Rex 14. You're Never Too Old To Rock & Roll

Where Do We Go From Here 1977
Rex Smith ~ Vocals
Lars Hanson ~ Guitar / Vocals
Lou Vandora ~ Guitar / Vocals
Orville Davis ~ Bass
Mike Ratti ~ Drums
“When I was still a junior in high school, I was in one of the biggest bands in Atlanta. And I had a fake I.D. so I could work the clubs, I opened for the James Gang (with Joe Walsh) at a big Saturday night concert and I’m 16. And when I experienced that, I never wanted to be in the audience again. I wanted to be right there on the stage.”
Under the tutelage of Aerosmith’s managers Steve Leber and David Krebs, Smith signed with Columbia Records when he was 20 years old. Signing was easy. Getting his foot in the door was the hard part. He can thank the "Bad Boys from Boston" for the latter.
“I was sitting in the front office at Leber and Krebs for a couple of weeks trying to get in. One day, Aerosmith came in. So all the secretaries come running out,” Smith said. “They weren’t paying attention for a second and I snuck around and went into his (Krebs’) office. And I shut the door and lean against it so nobody could open it. And I said, ‘My name’s Rex. I’m going to be a rockstar.’ And, he looked at me and said, ‘Kid, if you sing as good as you look this is going to be easy.’”
And easy it was. Smith soon signed a six-record deal with Columbia Records. He was given five weeks to write and record his first album and, then, he was going on the road
Smith’s rock band, Rex, opened for Ted Nugent for two six-months tours, in support of Rex’s first two albums.
“Ted hated me because I was rocking the house. One time I got called in. His road manager said ‘Ted wants to talk to you’ and he (Ted) goes, ‘Listen, you got to stop doing what you’re doing out there. You’re wearing out the audience before I come out.’ I go, ‘What are you, like telling me to take a dive in the seventh round?’ I said, ‘The hell with that! I’m going go out and I’m going to rip it out even harder,’” Smith recalled. “He (Nugent) couldn’t stand it but he couldn’t do anything about it because we had the same manager.”
“AC/DC (with Bon Scott) opened for me,” Smith said. “I toured with Tom Petty. I did five nights at Cobo Hall (in Detroit) opening for Bob Seger, I was playing with Boston. Everybody.”
Not only was Smith not the only one in his family singing in a rock ‘n’ roll rock band, his older brother, Michael Lee Smith was singing in the band Starz.
“My brother signed by Bill Aucoin, who managed Kiss. So he toured with Kiss and Aerosmith and such, two lead singers in two hard-rock bands.”
In the ‘70s, Smith fondly recalls staying on the same floor as Led Zeppelin at the Swingos in downtown Cleveland and having a 20-minute conversation with Robert Plant in the middle of the night.
“It was bedlam. The roadies and others were driving gas-engine cars up and down the hallway. It’s 2:30 in the morning. I can’t sleep and I go out to the soda machine. And there, with like an aura around him, is Robert Plant leaning against the machine, watching the chaos. And he says to me, ‘What’s with you?’…”
Smith also had an encounter with Jimmy Page at a Christmas party held at the house of Smith’s good friend Christopher Reeves of “Superman” fame.
“I rolled a big fatty and the three of us (Page, Reeves and Smith) smoked a joint. And it was really good. And I put it in the night table. I didn’t want to walk around with it in my pocket,” Smith said. “At the end of the night, I was with Chris’ wife. I was getting my jacket and thanking her and everything. And I opened the nightstand and said, ‘Hey, where’s my pot?’ She goes, ‘Oh, was that yours? Jimmy took it.’ I said, ‘Jimmy Page, (expletive), in his Aleister Crowley (expletive) castle has to steal my pot at a Christmas party?!’”
"And all the memories of playing the hard clubs came up, playing a week at a time in clubs, one time playing over a hundred nights straight without a break, and sometimes the club owner would only give you half the money and you go ‘Hey, where’s my money’ and he starts cleaning his gun,” Smith said, “Beer bottles, bar fights and the reckless life, no insurance company would insure you for that kind of adventure.”
A year ago, Smith was having lunch with Krebs, the man who signed him to a major record deal in the ‘70s, and he started apologizing to the former teen idol.
“I never should had let my partner get a hold of you and do that movie” Krebs said, according to Smith. “You should be going into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You were like the Billy Graham of singers. I got (Steven) Tyler and all these others but you’re unique.”
“I wasn’t really killing it with the albums sales,” Smith sheepishly said to famed music mogul.
“You don’t understand,” Krebs continued. “In 1977, with a six-album deal, you didn’t expect a band to break until their third of fourth album. And you were on the verge of breaking and then that movie happened.”