Rock of Nations with Dave Kinchen & Shane McEachern · Rock of Nations with Dave Kinc

#353 80s & 90s Hitmaker #MartinPage Talks “First And Last Freedom” - Part 2

·31 min·3 clips

Martin Page describes playing his demo for Earth, Wind & Fire while holding a Bible in the toilet, praying for his big break.

This episode features hosts Dave Kinchen and Shane McEachern continuing their conversation with songwriter and musician Martin Page. Page is known for co-writing hits like "We Built This City" and "These Dreams" for artists including Heart and Starship. He recounts his early career breakthrough after meeting Earth, Wind & Fire's Maurice White in Los Angeles. White asked Page to write a song after hearing his band Q-Feel's track "Dancing in Heaven," which led to Page composing "Magnetic" for the group. Page describes demoing the song on an 8-track Fos-Tex and a borrowed Jupiter synthesizer in his manager's living room. He vividly remembers the intense nervousness of playing his demo for the full Earth, Wind & Fire band at The Complex studio in L.A. Page watched Maurice White himself replace his brother on drums during the recording session, an experience he calls surreal. The conversation shifts to recent losses in music, specifically Sly Stone and Brian Wilson, whom Page cites as foundational influences. He explains his musical roots are in American R&B, having grown up listening to Wilson Pickett, Sly and the Family Stone, and Earth, Wind & Fire while living near U.S. airbases. Page's new song "Little Bird" on his album "First and Last Freedom" directly channels these funk and soul inspirations. He shares that guitarist Jack Hughes identified "Little Bird" as a special, roots-oriented moment on the album. The discussion turns to the creation of Heart's 1985 hit "These Dreams," which Page wrote with Bernie Taupin. He originally envisioned the demo, built on a Jupiter 8 synthesizer, as a "high-tech hymn" for artists like Bonnie Raitt. Producer Peter Wolf, then Heart's keyboardist, received a cassette of the demo and played it for Ann and Nancy Wilson. Page admits he initially disliked Heart's more stripped-back production of the track, preferring his denser synth demo, but changed his mind when it became a number-one single. A surprising technical aspect of his new album involved developing "phonetic vocals," where he used non-lyrical sounds as emotional placeholders before fitting actual words to them. He spent two months refining these vocal textures to preserve the initial spontaneous emotion, comparing the process to singing in tongues. Page also incorporated a Zulu choir into the album's title track, "First and Last Freedom," noting the logistical challenge of recording them. He expresses concern about the rise of AI in music creation, valuing human emotion and imperfection over algorithmically generated content. The hosts and Page bond over their eclectic musical tastes, ranging from Judas Priest and Van Halen to The Cure and Tears for Fears. Page reveals he has several completed but unreleased albums, including a Christmas album and an instrumental record, stored on hard drives. He views his prolific output as a way to maintain creative curiosity and avoid repetition after four decades in the industry. The tone is warm, conversational, and nostalgic, filled with personal anecdotes and mutual respect between the hosts and guest. It is educational in its detailed behind-the-scenes look at 80s music production and collaborative songwriting. Listeners who love stories about classic pop and rock songwriting, studio craft, and music industry history will deeply enjoy this episode. Those seeking debates on current events or a fast-paced narrative might find the reflective, detail-oriented conversation less engaging.

As heard by us

A clean look at how a dense demo became a simpler Heart record, and why Page changed his mind about it later.

Martin Page traces how a song can move from a dense, keyboard-heavy demo to a stripped-back Heart record, and how his view of it shifted once the chart run started.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want the story behind an 80s song that moved from a layered demo to a stripped-down Heart record.

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