Falling into that black hole of time that sucks in many a band that never made it, but damn well should have, Artful Dodger's sound bit into that sweet power-pop apple that The Raspberries tempted you with and succumbed to the original sin of the rowdy, booze-fueled, ne'er-do-well rock 'n' roll of The Faces.

By all rights, Artful Dodger should have been huge in the '70s. They had great melodic songs that had a nasty swagger to them. Critics loved them. They had high-powered producer in Jack Douglas (Aerosmith's Toys In The Attic, John Lennon's Double Fantasy, Cheap Trick's At Budokon) mentoring them. They scored an opening gig on Kiss' 1976 tour. And yet incredible albums like Honor Among Thieves, recently reissued by American Beat (with perhaps more Artful Dodger reissues on the way, according to rumors), went largely unnoticed.

Gary Cox, a guitarist and vocalist for Artful Dodger, has had years to reflect on why Artful Dodger didn't break it big. Asked specifically why Honor Among Thieves didn't sell, he's come up with a laundry list of reasons why as part of an interview I'm doing for a future Goldmine story on Artful Dodger, formed in 1973 in Fairfax, Va. They're all good ones, but for those that loved the band — and I'm a recent convert — we're all still left scratching our heads.

Anyway, here's what Gary had to say about the subject — pretty much raw and unedited — and stay tuned for more from Goldmine on Artful Dodger. And to check up on all the happenings with Artful Dodger, visit www.artfuldodgersite.com

Gary Cox: Why did it not sell? My goodness, no one can answer that. I CAN think of some roadblocks that got in the way that could have contributed to things going the way they did. Not in any particular order:

A: Though Eddie Leonetti was an imaginative, creative producer, I think we should have continued the common thread of our sound from the first album and waited for Jack Douglas to become available. We were in a bit of a rush at the time to make a deadline to go out on tour with KISS. (If I'm recalling correctly)

B: The gas crisis! It had a huge affect on touring. It got to the point that only well-established bands could get around out there. What a mess.

C: We should have followed Steven Leber's advice and played clubs for a while prior to jumping out on the big tours. Our show was fine ... but not "Great."

D: In retrospect, perhaps CBS was not the label for us. We were not established anywhere. We had no following like Aerosmith in Boston when they signed. I remember the first day I met David Krebs and [had] a discussion about Aerosmith. He asked if I'd ever heard of them. I said "No." He told me he'd recently signed them, and that they had sold 200,000 albums and they were in the studio down the street recording their first CBS album, Toys In The Attic. We were signed on the track record of Leber/Krebs ... not our own track record. So, as you can see David and CBS were picking up established acts in their own cities. Same thing with Ted Nugent. Other acts in David's office struggled such as the group Rex ... and Artful Dodger.
 
The one true shining star I remember at CBS that gave us our best shot was an amazing rep by the name of John Kostic. He broke us in Cleveland along with help from the great people at WMMS. When we came to town it was limos, matchbook covers with our names in gold ... drove us to every record store around ... true hard working record industry guy. We owe him a lot of thanks for what we "did" achieve. But, CBS as a whole was very frustrating. David had a really tough time trying to keep their attention on our projects vs. Neil Diamond's next release, or Paul Simon, Barbra Streisand etc. ...oh and when Springsteen rolled in ... it was ridiculous. I'll give them this ... they did love our music ... and spent a small fortune sending us out on the road. I "Think" that was CBS money. Leber-Krebs? I'll never know. Perhaps we should have shopped a smaller label and been big fish in a smaller pond.

E: Disco! Just when we had it right ... the  radio industry decided to go after the dancing crowd instead of ... "listeners."
We were out there touring, driving from town to town, listening to Barry White, The Bee Gees, Donna Summer etc ...and it was clear we were up against something that perhaps [was] too big to overcome. We needed a hit record, and the only hope out there at the time between disco songs was Boston's "More Than A Feeling." Hearing that out on the road gave us hope.

F: Struggle to stay true to our sound. Every writer out there got it right. After the first and second album ... we panicked. We went into the third album with less material to choose from, and as Bill and Gary Herrewig's writing slowed down ... the producers turned to me. I had a couple songs like "Wave Bye Bye," "Can't Stop Pretending" and "Who In The World" sitting around but never expected them to get their day in the studio. Basically I was called on for lack of songs to fill the album out.
Making things even worse was the attention my songs got over at CBS. We would submit Paliselli and Herrewig tunes ... and they'd come back and choose Gary Cox songs for the singles. It was ridiculous. Thank God my songs never broke us wide open when released. We needed a song like "It's Over", "Scream", or "Wayside" to define us. So we fought over the direction Babes on Broadway was taking us. After my departure, the band went back to the basics of Dodger's sound on Rave On.