From cradle to rave

By Dean Kuipers

March 17, 2005 12 AM PT

Special to The Times

The instant Whitestarr swarms the Viper Room stage, it’s a party. Girls are crushed up against the stage; lots of drinks are going down. Maybe it’s just that they’re playing up every classic rock stereotype to the point where you don’t know if this is serious or a genius parody. Maybe it’s just the way frontman Cisco Adler comes on for the group’s Tuesday night “Rock Show” residency like Jim Dandy to the rescue in his low-cut flares, long curly hair, whippet-like torso and dirty little mustache. Maybe it’s the group’s pure strain of Southern rock, all Allman Brothers-meets-Humble Pie country guitars and hey-mama twang and gospel-inspired backing vocals.

Maybe it’s the way they play up to the ladies -- apparently, every 20-year-old Hollywood model missing the midriff on her shirt has managed to squeeze into the room -- as Cisco paces nervously, in his Three Dog Night preacher voice quavering, “Oooh, you better tell a friend so we can make love to them.”

Or maybe it’s just that they were born to rock. Cisco Adler is music royalty in this town. His dad is legendary music biz figure Lou Adler, who wrote “Only Sixteen” for Sam Cooke, produced the Mamas and the Papas and guided Carole King’s 1970s hits on his Ode label. Cisco’s brother is Nic Adler, who runs the Roxy.

The same goes for his lead guitarist, Duane Betts, son of legendary Allman Brothers lead guitarist Dickey Betts. And the drummer is Alex Orbison, son of Roy. They loosely grew up together in Malibu with their bandmates (sometimes as many as nine total), including fellow frontman Asher Levin, bassist Damon Webb and their John Belushi-like dancer, a slumming lawyer who goes by the name Tony Potato. How could they do anything but rock? At their last show, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons came up onstage with them.

“The party thing came real easily, fortunately,” says 29-year-old Orbison, gravel-voiced in the beery midday gloom of the Roxy a few days later. “Because if you don’t have it, it’s hard to get it.”

“Oh yeah,” nods Cisco, 26, fidgeting with his CZ-encrusted cellphone. “The girls come because of us, and then the guys come because of the girls. But now we’re reaching a point where the music is taking over. It used to be, ‘I want to come party with Whitestarr.’ That was fun for a while, but it’s not so fulfilling at the end of the day.”

Whitestarr has every advantage, as new bands go, but also the ultimate challenge. The industry and fans have a love-hate relationship with famous kids. Everybody wants to party with them, but few want to take them seriously. They carry a whiff of judgment and probable failure. The best thing that can happen to them is to have a radio hit right out of the box, so nobody has time to remember that these guys’ parents did it the hard way: They struggled until they finally found fame. With the kids it’s different. The assumption seems to be: They just don’t need success as much as other people do.

But ask Whitestarr if that’s true. Having grown up in the middle of the party, they might need it more. And they’re becoming a kind of subculture. L.A. is a place where rock stars like to live, and their kids want to be in bands. Lots and lots of their kids.

Whitestarr’s story is more made-for-Hollywood than most. Four years ago Cisco Adler was a club promoter when he and Levin decided to throw a holiday party at the Roxy called the Snow Ball. So they whipped up a few songs, and Adler sent out 500 CDs as invitations on his club list. Seemingly every girl in town showed up, and there they were, the pair of them spitting songs over a digital audiotape, with a fake backing band. The night was so successful that they decided to get real and hooked up with a Malibu-based Southern rock band, Backbone, led by Betts and Orbison.

Any of these guys were bound to at least get a decent hearing at the big labels, and Atlantic Records signed Whitestarr in 2001. The band cut an EP, “Bottles and Blues,” with Nirvana producer Jack Endino, and an LP, “Sexual in Yo’ Window,” produced by Alain Johannes and Natasha Schneider (Queens of the Stone Age, No Doubt). Their album might have made them the next Black Crowes or even Kings of Leon, but Atlantic will never know. The deal was terminated, the label deciding Whitestarr’s music lacked commercial potential.

“No one wants to take a chance on a bunch of brats from Malibu,” Cisco Adler says. “Which is hilarious: Come out and hang out with us. I guarantee you’ll either go home hurt or into rehab. It’s not gonna be pretty.”

“In the city, it seems like they’re much more down on us,” Orbison says, “but in the middle of America, people are ready to have us move into their house and make us dinner.”

Both of them have puzzled hard over what they call the “double-edged sword” of their fathers’ fame, which seems especially sharp and serrated in L.A. and New York. The upside is that they can take songs to their dads. The downside is that their dads don’t always know what’s going on anymore, and their names bring expectations.

“Duane’s dad, when he first heard the record, he was like, ‘That’s the most original thing I’ve heard since the Byrds,’ ” Adler says. “Just to hear that from those people is really validating -- because they did it.

“I think that’s where that backlash comes from,” he adds. “It’s people going, ‘They already did it once. What are the chances?’ ”

In daddy’s footsteps

Young bands don’t want to take any chances with the curse. Like the Like, a new L.A. pop band composed of guitarist and frontwoman Z Berg, 18 (daughter of Geffen A&R; head Tony Berg), bassist Charlotte Froom, 18 (daughter of producer Mitchell Froom), and drummer Tennessee Thomas, 20 (daughter of Elvis Costello’s drummer, Pete Thomas). They politely declined an interview for this article, too busy recording the group’s debut with producer Wendy Melvoin. But maybe what they’re really doing is solidifying their position: It’s easier to deal with this “famous kids” thing if people like your band.

It’s no surprise such kids find one another. “Tennessee and Charlotte were best friends,” Z Berg told a reporter from The Times in 2003. “I was a lonely singer-songwriter looking for a band.”

Pretty quickly, the Like recorded three homemade EPs, and it was signed after Geffen Records co-president Polly Anthony saw one of its live shows.

And admittedly, there’s a lot to like about the Like: The trio is good-looking and commercially viable, with a sound like the second coming of the U.K. band Sleeper or a more folksy Veruca Salt. At a Christmastime show at the Viper Room, Berg broke through in bursts of fledgling charisma, taking over the room in her upper-register voice like Harriet Wheeler of the Sundays. They seemed comfortable, a little bit like old pros, which in one sense they are.

After one song, “June Gloom,” Berg peered into the audience, saying, “I’m sorry, but right in the middle of that last song, I totally heard my mom laugh.”

This town is rife with kids just like them, each struggling with this dicey relationship in their own way. Jakob Dylan managed to transcend with the Wallflowers, but as one promoter recalls only half-jokingly, Jakob was liable to “run right out of the club if you mentioned his father.” Pablo Manzarek, son of the Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek, has left his band, Artificial Intelligence, or AI, which recently left DreamWorks Records. Chris Stills, son of Crosby, Stills & Nash star Stephen Stills, is readying his sophomore album for V2 France. David Crosby has a band with his son, James Raymond, and Jeff Pevar called CPR. Billy Talbot, son of Crazy Horse veteran Billy Talbot, is now in a band called Consafos. Joachim Cooder, son of Grammy-winning Ry, plays drums for an electro-rock band called Vagenius, fronted by singer Juliette Commagere with frenetic guitarist Jared Smith. The son of Thelonious Monster’s Bob Forrest, Elijah, has been playing out with his band, the Terrors, at Spaceland. Another regular at that Silver Lake hangout, Something for Rockets, is fronted by true rock believer Rami Perlman -- yes, the twentysomething son of violin master Itzhak Perlman.

Petra Haden knows what it’s like when the industry is family. The daughter of legendary jazz bassist Charlie Haden (Ornette Coleman, Pat Metheny), Petra started a pop band called “that dog.” in the early ‘90s with her sister Rachel and songwriter Anna Waronker, daughter of Warner Bros. Records (and later DreamWorks) head Lenny Waronker. Petra’s brother, Josh Haden, started another band, Spain.

“When we got signed, immediately people thought it was because of who our dads were, which was kind of untrue,” Petra says. Rachel worked at Santa Monica radio powerhouse KCRW-FM and played a rough tape of the band for DJ Chris Douridas, who worked A&R; for Geffen. The band was signed by Tony Berg in 1993 on the strength of that tape, and later scored college radio and minor MTV hits with “Old Timer” and “He’s Kissing Christian” before breaking up in 1997.

In the end, famous kids who find mainstream success are as rare and random as artists themselves. The market judges everything. Haden found her niche outside the mainstream. Her newest projects reflect what is perhaps the more uncommercial influence of her father, who taught her jazz improvisation. One is an album of improv-laced covers with new music guitarist Bill Frisell. The other is an ambitious a cappella remake of “The Who Sell Out,” which took her four years to record.

Her advice to famous kids? “It’s out of your control,” she says. “Just do what comes naturally to you and do what you love. Don’t think that people expect you to be your dad or your mom.”

Growing up with it

It’s not like we’re entirely closed to the idea. Angelenos love dynasties, like the Fondas or the Sutherlands or the Didion-Dunnes, with their multigenerational family portraits in Vanity Fair. Deep down, we hope the kids are all right. But it helps if they’re really, really all right, like Rufus and Martha Wainwright -- the children of singer-songwriters Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle -- and earn their own respect.

It might be unfair, but it’s hard to buck the myth of the self-made artist. Rugged individualism is still the American way, so kids go through their own hell.

“They have to prove themselves,” says Greg Kuehn, keyboardist for SoCal punk legends T.S.O.L., sitting in his Culver City kitchen. His two boys, Elvis, 14, and Max, 13, play guitar and drums, respectively, for a new punk band called the Diffs. “My whole thing is: ‘If I can get you in the door, I’ll help you,’ ” he says. “But unless you’re good, it’s not going to matter. It doesn’t really get you that far.”

The Diffs have definitely made the most of the Kuehn home studio and have opened for T.S.O.L. on national dates, sounding like a band at least, oh, five years older. But ironically, considering their name, they don’t sound all that different from the early punk of the Dead Boys, Black Flag or the Germs. Which, they say, is the point.

“It started out as trying to revive the old style, because it seemed that everyone else was just playing crap,” says singer Richie Slick, 16. “But the more we played, we developed an identity of our own.”

Most of what Papa Kuehn contributed, they say, was musical education.

“Having my dad in T.S.O.L., we found out about a lot more bands than we would have if he wouldn’t have taken us around, plus we get to play with a lot of other bands,” Elvis says.

“People think all of our success comes from that,” bassist Pauline Liva, 15, says of the T.S.O.L. connection. “But we work really hard.”

Other kids weren’t so lucky to have their parents’ help. For instance, Rolan Bolan. The son of soul singer Gloria Jones and feather-boa’ed Marc Bolan of T. Rex, the consummate glitter rocker, young Bolan wants to carry on with his father’s mystic adventure. Marc Bolan died when Rolan was only 2, yet the name sticks.

“The only way I knew my dad was through his music, so I listened to it until it kinda rubbed off on me,” he says. “Now I’m discovering the legacy of the British side and where he came from, being like a working East End Jewish boy. A lot of people discriminate against me because they think I’m rich. It kinda upsets me.”

But Bolan’s a happy soul. He found his L.A. life more through his mother’s Motown connections than his father’s rock roots, he says. He’s recorded about 70 songs, which he calls “rock ‘n’ soul,” and while working at Ice Cube’s label, Street Knowledge, he helped put together the band that became the Black Eyed Peas. His onstage partners often include Tasha Taylor, daughter of soul man Johnnie Taylor, and songwriter-producer Billy Swan’s girls Planet and Sierra Swan. He’s not signed to a label.

“I’m not worried. Sometimes I’d rather just play live and sell CDs and have fun that way,” Bolan says.

Justin Wright took a long time coming back to his dad. Growing up in Palos Verdes, he heard “Dream Weaver,” his dad Gary Wright’s massive keyboard rock hit from 1975, everywhere around him -- on the radio, on elevators, even recently in a Macy’s television ad. It wasn’t unusual to be visiting with George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Peter Frampton or Jon Anderson.

But the music never really grabbed him until he finally started writing his own songs, well into his 20s; then his dad signed him to his label, Larkio. Now, at 33, he’s about to release the debut album, “Elevate,” from his Alice in Chains-ish grunge rock band, Intangible.

“It never enters my mind,” he says of his dad’s career. “Maybe because he’s my father, and that connection where he’s a rock star with a legacy never really came into play. I wasn’t thinking: Gosh, I hope this is going to stack up. I was the judge of the music. And then, of course, I’d play it for him. He’s not going to sugarcoat anything for me.”

Parental guidance

Then again, sugarcoating is not the worst thing parents can do. Kids figure out what’s real and what’s not anyway. In the end, as Elton John once sang, we fight our parents out in the street to find who’s right and who’s wrong.

The Tints, for instance, don’t need anybody’s help. They arrive breathlessly at the cafe in Bergamot Station, rushing in out of the rain like the rest of their chatty, well-dressed classmates from that incubator of famous kids, Crossroads School, just down the block. They’re effervescent and grinning from ear to ear, and well they should be. The Tints have been invited to play the next All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in England in April. They had to ask their school director for the time off.

Their school is full of bands, and a lot of them diss the Tints because of who their dads are.

“I don’t want people to think I’m doing this because my dad works in music,” says guitarist Harley Viera-Newton, 17, whose father is Ashley Newton, executive vice president of A&R; at RCA. “It’s an issue all the time, and it’s really frustrating. People are always like, ‘Oh, let’s go to Flea’s daughter’s show.’

“That happened recently,” says drummer Clara Balzary, 16, who is, indeed, the daughter of Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea (Michael Balzary). “We were going to play a show and this band put out a flier that said, ‘Flea’s daughter’s band.’ And we were like, ‘We’re not playing anymore.’ ”

“When it’s put out on a flier like that, it comes off as negative,” says keyboardist Alex Wisner, 16.

The Tints play all-over-the-map pop-punk, sometimes rocking with the sloppy urgency of the Slits or a riot grrl band like Bikini Kill, and sometimes sounding more poppy like the Go-Go’s. Harley’s got a Who fixation, and Clara’s definitely been listening to Flea’s Gang of Four records.

They’ve gigged with Black Black, a trio including Diva and Lola Dompe (the teenage progeny of Bauhaus’ Kevin Haskins), and they know how to get the word out. At a Sunday night all-ages showcase at the Key Club, the Tints are embraced by the massive crowd; at one point, the place is at capacity and it is announced there are still 500 fans outside waiting to get in. They’re not all there to see the Tints, but a lot of them are. They’re a fledgling band, but they have a germ of something that might work.

Harley’s dad is playing hands-off: “He says, ‘I want you to know, I’m not going to sign you guys or anything. You’re doing this on your own,’ ” she says, “because he wants us to figure out what we want to sound like and not have his influence.”

“My dad’s not that detached,” Clara says, laughing. “We practice at my house, and we’ll be like, ‘Listen to this! We wrote a new song!’ One time, he said, ‘I’m going to produce you guys.’ He came to one practice, and he tried to tell us to do things, and we didn’t want to listen to him. It’s like, I don’t want to listen to my dad when I’m doing something, like, fun!”

They all crack up. Poor Flea.

“My mom and dad are like the super-groupies,” Alex says. “They come to every show.”

Just like any other parent. Which is the point.

“There’s only so much you can do to keep your parent’s name away from you,” adds Harley, laughing. “They’re, like, your dad.”

Dean Kuipers can be reached at weekend@latimes.com.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Genetic ode

To sample music or find out more on some of the bands in this story:

Whitestarr

On CD: “Bottles and Blues” (EP), “Sexual in Yo’ Window”

Web: www.whitestarr.com

Live: 9 p.m. Tuesday, the Viper Room, 8852 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood