Helping Rock Bands Make Themselves Whole

With a shaved pate, trim build and clear blue eyes, John Biroc has a mien that is both cerebral and serene, like a mathematician moonlighting as a yoga instructor. But the 63-year-old therapist’s actual job is quirkier. Biroc is a motivational coach for the mosh pit scene and a hand-holder for rap rockers.

Biroc’s client niche is a loud and unusual one: He works only with young rock musicians, most often tattooed, pierced and angst-ridden modern rock bands but with an occasional mellow songwriter tossed in. On a busy day, that makes his Encino office resemble the backstage scene at the Roxy. “My colleagues who share the waiting room have gotten used to it,” Biroc says matter-of-factly. “They’ve learned to expect anything when they open the door.”

Incubus is among the more famous clients to pass through that waiting room, and band members have not been shy in publicizing their session work with Biroc. They have hailed him in interviews and in the liner notes of their albums. Singer Brandon Boyd and drummer Jose Pasillas are even featured with heartfelt testimonials in a slickly produced infomercial for Biroc’s practice.

The infomercial (which Biroc distributes via discs that play it as a mini-movie on computers) is part of the ramping up of his venture, which he calls the Biroc Process. He has plans to launch a New York office soon with the same core concept: Pairing mental health professionals who have creative arts in their own backgrounds with fledgling rock stars who need a steadying hand. The goal is to have happier, healthier artists who can sidestep the trapdoors that lead to an episode of “Behind the Music.”

“It’s not therapy, it’s coaching; it’s about the future, not the past,” Biroc explains.

The future of the celebrity business seems certain to have more people like Biroc offering themselves as consciences-for-hire for volatile or troubled artists. With films and albums determining the fortunes, literally, of huge entertainment companies, there has been a surge in the business of minders. Be it lavish recovery centers or the “sober assistants” that shadow addiction-vulnerable movie stars everywhere they go, personality trainers are becoming as common in celebrity circles as personal trainers at local gyms.

Biroc has nine coaches working for him as subcontractors, and he says their past artistic lives are almost as important to their roles as their mental health credentials. One, for instance, played bass in a blues band and is a psychiatrist with a specialty in chemical dependency. The coaches help their clients deal with creative blocks, cash windfalls, drugs, booze, family stress, power struggles within the band--all the things that make the dream factory a dangerous workplace.

Often the subtle threats are the most common, says Paul Fried, a bass player in the Calabasas quartet Audiovent, which released its debut album on Atlantic Records last month. Fried at first sought care from Biroc on his own, then brought in his bandmates to hammer out some problems within the band dynamic.

“To be a band you have to be able to communicate, and we wanted to be able to do that and treat each other in a nicer way,” Fried said. “We learned a lot from him. We learned to identify what is important and to please ourselves first. Those are feelings we can control. When you have six or seven guys packed into a van, little things can cause built-up resentment and animosity, and you have to be able to deal. Then you can just make music.”

Biroc played drums in a band during a stint in the Army that saw him stationed in Newfoundland in the 1960s, but the group had far more enthusiasm than talent. The experience taught Biroc a lot about the nature of collaborative creativity. He says his fleeting career as a baseball player in the farm system of the Chicago Cubs offered more insights into the team dynamic. His worldview is rounded out by a USC doctorate in humanistic existentialism, 18 years as a theater professor at Cal State Northridge and his training as a family and marriage therapist.

Biroc is clearly tickled by the generational bridges he crosses on the commute between personal and professional life. He has season tickets to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but the first radio station programmed in his car is KROQ-FM (106.7), the modern rock outlet that makes stars of his clients. He reads Rolling Stone and fields calls from Kerrang magazine but still refers to sex as “hanky-panky” and, if impassioned about a topic, tends to exclaim “Oh, my goodness!”

Biroc is loath to detail too much of his casework for reasons of confidentiality. He will say that many clients bring tales of drug escapades and other excesses, but the Biroc teams are focused on making the band a successful entity, so the sessions veer more toward group politics than toward individual disorders.

“The worst is when they are so drugged-out by the time I see them that there is little we can do for them,” Biroc says. “What we want to deal with is getting them over creative blocks, the stress blocks, how to deal with each other. We’re looking at someone who is fairly creative to begin with. If we get one totally hooked on drugs, we spend so much time dealing with that one person, we’re not going to be able to help the band. We’ll refer that one to someone else and then we continue to work with the band. We don’t want anything to bog us down.”

For a young band, the dreaded sophomore album effort is an especially searing trial by fire. “Think about it: The band comes in with all of these ideas they’ve worked on for years and they put out their first album,” Biroc says. “They’re flying high. They get all this money and attention. And then the record label says, ‘Now do it again.’ And the artist is just paralyzed.”

The sessions are not confined to the office; band members on the road teleconference with their coach to discuss internal relations and new challenges. Biroc expects that at some point, the coaches will travel with the bands. As for the bills, sometimes the band pays directly (as Incubus does), but more often the services are contracted by the record label or band manager. Biroc says his clients have included acts represented on the rosters of Jive, EMI, Epic and other labels.

This entire couch trip will probably induce nausea among rock purists who already view the latest generation of rock as too whiny and too beholden to commerce. Others, though, may reflect on Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison and Keith Moon and decide that proactive help for young artists is a godsend. There is fodder for either point of view in the ominous final line of Biroc’s brochure, the phrase printed in the page’s largest type: “Don’t lose your valuable investment.”

Although Biroc says his business is healthy, the grim economics of the music industry make the future uncertain. He views it in almost clinical terms.

“The record companies are really depressed,” he says. “One of the things I heard from Jive/Zomba is, ‘Gee, we’d like to use you more, but we’re short on money.’

“My viewpoint is if they don’t do this, they won’t make money either. They’re going to keep losing artists through self-destruction.”