Hilly Michaels

Hilly Michaels, also known as Hilly Boy Michaels (born Michael Hillman in New Haven, Connecticut) is an American drummer and musician, best known for playing drums with Sparks in the 70's and his two solo albums from the early 80's, Calling All Girls (1980) and Lumia (1981) .

History

For Hilly Michaels, truth has always been stranger than fiction, and the truth is, Hilly has had a pretty strange life.

Hilly first encountered his future vocation at the age of 12 at a school assembly when four of his friends stood up in front of the student body and played Beatle tunes.
"Out of 600 people, I was the only one who couldn't stop laughing the whole time," Hilly recalls.
"It struck me as extremely funny."
Hilly paid special attention to the group's drummer."I though to myself, 'that's simple, I can do that.' I bothered him for three months to let me play his drums, but he wouldn't let me.
So one night, at rehearsal, when he went upstairs, I jumped behind his kit and tore into it."

Hilly, it seemed, knew how to play the instrument immediatly.
"I was fantastic when I was 13," he asserts, "and I've hardly changed at all since then. I've got tapes to prove it.
I've always known how to play and I've always played the same."

Hilly's first recording experience came with a band called Joy, a rock outfit that went to California to make their fortune.
"We had an LP deal with Pentagram Records," he recalls, "and they gave us a $500 advance to do an album. We only got to do four songs though, because the company had to pay us union dues and they couldn't afford to do that and finance the record. We split our dues and the advance seven ways."
Hilly spent the next several years bouncing around in various bands that went nowhere fast.

Bands

Cherry Vanilla and Mick Ronson

"Weeks turned to months and months turned to years," Hilly remembers,
"as they have a habit of doing, and before I knew it I was 25."He decided to move back to New York, where he met a keyboard player named Patrick Henderson at a session.Henderson told him about singer/groupie/celebrity Cherry Vanilla and the band she was forming; Hilly's next job was drumming for the glittery chanteuse for eight months. It was then he met former Bowie and Ian Hunter guitarist Mick Ronson, who also wanted Hilly to work with him in a band he was putting together.

Sparks

One day, while Hilly was hanging out at Ronson's house, who should drop in but the Mael brothers who also wanted to get a band together; they were looking for a new Sparks to record and take on the road.
Hilly was hired on the spot and went on to cut Big Beat with Sparks and toured the U.S. and Canada with the group. Hilly was the only musician from the Big Beat recording sessions who went on tour with Sparks.He also appeared alongside Sparks in the movie Rollercoaster.

Dan Hartman

After that edition of Sparks broke up, Hilly got word that Dan Hartman (who had written most of the material for the old Edgar Winter group) was looking to form a band.
"I asked Information for his number, just on a whim, and they gave it to me."
"I called him up and he hired me."

Hilly had been keeping his writing and guitar playing together and had finally worked up the courage to cut some demos with the help of one-time Sparks producer Rupert Holmes.At the same time, Hartman recorded the hit Instant Replay, and enlisted Hilly to join him in an international television lip sync-tour.

olo career

After that triumphant yet surreal experience, Hilly met his future manager Jake Hooker, who flipped over Hilly's tape.Never idle, Hilly then went on to do a live national tour with Ian Hunter; while recording on Ellen Foley's album, Hilly signed his own recording deal with Warner Bros. Records.

"It was Lenny Waronker who played Roy Thomas Baker my tapes," concludes Hilly.
"Roy decides whether he wants to produce a group or not by putting their tape on while he's in the shower, trying to shake off a hangover. If the music makes it through the headache and the noise of th running water, he knows he has a hit."

= Calling All Girls =

Hilly's debut album Calling All Girls was produced by Roy Thomas Baker,and it featured Hilly on guitar, drums and vocals. Hilly also wrote all the songs, including Shake It And Dance, which became a huge hit in both Australia and France and was featured on the soundtrack of the film Die Laughing. Another song from the album, the very Sparks-sounding Something On Your Mind appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Caddyshack.The music video to the album's title track demonstrated spectacularly Hilly's abilities as a visual as well as aural artist, and won a video award at the 1980 MIDEM music confab in Cannes.