Terry Barrett - Ohio's Last Best Rock Musician
Recording Industry & Musician Interviews

A Pizzazz Magazine Exclusive

Publisher Don Lemmon

Pizzazz Magazine: First of all, what is a day in your life like? What do you do from waking to hitting the hay each day?

Terry Barrett: Everything is based around playing my guitar. How to promote it, like getting photos to newspaper, figuring out the order of the songs I will play the next night, communicating thru the web with promoters, night clubs etc writing songs talking with band members.

Pizzazz Magazine: What would you say is the highlight of your life so far and how does it compare to your overall goals?

Terry Barrett: Travelling and playing my music, plaing in concert with larger acts in front of 25,000 people or so. My over all goals are to keep taking all this steps further.

Pizzazz Magazine: Who was the first person to tell you getting into your profession was a crazy idea? At what point did you agree (even if it was momentarily)?

Terry Barrett: My parents still tell me its a bad idea, well a little less now that I make a bit more money. You still worry about retirement money and how will you live when you get older and at sometime I have to stop this but it gets in your blood so bad that you just keep stabbing at it.

Pizzazz Magazine: Have you made contacts using the internet that you know you wouldn't have made if it weren't for the web being so accessible?

Terry Barrett: Nothing that has come to real fruition, but you can see the possibilities and great potential.

Pizzazz Magazine: Funny how it usually works. We grow up wanting to be firefighters or nurses, then due to the glory of media, rock stars, actors, or millionaires and then reality sits in... We always end up being ourselves... Good or bad... What's your story?

Terry Barrett: Who else could you be? I've had some successes and believe people around you treat you differently and talk about you and make things up about you. But in the end does'nt everyone appreciate that they were respected for doing a good job. Music isn't really any different than plumbing, to be successful shouldn't you do the best job you can do and hope to go far?

Pizzazz Magazine: What one thing haven't you done you would still like to?

Terry Barrett: would like to be more involved with music I enjoy like african or celtic as a player or as an engineer. I would like to produce the best afropop band from Zimbabwe

Pizzazz Magazine: Tell me one of the negative aspects of your field you think everyone should know. Do not say there are none!

Terry Barrett: In music you can not rely on yourself only. You have to be involved with other people, you can't get away from it. Some are plain lazy and some are cheats, but you need musicians to play with you and you need to rely on agents, promoters, record labels,etc

Pizzazz Magazine: What are your 5 favorite websites?

Terry Barrett: Mapquest gets me where I'm goin, Cleveland Indians fan forum, free porno, MSN for the news, well so far I guess I only have 4.

Pizzazz Magazine: Tell me something people do not realize about you, maybe it's not a secret, maybe it's not anything special, but it could be something no one else has ever asked you about until now. What's boring to you is news to everyone else...

Terry Barrett: I'm a Buddhist

Pizzazz Magazine: What's the craziest thing you have experienced in your work? Maybe it's something you witnessed and didn't participate in, but what would shock us, make us laugh or show us another side to things besides the obvious...

Terry Barrett: I have many long stories so forget them. But I have met many very rich rock stars and it is hard to imagine how they got all that money. I' would rather not spread storyies about them. Personally I've had a guy rush the stage with a machete. Once I took a photo with Boom Boom Mancini the ex-boxer and it was placed in certain newspapers, and a guy saw it but didn't read it. He thought I was up for a match in the ring with Mancini, so he wanted to fight me right there in the night club. One of my favorite stories is about a group that I knew that was on the road and ran into Muhhamed Ali and he showed them magic tricks at the airport. These guys were buzzing about that. Well leaving the airport and stopping in a gas station with their van to fill up, the van slipped out of gear and rolled into the garage of the station and somehow exploded!! Blew up the whole gas station and all their worldly goods. Sounds cruel to laugh at but it is an interesting story.

Pizzazz Magazine: Anything embarrassing happen when YOU were trying to look cool? What? Embarrassing and crazy are different things!

Terry Barrett: I was being complimented by a beautiful woman once, she was going all out, you know how great you are, so talented, when the stool I was leaning back on slipped its legs and had me sprawled out on the floor. Oh jeez there's 100's more.

Pizzazz Magazine: The biggest lie about your industry ever is (this is not necessarily a negative):

Terry Barrett: The biggest and most bitter thing is that you don't have to be talented to be successful.

Pizzazz Magazine: The biggest PLUS FACTOR about your industry is:

Terry Barrett: Doing what you love and getting paid to do it.

Pizzazz Magazine: Did the people around you change when you went out looking to succeed in this field? Sometimes those who weren't so supportive in the beginning, suddenly become supportive or possibly vice versa; they became thorns in your side....

Terry Barrett: Only my parents were against it. My friends and my brothers believe in me, I've generally had great support that has kept me going.

Pizzazz Magazine: What is your most frequently asked question and/or what question makes you crazy whenever asked but you somehow remain composed enough to answer?

Terry Barrett: Why do you play that guitar upside down? And is that a sock in your pants or a potato.

Pizzazz Magazine: Who do you see on TV or hear on the radio that just makes you wonder how in the hell they got where they are today or who in the hell does that person know?

Terry Barrett: I think I know how they got there and there are too many to list.

Pizzazz Magazine: Tell me a joke!

Terry Barrett: How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb? The answer is: FISH

Pizzazz Magazine: What is your favorite music album of all time and what music group do you listen to most often?

Terry Barrett: Well I'm weird, I still like to listen to Jimi but I like afropop music and I like what Paul Simon did on the Graceland album. I like Los Lobos, Richard Thompson and especially Oliver Mtukudzi from Zimbabwe, Cat Stevens also I could listen to all the time.

Pizzazz Magazine: Who should hang up their hat in your business? Why?

Terry Barrett: No one.

Pizzazz Magazine: Tell me your favorite movie genre, name a few titles too, and maybe the video or dvd you have watched the most:

Terry Barrett: I like Black Comedy, not african black you know. Peter Sellers in Being There and Also baseball movies like Bull Durham a League of thier Own. And can't forget Monty Python movies.

Pizzazz Magazine: What TV show do you miss from childhood... I used to love Land of the Giants and Dance Fever (kidding on that one)....

Terry Barrett: Green Acres

Pizzazz Magazine: Ever had someone from your past try and track you down after realizing what you do for a living now and bug the tar out of you? I know this seems like the same questions as, "did people change" but it isn't meant to be....

Terry Barrett: Yes

Pizzazz Magazine: If you were anyone else besides yourself, who would you be (even for just a day, on a good day of course) and did you emulate them growing up?

Terry Barrett: Omar Visquel the shortstop for the Cleveland Indians, he has such apositive attitude and people just love him. Plus that life!!! Doing what you love to do, staying and dining in the best cities in the country, having a lot of fans and being pretty rich to boot.

Pizzazz Magazine: Who is the most intriguing person in your business today besides yourself? Why?

Terry Barrett: I can't think of anyone intriguing, but there are some to me that are interesting because of their real talent.

Pizzazz Magazine: What did we forget?

Terry Barrett: I forget...

Visit Terry Barrett's Official Website: CLICK HERE