LP: Tell me about your early days and how you got into the music field.

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DH: I started studying classical music at the age of 6, and over the next three years I went through double the amount of instruction that a kid would normally go through. For some reason it came naturally to me. But by the time I was 9 I'd been playing a lot of piano recitals around the Harrisburg area and just got bored with it. I became much more interested in rock and roll and started banging it out on the piano at home. I didn't tell my parents at first and kind of hid it from them, but eventually I quit taking lessons. Then my older brother Dave started a band called the Legends with two friends from John Harris High School and they asked me to join. They originally wanted another guitarist, but they finally said, "Hey, wait a minute. Dan plays and sings." So they bought an organ, made it portable, and there I was. I played with the Legends from 1964 to 1972 -- from the time I was 13 until I was 21.

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LP: What kinds of music did the Legends play over the years?

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DH: In '64 we were doing British Invasion stuff like everyone else -- the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, Gerry and the Pacemakers. We covered a lot of Top 40 hits, did some soul and some surf music, but later we started to get into the Byrds and the whole California scene. And as the band personnel changed over the next few years we gradually added some harder stuff like the Who, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Steppenwolf, Grand Funk. It was a lot of high-energy, shock-the-audience music, which was what was popular then -- the "power rock" kind of thing.

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LP: The Legends had a big following in Central PA. What were your gigs like and where did you play?

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DH: In the early days when I first joined we played a lot of high school dances. We played John Harris and Bishop McDevitt in Harrisburg, Susquenita in Perry County, and it seemed like every other weekend we were playing a dance at East Pennsboro in Enola. Plus we frequently played the Progress Fire Hall, which was the biggest dance venue in the area. The local music scene was very exciting at the time because there were plenty of Friday and Saturday night gigs -- lots of well-attended fire hall dances that were hosted by popular DJs like Curt Whitcomb and "Lucky Pierre," a guy with a French accent on WFEC. And we had a good reputation, so we always attracted pretty big crowds. We played in Lykens, Oberlin, Salunga. We did some pool parties and wedding receptions here and there, like at the New Cumberland Army Depot. Some VFW gigs. Then by '69 or '70 we were playing places like the Railroad House in Marietta, which was considered one of the cooler "hippie" clubs in the area. And we started stretching out and traveling a lot, playing in New York and New Jersey. It was great. Eventually we were doing all original songs and playing actual concerts rather than just weekend gigs.

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LP: What kind of personnel changes did you go through?

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DH: The original lineup in 1964 was Dave on guitar, Denny Woolridge on bass and Ralph Schwartz on drums. Then I joined and played organ, and we all sang. Dave and Denny both went into the military a couple years later, so Larry Swartzwelder replaced Dave on guitar, and we also went through a couple of bass players before Joe Caloiero joined. Also, Ralph went off to college at some point, so Larry Sadler replaced him on drums. And when Larry Swartzwelder was drafted, I switched to guitar, and that's when we essentially became a "power trio" with Joe Caloiero on bass and Larry Sadler on drums. Then in 1972 I quit to join the Edgar Winter Group, and Larry Swartzwelder came back and played guitar. He was a brilliant guitar player. In fact he taught me a lot of what I know. So there were various lineups over the 15 years that the band was together. These were all Harrisburg area guys.

 

LP: How did you end up in the Edgar Winter Group?

 

DH: I'd been writing the bulk of the material and singing lead for the Legends for a long time, but some of what I was writing didn't really fit the three-man sound that we'd kind of been locked into. So I started recording some demos and sending them around. It seemed like a natural progression. I put around 13 songs on tape -- both Legends and solo stuff -- and started taking them to New York. What I'd hoped to do was get a record deal for the Legends, or maybe for myself and take the whole band with me. I don't know how many trips I made to New York but it was quite a few. Eventually, Rick Derringer, who of course did "Hang on Sloopy" with the McCoys and was working with Edgar and Johnny Winter, heard my tape and told Edgar, "Hey, you should check this guy out, he's got a lot of great songs." One of the tunes they really liked was "Free Ride," which I'd actually written for the Legends. So I went to New York, met Edgar and Rick, jammed with them a bit, and we hit it off. Edgar said he was putting a new band together and wanted me to join, so I told him that I also had a drummer and bass player that I'd like to bring along. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way. Rick came to see the Legends at one of our gigs, and then later he told me that they wanted a different kind of drummer and bass player. But, Edgar really wanted to play with me. So I had a big dilemma at that point: stay with the Legends or go join Edgar Winter.

 

LP: That must have been a tough decision.

 

DH: It really was. The Legends were the only band I'd ever been in. Plus Joe Caloiero and Larry Sadler were my best friends at that time. That's the way it often happens -- you spend so much time together that you're not just musicians, you're best buddies. But I had to make a decision, and as hard as it was, I decided to leave the group. One of the last things I did for the Legends was write the song "Rock and Roll Woman." I figured that if I was going to leave, at least I could give them a song that might propel their career somehow. At that point Larry Swartzwelder had rejoined the band, and I went back to Central PA to produce the song for them at Baldwin Sound Studios on Trindle Road in Mechanicsburg. We put it out on a label that I started, and then it was picked up by Epic Records. It wasn't a huge hit or anything, but it got some regional airplay, which was nice.

 

LP: Can you talk about your time with the Edgar Winter Group and the hits you had with them?

 

DH: When we first started in 1972, it was Edgar on vocals, keyboards, saxophone and percussion, Ronnie Montrose on lead guitar, me on rhythm guitar and vocals, Randy Jo Hobbs on bass and Chuck Ruff on drums. That fall we released our first album, "They Only Come Out at Night," and it really bombed in the beginning because nobody liked the cover. A lot of groups were into the "glam rock" thing at the time, so we were all wearing makeup on the cover, and apparently people thought we were a bunch of transvestites. It was a bit controversial and nobody would touch it. But then the song "Frankenstein" came out as a single around the end of the year, and it was a huge hit. Then in the spring of '73, "Free Ride" came out and that was a hit, too. And of course I was thrilled since I wrote it, sang lead and played guitar on it.

 

LP: It had to be amazing to tour with such a popular band.

 

DH: It was insane. We were on the road for a solid year and a half. The album was made under such duress because Edgar was still in debt from his previous band, White Trash. So in addition to touring for "They Only Come Out at Night," we were going back into the studio every chance we got to record the next album, which was "Shock Treatment." At the time the band was renting a 35-room mansion near Great Neck on Long Island, and we had our studio set up right there at the house. We'd come off the road and run into the studio and do overdubs for two days and then go back out on the road for another week. Then we'd come home, go to sleep at noon and have to be back in the studio again at seven that night to start doing background vocals. We just kept working and working and working. It was all-consuming.

 

LP: How did you end up making the switch from guitar to bass?

 

DH: Randy Jo Hobbs, who'd been our bassist up to that point, got sick in the dressing room one night before a concert in Texas. I don't know if it was sex, drugs or rock and roll, but he wasn't going on. Of course there were 10,000 people there waiting for this concert to start, so someone said, "Well, Ronnie Montrose isn't going to play bass because he plays lead guitar." And I said, "Then who's going to play bass?" And they all looked at me. So I picked up the bass, even though I didn't know any of the bass parts for the songs, and I went out there and played. And we got three encores. Later on when it was clear that Randy wasn't coming back, they said, "Well, I guess Dan's the bass player now." So that's how it happened. It's actually pretty funny in retrospect. Very rock and roll. Plus, as soon as "They Only Come Out at Night" was a big hit, Ronnie got a record deal with another company and said goodbye. And that's when Rick Derringer joined the band full-time as lead guitarist. He'd produced and played on the first album, so it was a natural fit.

 

LP: In September 1975 you returned to Central PA with the Edgar Winter Group and played a concert at Hersheypark Arena. What was it like to come home as a rock star?

 

DH: It was a lot of fun. I was just so full of anticipation and nervousness. But it was great. A fantastic show. I'll tell you, though, I was worried that something awful would happen. We had been touring for so long at that point, and it seemed like something would go wrong every night, whether it was the lights or the sound or whatever. So I was thinking about that in Hershey. I didn't want to let anyone down. We used to do crazy things -- like Chuck Ruff the drummer would run backstage, jump onto a springboard, fly way over the drum riser and land on the stage out in front. God knows he could have broken his ankles or landed wrong and killed himself. Plus Edgar played different instruments, so he'd run around switching back and forth between them -- from keyboards to sax to percussion and back again. He also had that synthesizer with the strap that he'd swing around his neck and throw around on the stage. It was very high-energy stuff because we wanted to give people their money's worth. We toured with a lot of different people at that time, like Alice Cooper, Yes, the Eagles and Jeff Beck, and they'd all say, "You guys are crazy," and we'd say, "Yeah, but at least we're having fun."

 

LP: Is this when the famous "bass suit" made its appearance?

 

DH: That came a little later. It was actually one of the first cordless guitars in existence, and I invented it. It was built right into this silver bodysuit so it looked as though the bass was coming out of my body, and the volume and tone knobs were on the sleeve. When it worked it was great, but the tunings were a little strange, plus I can't tell you how many times I got shocked. It wound up being just one more thing that we had to worry about on tour: "Well, I wonder if this will work tonight." After a while I couldn't stand wearing it anymore so I gave it up.

 

LP: Why did the Edgar Winter Group last only four years?

 

DH: It just ran its course. By the third album we were doing material that we thought was interesting and different, but it didn't catch on. I have to admit we were a little disappointed in the fans because they didn't stretch their vision at all, which frequently happens. At concerts they only seemed interested in hearing our hits, so after we'd play "Frankenstein," "Free Ride" and "Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo," which was Rick Derringer's big solo hit, people would get up and go to the bathroom. This was happening even in big coliseums. We kind of felt like saying, "If you only came to hear three songs, go home and play your records." At the same time, we sort of burned out because we'd worked so hard and had been so focused. So halfway through the tour we sat down and said, "Ya know, this ain't happening anymore. Let's just break up." So we did at the end of tour. I think it was the smart thing to do.

 

LP: What happened after the breakup?

 

DH: It was a major stepping-stone in my life. Getting off of that insane, merry-go-round whirlwind was like finally being in the real world again, where there's no more fantasy, no more rock-star life, and you're yourself again. You have to go to the store and get your own groceries and sweep your own back porch. I was basically on my own for the first time in several years, and it took some getting used to. But I was very happy to turn around and look at everything that I'd just been through. I was very thankful for the experience.

 

LP: You went on to have a couple of major hit singles of your own: "Instant Replay" in 1978 and "I Can Dream About You" in 1985. That must have been very gratifying.

 

DH: It was. I did some earlier solo stuff that wasn't very successful, and I was kind of confused about what I wanted to do musically. So I decided that instead of doing another record on my own, I'd produce other people. Over the next couple of years I produced Foghat, 38 Special, the Plasmatics, the Average White Band, and I also did some writing for people like Diana Ross. Then in 1978 I released my album "Instant Replay," and the title track reached number one on the dance charts. It got huge airplay around the world all the way through 1979. Then in 1984 I did "I Can Dream About You" for the soundtrack to the movie "Streets of Fire." The producer Jimmy Iovine, who's a friend, called me up and said he needed a "blue-eyed soul" song for this film. I happened to have a demo of "I Can Dream About You" sitting on a shelf, so I put some overdubs on it and sent it to them, and they loved it. And it became my biggest-selling song.

 

LP: Wasn't there some controversy surrounding the MTV video?

 

DH: In the movie they shot the song like it was a live concert with another guy singing it. And then they told me that they were going to take that version with this other guy's voice and put it on MTV. And I said, "No, you won't." Because my contract said that I had to be the artist on any records that came out, and any promotional recordings of it would have to be my voice. So I said, "Let me go in and re-sing this guy's vocal. I'll watch the video and post-dub my voice on top." As a result, my performance on the video of "I Can Dream About You" is not the same one that I did on the single. Also, some people had a fit because it was my name and my voice coming out of this group that looked like the Temptations. It was a big mess, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances.

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LP: Your songs have appeared on quite a few movie soundtracks, haven't they?

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DH: I had songs in "Fletch," "Down and Out in Beverly Hills," "Ruthless People," "Bull Durham," "Scrooged." But these days I'm actually turning down soundtrack offers just because the late '80s were so soundtrack-laden for me. It was a time when I didn't really want to do much solo work, and the soundtracks were a way to do just a couple of tracks here and there.

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LP: And how about working with James Brown on the hit song "Living in America" for the "Rocky IV" soundtrack?

 

DH: I co-wrote that one with my writing partner Charlie Midnight. I also produced it and sang background on the choruses. It got a couple of Grammy nominations and James won a Grammy for singing it. It was his first hit in something like 15 years, so it was nice to be part of that.

 

LP: You also produced his next album, didn't you?

 

DH: He actually asked us to while we were making "Living in America." He wanted Charlie and me to write and produce the whole album, and I played on a lot of it. James Brown is such a character. He was outrageous. But we never had any inkling that he was doing drugs. He was always friendly, he would come to the studio ready to work, and he was very conversational. We always had a good time together. We would talk and laugh and order food. He was just a normal guy, but occasionally he would say some crazy things. In fact, the name of that album, "Gravity," came about because of something he told us. We were flying to Las Vegas to do his big performance scene in "Rocky IV," and he said, completely out of the blue, "Ya know, I defy gravity." And we kind of looked at him and said, "You defy gravity?" And he said, "Yep. I was flying in my jet one time, and we started diving 2,000 feet. We went down and I just closed my eyes and said, 'This plane is coming back up.' I thought about and thought about it, and sure enough, the plane came right back up. And so I defy gravity." We just laughed and said, "That's really good, James." I mean, we couldn't say, "James, you're a loony." It seemed really odd, but then we said, "Ya know, that would be a great idea for a song." So that's where the album came from.

 

LP: What about Joe Cocker? You co-produced his albums "Unchain My Heart" in 1987 and "One Night of Sin" in 1989, both of which were multi-platinum albums and earned some Grammy nominations.

 

DH: Joe is such a great guy. He's so well-tempered and really funny -- a very dry sense of humor. I really liked working with him. He's gone through a lot in his life, but he doesn't drink himself under the table anymore. And he might not be as spry as he was 10 or 15 years ago, but he swims every day and his health is good -- better than it had been. He's very cooled out these days.

 

LP: And Tina Turner's album "Foreign Affair" in 1989? That went to number one in several countries and gave her a big hit with the single "The Best."

 

DH: When she and I first talked about it, she said she wanted a raw, more soulful kind of record -- something that sounded live. The album was actually very easy to do because she already knew what songs she wanted to record, which is half the battle. So all I had to do was get my players in the studio with the engineer and put a live sound together. In fact Edgar Winter played the sax solo on "The Best." I usually have a lot more work to do as the producer, but that was a really fun album. And then when it turned out to be successful, that made it even nicer. We did some of the overdubs for it right here at my studio in Connecticut. I've recorded a lot of people here.

 

LP: Why did you settle in Westport, Connecticut?

 

DH: Westport used to be a quaint, artistic community, and it still is to a certain degree. Plus I like being close to New York. I previously had a studio here called the Schoolhouse which was an old, one-room school. I produced a bunch of people there, too, like Johnny Winter, Muddy Waters, the Plasmatics and Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood. I was there for six years, and then I bought a house with seven levels on the side of a hill overlooking the Saugatuck River and called it Multilevel. The studio isn't huge, but it has two playing rooms and a control room, which is all you really need. The performers can also stay with me while we're working, which is great.

 

LP: Getting back to your early years, you actually started producing while you still lived in Central PA, didn't you?

 

DH: I started producing before I even joined the Legends, around 1962. I must have been 1 year old at the time! I produced some local R&B, rock and gospel acts at Baldwin Sound in Mechanicsburg. People would hear what I'd done on someone else's record and call me up and ask if I'd produce them, too. I even wrote and recorded an advertising jingle for Sutliff Chevrolet out on Paxton Street when I was 16. So it's always been something that I could fall back on throughout my career -- to keep my mind going, to keep me musically inspired, and to keep me moving without having to make statements of my own. It's not easy to keep a solo career afloat because it's so dependent on having hit records. It's like being stuck on a treadmill. But with producing, you do it for three months and then you're done and you move on to the next project. My experience in so many areas of the music industry -- whether it's performing, writing, recording or producing -- is a huge advantage to me now because I constantly have options, which is great for anybody to have in a career.

 

LP: Can we expect another solo album from you in the future?

 

DH: I've actually finished five songs that I'd like to put on a new album. I've been itching to do one again, so it'll be a combination of pop and dance music. I should be ready to shop it to the labels soon, so hopefully we'll get a deal signed and get it released.

 

LP: Will you go on tour?

 

DH: If there's enough of an audience that wants to see me, then sure, I'll go out and tour. The last time I toured was after "I Can Dream About You" was released. And before that I hadn't toured since the Edgar Winter Group. But when I do play live here and there, the audience reaction is still amazing. Almost 20 years later, people still freak out over "Free Ride." That's something I sometimes forget about playing live -- that reaction. I lead a pretty quiet life now, and I'm not often in the public eye, but when I do go out and play, it's so great to be back in front of an audience again.