insists. “Any money I had made was automatically was given to the commune. But I didn’t feel we were making enough of a difference. So I decided I needed to get out into the real world.”

Can Child handle the temptations of the real world? As Alice Cooper put it: “Desmond was very soft and sensitive. Well, he was then. I’m probably going to get blamed for turning him into this guy who wears black leather and drives around Hollywood in a black Mercedes. Everyone’s going to say ‘It’s Alice’s fault!’ ”

Child insists he hasn’t changed. “I’m still in the process of putting my life back together. But I think I’m a strong person with good values. The first thing I did with my new money was get my mother out of the ghetto and into a nice building in Miami Beach.”

A child of immigrants--his mother is Cuban, his father Hungarian--Child grew up in poverty in Miami. Using a fake address, he entered the Miami Beach school system, where he hung out with a wild bunch of kids, including actor Mickey Rourke. “He was a bad kid then,” Child said. “A real juvenile delinquent.”

While other kids discovered drugs and sex, Child discovered his idol--Laura Nyro. “Hearing ‘Eli and the 13th Confession’ changed my life,” he said. “That was when I knew I wanted to be a songwriter.” After the 11th grade, he and a girl named Virgil Night (“We were the John and Yoko of Miami Beach High”) quit school and hit the folk circuit.

Child eventually moved to New York, where he founded Desmond Child and Rouge. The group developed a cult following in New York, but split up after making two quick albums. Child turned to songwriting, working with old pros like Ellie Greenwich and Bob Crewe. “It was like going to songwriting college,” he said. “Before I met them, I’d just relied on my natural talent. But they taught me real skills.”

Child has high expectations for his solo career. “That’s why I picked Elektra Records,” he said. “They’re an artists’ label and they work with the best, whether it’s Tracy Chapman or Motley Crue, Metallica or Michael Feinstein or the Cure.”

Still, Child realizes that success as a performer hinges as much on image as talent. (He’s already done an all-day photo session with glamour photographer George Hurrell, which could produce something suitable for an album cover). But his priority remains his work.

“When you write a good song, it’s mission accomplished--like sending someone new off into the world,” he said, hurrying off to another round of meetings. “I haven’t been disappointed with anything I’ve written for Aerosmith or Bon Jovi or Kiss. So I’m proud of my kids.”