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From: Forbes Magazine Last week, Michael Fiszer was just a Los Angeles tax attorney. Brian Rodgers was helping run the family uniform business in Bethlehem, Pa. Now they are rock stars. For one night, at least. Fiszer is on lead vocals, backed by Rodgers on guitar. They and the three other members of World War Six are playing AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" to a packed house at BB King's Blues Club in Times Square, New York. The road to stardom is supposed to be long and difficult. But all Fiszer and Rodgers had to do to get a spot under the lights at one of New York's most venerated music venues was spend a week's vacation time and $8,500. They are campers at Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy Camp, the brainchild and pet project of 25-year industry veteran David Fishof. Fishof, who has produced tours for Ringo Starr and the Monkees, started the camp in 1997 to give music enthusiasts of all talent levels a chance to sing, play and schmooze with their rock 'n' roll heroes (or close approximations thereof). For five days in August, the campers, assembled into a dozen bands, have worked with a rock-star counselor to hone covers and an original song for a culminating "battle of the bands" concert. Special guest appearances and thematic "master classes" are peppered between hours-long rehearsals and late-night jam sessions. Icons (or almost icons, at least) like New Orleans legend Dr. John and Jon Anderson of Yes provide cameos, while a cadre of hitmakers, from Bad Company's Simon Kirke to Spencer Davis, corral mostly middle-aged campers through daily activities. The first incarnation of the program folded after just one year. "The money I lost on the first camp I couldn't make back in 25," Fishof admits, citing more than $50,000 in per-camp food costs alone and hundreds of thousands of dollars to guarantee lodging up front. (Forget tents--campers get rooms at the tony Hudson Hotel.) But when talk of RRFC continued in industry circles even after its initial financial failure, Fishof decided to give it another try, restarting operations three years ago. He now holds two or three camps a year. The next is in Columbus, Ohio, a one-day camp at the end of which the campers will open for Journey and Def Leppard. "I worked my Rolodex," he says, contacting his recording-artist friends and calling in favors. Why did Dee Snider, the front man for 1980s hair-metal band Twisted Sister, get involved in this year's camp? "The truth?" Snider says, laughing. "He asked me." Fishof won't disclose what he's paying the counselors and superstar drop-ins. "I've got a million dollars' worth of talent here," and every negotiation is different, he says. When he asked The Who's Roger Daltry to participate in 2003, Daltry responded that he wanted to meet Levon Helm, the drummer for The Band. "You can give half my money to him" to get him to come, Daltry told Fishof. They both showed up for camp that year. "You're not doing this camp for the money," Fishof says of his hired talent, "You're not doing it for career advancement." Some could be making $5,000 to $10,000 a night performing. BRUCE KULICK, a KISS guitarist for 12 years, has thrice been a counselor for RRFC. The money is "what a rock star deserves," he says, but "it's less than a week on the road." Kulick is currently playing with Grand Funk Railroad, and his going rate for one-day guitar clinics is between $500 and $1,000. Among the 85 campers ready to rock is John Bello, founder and former CEO of SoBe beverages. On the first day of the camp, he wears an IZZE-inscribed T-shirt--he's on the board of the fizzy drink company--and socks emblazoned with green SoBe lizard logos that matches the flame inlay on his guitar. Like the other campers, Bello had to audition for a band led by one of 12 celebrity counselors. In the basement of the Gibson guitar showroom, strains of nervous song blast from the stage. Bello guffaws: "'Daydream Believer'? That's not rock." Fortunately, Peter Tork, who recorded "Daydream Believer" with the Monkees in 1967, can't hear him; he's on stage playing the keyboard and providing backup vocals. Outside, 31-year-old Brian Rodgers puffs on a cigarette. He's played guitar since he was a teenager, but he is nervous to audition in front of his idols. "How could you not be?" he asks. Bob Whetzell, whose friends back in West Virginia chipped in to send him to Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy Camp for his 50th birthday, emerges from his audition downstairs. "We don't think we're rock stars," he states humbly. "We're not that stupid." Fantasy Camp requires more than a little pretending. Campers, for instance, are up bright and early each morning. At 10 a.m., they gather in practice rooms for rehearsals with their new bands. After six hours of playing, a fleet of gray Ford (nyse: F - news - people ) vans carries them to their nighttime activities. On Monday and Tuesday, at the nightclub T New York, cocktails and dinner are served with 25-minute private sets from Joe Satriani and Dr. John. On Wednesday, the bands record their original songs in the gleaming glass "fishbowl" recording studio at Sirius Satellite Radio's (nasdaq: SIRI - news - people ) headquarters. Some sound nearly professional. "It's amazing," says John Vafiadis, a young first-time crew member who learned about RRFC when it was featured in an episode of Fox's The Simpsons in 2002. "They were strangers on Sunday, met on Monday and they're a band on Wednesday. And they sound great." Master classes back at the Gibson give campers a chance to learn from their mentors. In a room cluttered with instruments and amplifiers, '80s rock star Kip Winger leads a singing class. "Anybody else?" he asks as the final notes of a karaoke "Hey Jude" play through the CD player. Shelly Krauss, a 54-year-old mother of two with an operatic voice, takes a stab at the famous Beatles track. As she sings, Winger steps back and forth, wrenching her clenched fingers from the microphone and encouraging her to blues it up a bit. Karen Gresham, a pretty blonde singer with a Texas twang, is another of only seven women at the camp. It was well worth it, she says, to use all of her vacation days for the year, to get a substitute for the music classes she wouldn't be teaching, and to borrow from her parents to go to rock 'n' roll camp. Still, she feels a pervasive sense of sadness about the experience. Long hopeful to somehow land a music contract, to her, the week seems like the closest she'll get to really making it. Is it possible to become a rock star in five days? Probably not, says Dee Snider. But you can be a "reasonable facsimile" of one. Close enough. |
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