via Noah Arkwright / David Fagin, with permission
David Fagin of the Rosenbergs spent the ’90s inches from rock stardom. His new memoir, Confessions of a Musical Masochist, explains how he kept missing it.
n 1998, the Rosenbergs landed the biggest gig of their lives: opening for Duran Duran at Jones Beach. A few hours before soundcheck, frontman David Fagin was sitting in a New Jersey jail cell. He’d been arrested for stealing supermarket sushi.
“I’m a foodie, and I wanted sushi to celebrate,” Fagin told me. “I couldn’t afford real sushi.”
The cop who cuffed him was his friend Steve. His girlfriend bailed him out, and the band made it to Long Island with about two seconds to spare.
That’s the first story in my new conversation with Fagin on Wenerd Weekly, and it might be the least insane one. Fagin just published a memoir called Confessions of a Musical Masochist: My Life As An Almost Rockstar, and it reads like a secret history of the music business right as the internet broke it.
If you were a teenager in the late ’90s, you probably heard the Rosenbergs without knowing it. Their song got picked up by Dawson’s Creek and Party of Five. Then, in 1999, Universal invited them onto Farm Club, Jimmy Iovine’s big-budget TV show and label. The appearance came with a 26-page, six-record contract that would have handed over the band’s publishing, sync rights and website.
From there, the Rosenbergs partnered with Napster while the rest of the industry was suing it. They shipped an album with a bonus copy meant for fans to give to a friend. Robert Fripp of King Crimson helped them keep their masters years before Taylor Swift made that a household phrase.
He also had a delightful experience with the guys in Oasis back in the era before they were the biggest band in the world.
Fagin caught the band on its first U.S. tour, back when the Gallaghers were famous for telling every American band they were ready to fight them. He’d heard the interviews and braced for a jerk. Instead, Liam Gallagher wanted to play soccer. “Let’s have a little footy,” Liam said, and the two kicked a ball around the empty theater. “I expected a jerk and got a nice guy,” Fagin told me. Oasis is basically the reason the Rosenbergs exist. Fagin calls their sound “Ameripop,” his attempt at an American answer to Britpop.
He also sat in Howard Stern’s studio with his childhood hero, Gene Simmons, and then watched most of the band disappear from the edit.
Like most things in life, the kicker is the money.
After 30 years in the business, Fagin says only one check really mattered: CBS licensing his song “Birds of a Feather” as a sitcom theme. “My songs are on Spotify, and I’m making eight cents a year,” he said. “If you’re looking to make money in the music business, you’re in the wrong business.”
He’s still playing anyway. These days he fronts the Counterfeiters, a Jersey Shore cover band, and the Wankers, a Britpop tribute where he performs as “Damon Gallagher.”
Read the full Q&A with David Fagin on Wenerd Weekly. You can buy Confessions of a Musical Masochist directly from David, pick it up on Amazon, or hear him narrate it himself on Audible.