RADIOACTIVE MEMORIES: Sue Saad looks back at “Sue Saad and the Next” and working with Albert Pyun
Great art never dies if it is remembered. While the band “Sue Saad and the Next” only existed for a few short years, they produced a terrific album and contributed songs to several cult movie classics of the 1980s. Their songs are especially memorable thanks to the striking vocals of lead singer Sue Saad, who also co-wrote with her bandmates. Once you’ve heard her blistering rendition of “Looker” or “Save Me,” you’ll never forget her voice. She has been retired from the music scene for almost 40 years, but I felt compelled to reach out to Sue after the recent death of Albert Pyun who used her songs so perfectly in “Radioactive Dreams” and “Vicious Lips.” After all these years, Sue has great stories to tell about the challenges of pursing a music career and fond memories of working with Pyun.
Even as a young girl Sue Saad wanted to be a singer, “My sister sang opera, my brothers were musicians [trumpet and drums]. I just kind of wanted to be recognized for my own self,” she said with a laugh. She started performing in Junior High and that caught the eye of Jim Andron and Jim Saad (also known as James Lance). They had formed a band and wanted her to be one of the singers. “I was like well, I don’t know. Let me see how good you are,” She recalled. “I went to a high school dance that they were playing at and I thought, this could be a really good thing.”
Together with three other members (Tony Riparetti, Dan Prothroe and John Ray) they formed the band ‘Calliope’. They wrote original music and enjoyed relative success. They signed with Epic records and recorded four singles. When ‘Calliope’ broke up Tony and Jim were invited to join a band in San Francisco. Sue married Jim Saad — becoming Sue Saad — and they lived in Bolinas, CA with Tony for a while. When the band broke up Jim and Sue moved to Oakland and Tony stayed in Bolinas. Michael Towers and Glen Vance were High School friends. They got a record deal and signed with A&M Records. Michael and Glen invited Jim and Tony to join their band in Los Angeles. After moving to Los Angeles and joining Towers and Vance, Jim and Tony had some success, but the band broke up when they lost their lead singer.
“Jim, Tony and I wanted to be independent song writers and eventually took our music to Warner Brothers publishing. It was at Warner Brothers where we perfected our songwriting skills and were eventually signed by them as staff writers. Believe it or not Warner Brothers liked the way we performed our own music so much they thought we should sign as a band. We decided to name the band ‘The Next’ because we just thought that was clever at the time. We went with ‘Sue Saad and the Next’, because everyone liked the name Sue Saad,” she recalled.
They played venues around the city, won the Battle of the Bands in Hollywood, and were signed by Planet Records founded by Richard Perry which eventually became a subsidiary label of RCA Records. Richard Perry, who had already produced the Pointer Sisters and Harry Nielsen, became their producer. “It was pretty amazing,” she said. “It was a whirlwind, getting signed and performing.” Their first album was released in 1980, with Billy Anstatt on backup guitar and Bobby Manzer on bass.
Sue, Jim and Tony wrote their own songs, but there was a push to be part of the popular “’80s style” of the time. “I think Richard made us more commercial than we wanted to be. We were lucky to get produced by him. At the same time, it was such a conflict because you try to stick to your personal musical values and what you’re trying to create. All the cards are in his hands. You want to actually see what he can do with you too, to see if he can improve your sound,” she explained. Despite that desire, friction happened. “He kind of dictates a little bit and I being raised by a hard-nosed father myself I rebelled,” she said adding with a slight chuckle. “It wasn’t a good combination.”
Sue Saad and the Next’s rock-ballad ‘New Wave’ style feels right at home next to Pat Benatar and Blondie, which Saad appreciates. “Who wouldn’t be proud to be with those two women? They were doing really well,” she said. Unfortunately, the record industry didn’t appreciate that.
“In the record company business, they didn’t want more women. This was a men’s club. And I was actually told, “Why do we need you? We have Pat Benatar, we have Blondie. We don’t need another woman.”” Saad remembered. “That’s so narrow-minded, but that’s how it was. You had to really prove yourself to be something better, better than the next person, which I don’t have a hard time doing. I like the challenge.”
Luckily, one producer did appreciate them: Zalman King, who invited them to write a song for his film “Roadie,” directed by Alan Rudolph. “I felt really vindicated and felt lucky that we could be there. He wasn’t one of those record producers that wouldn’t accept another woman on the roster,” she said about Rudolph. “I felt really grateful that he could see beyond that, that the talent was there.” That song was ‘Double Yellow Line’ and the soundtrack also included Blondie and Pat Benatar. At last, they were all together on the same record.
Saad also sang the title song for ‘Looker’ directed by Michael Crichton. Saad was disappointed that the film used her demo version of the song and not the finished version that she and writers Michael Towers & Barry De Vorzon preferred. “They wanted to get the movie out there and so they used the demo instead. It’s very difficult to have control of your music. That’s the other thing that’s very frustrating. The demo is not the complete song. They left half of it out,” she added. Luckily, you can hear Saad’s preferred version on YouTube.
Unfortunately, neither “Roadie” nor “Looker” were major hits. Their next film project was “Radioactive Dreams,” a post-apocalyptic comedic thriller, written and directed by Albert Pyun. “I loved writing music for it. He gave me the script for ‘Radioactive Dreams’ and it was so much fun, reading the script and understanding the story and then creating a song for it.” Saad recalled, “It was so easy to tap in to writing music for it.”
While it started off with just writing & singing the song ‘Guilty Pleasures,’ Albert heard it and asked if Sue would like to appear in the film and perform the song in a crowded dance club scene. “I said, sure I’ll do that. I spent three days shooting the scene standing on a scaffold three stories above the street with Albert hanging over me suspended by a crane filming. It was real fun being on this platform up there alone, with a few hundred people below dancing in the street and I’m singing the song,” she said. “Then when it was over with, I just said, ‘Hey, do you have anything else? Do you need more music? And he goes, ‘Yeah, sure!’” Sue and the band went on to write the title song “Radioactive Dreams.”
What was it like working with Pyun? “He was very pleasant, very nice, very amicable. But he was busy with hundreds of people on the movie, and everybody’s pulling him from one direction to the next,” she explained.
Saad and Pyun would collaborate again on “Vicious Lips,” another far-out sci-fi adventure, with Saad writing “Save Me” with the band and the closing song of the film “Lunar Madness.”
“That’s a great song. I was very much inspired by ACDC, they’re so raw and they’re so fun. It’s like, ‘Just put yourself out there, just be really creative,’ it’s almost like somebody took the leash off and said, ‘Go for it.’ And it was such a relief because I just felt that was some of our best music. That’s what’s so unique about his films, is he’s really a cult director and writer. He’s pretty out there and raw in direction.”
While “Radioactive Dreams” and “Vicious Lips” were relatively small releases, their striking neon visuals, endearingly oddball characters, and of course iconic soundtracks have earned them devoted enthusiasts over the years.
Sadly, Sue Saad and the Next wrote a second album that was never released. The early ’80s featured major upheavals in the music industry, including the birth of MTV and the rise of CDs. “It shocked the music world. They didn’t know what to do with themselves when that happened. And it really changed the industry. A lot of record companies were scared to death, so they didn’t want to sign anybody,” Saad explained. “They didn’t want to honor the contracts with some of the bands that they had. They wanted to cut the fat and keep it really lean because they were starving.”
That included cutting Sue Saad and the Next, despite the fact that they already had new songs written and their first album had made the Billboard 200. They had toured in the US opened for Tom Petty, The Babies, and UFO, and had a successful European tour. They tried to find another record company to sign them to no avail. “Had we had management, really good management, we would’ve survived it. But we didn’t have that,” she said.
The band broke up, and Sue and Jim eventually separated. Tony and Jim continued working with Albert Pyun, composing music for many of his films. Sue was an avid runner and cyclist, and now spends her time as an equestrian as well as a painter.
“It’s kind of an interesting way to go, but it kind of suited me better. I miss the music, I miss singing with the band and I miss the fans. It was great, and I felt bad because I was just getting started, this all happened in one year. I didn’t get to my full potential. It was very challenging and difficult, but we made the best of it with the luck that we did have at the time,” she said. “The industry was in chaos and I couldn’t wait for them to figure it out. I wanted to be successful. There were things I wanted to do. At that time, you needed a record company behind you. Today you can record in your home, make your own videos, publish on YouTube and TuneCore and promote yourself. I didn’t want to be a starving musician when I was 70, and that was a possibility. It’s a risk you take.”
In 2017, Sue, Jim and Tony were able to put out their own album “Long Way Home,” featuring those unreleased songs they recorded back in the ’80s, along with “Lunar Madness” and “Guilty Pleasure.” Jim and Tony spent many hours remastering cassette tapes in Jim’s studio because the original masters had gone to dust. The album is available on Amazon Music.
Sue visited Albert a few years ago, when she heard from Tony that he was ill. “I wanted to thank him, because I got a lot of recognition for the work that we did for the films,” she said. “I wanted him to know that I appreciated the time that he gave me, and that I was able to be in the film and sing.”
Even after 40 years, fans of “Radioactive Dreams” and “Vicious Lips” still love the iconic songs by Sue Saad and the Next. Sue really appreciates that fans remember her and have uploaded her songs to YouTube.
“It’s quite fun,” she said enthusiastically. “I’ve been graced with fans who took the time to create videos that kept the band in the public’s eye. And that is really touching. I mean, that really blows me away that they would take the time to do that. I want to let them all know I really appreciate them.”
