Nothing Beats a Good Idea
Pop Music Legend Dave Stewart

High in a hotel room above Manhattan, The Boulevard sat hunched over a laptop computer with legendary rock superstar Dave Stewart, watching a video. He was narrating the main story line of the short for his new song “Let’s Do It Again,” which is yet another terrific piece of music written by one of rock music’s most prolific songwriters. Unlike the purple cows and cellos of his most famous video for “Sweet Dreams,” this video was, well, dirtier. A singer named Sierra Swan fights with her boyfriend on the street before she ducks into a bookstore and purchases a volume with a rather naughty surprise inside. And so begins the infectious marketing conceit for Dave’s latest venture, a collaboration between his Rock Fabulous fashion line and erotic products company Jimmyjane. A stretch? Not in the least. As Dave explained to us over the course of his lunch, nothing beats a good idea. When it comes to sex and music, there may be no better idea.

The world knows Dave from his days as co-founder and songwriter for '80’s icons the Eurythmics, but unbeknownst to many, Dave Stewart is one of the most respected and trusted artists in the music industry today. A prodigious producer of music, film and photography, he is a “musician’s musician” – an all-around multi-media entrepreneur and in Bob Dylan’s words, “a fearless innovator.” His career spans more than 25 years, commencing with the creation of the Eurythmics and extending into collaborations with the biggest names in the industry, including Bono, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Gwen Stefani and countless others. He has sold over 100 million records which he either performed himself or wrote for other people. Few songwriters generate the reverence for talent you get when you drop Dave’s name. He now lives in Los Angeles where he has launched his idea factory and business incubator, Weapons of Mass Entertainment, described by the Los Angeles Times as a “media company for the new world.”

Dave wrote and directed some of the most pivotal videos in the history of music videos – the abstract Sweet Dreams ushered in an entire era, casually defined a generation, and set the bar in video production at the dawn of an art form. He and Annie Lennox were two of the most recognizable faces from that period, and opening heavy synth melodic riffs remains one of the most memorable four beats in all of rock and roll. Dave also wrote the song “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” a huge hit for Tom Petty in the 1980s and directed the classic video where Petty is the Mad Hatter in an Alice in Wonderland theatrical “trip.” Dave made it look easy.

But we weren’t there to talk about '80s videos, as much as I wanted to. We were there to talk about his work as an entrepreneur, specifically his work with the Jimmyjane company. In addition to being a brilliant musician, Stewart is master brand developer. The Eurythmics were as much a mega-brand as they were musical geniuses. His line of products with Jimmyjane is the latest in a series of ventures that he has either created or collaborated with since becoming an elder statesman of rock royalty. Dave owns two erotic stores in Los Angeles which were the starting point for his interest in the erotic products world.

“I rang up Ethan (Imboden) because Jimmyjane was shoulders above all the other products and I said, 'I have an idea were we can collaborate with music and create a new line that is parallel to what we both do.' So we talked about it extensively and got to know each other, and I said, 'I have this song, and we can build around that. We put it in a book, call it The History of Sex and Music and I will write the book.' The vibrator has the lyrics of the song etched into it,” at which point he shows me a device that does in fact have song lyrics etched around the stainless steel. So why the erotic products business? Did cows and cellos lose their appeal?

“The sex industry was always the first off the mark in any industry – it was the first real moneymaker on the Internet,” he explains. “The orgasm is one of the few ego-less states where for just a few seconds you forget who you are and you are truly in the present – that’s why it feels orgasmic. In addition to the physical feelings, it’s a great relief to not have to remember who you are and be bogged down with all this stuff. So you want to do it again, and I have this song, ‘Let’s Do it Again.’”

And so play the video again we did. Dave is involved in corners of industry that most business executives spend their lives aspiring to reach. He carries a business card from Nokia that simply lists “Change Agent” as his title. In reality, Dave is their go-to guy to ask how various new technologies and products should interface with art. It’s a lofty title for a lofty thinker, yet the congruity between songwriting and business acumen seems so obvious to Stewart. ”I do a lot of business talks and I often talk about writing a melody. Often with a melody, when it's good, people can even think they have heard it before because it's so good it seems familiar to them. It's catchy. That’s what a hit is. Usually people who can write one can write lots. They instinctively do. When you analyze it, and then analyze business, the companies that have a great melody line are the ones that stand out. They are all singing the same chorus. They lead you into their world and you think it's pretty cool, then they don’t let you down – BOOM – here comes the chorus. It's just like writing a song. Born to Run, Satisfaction – those beginning riffs are precursors to what's coming,” he reflects.

And his Rock Fabulous collaboration with Jimmyjane is exactly that – a great brand and a great “melody” for topics that you likely can't talk about over Christmas dinner. The first launch from the Jimmyjane + Rock Fabulous collaboration will include two special editions of Jimmyjane's iconic Little Something precious metal vibrators. Both styles are adorned with the handwritten chorus of Stewart's songs – think of it as a semi-lucid love note, scrawled around the circumference of the vibrator. But Dave has made it more than cool – he has made it intriguing and respectful. Instead of trying to be overly sexy and erotic, The Little Chroma Tonight vibrator comes in a book that is hollowed out to satirize a spot to stash liquor.

The book that Dave plans to write with Ethan will be called The History of Sex and Music and date from the ancient Egyptians right to the present. It’s a topic that Dave knows quite a bit about, as he is the poster child for pushing the limits.

“When I came to America in the early '80s with Annie, we were on the David Letterman show and we were dressed in full bondage gear and she had this short red cropped hair and dramatic makeup right across the eyes and we sat across from him and he thought we were such weird freaks and we were talking about sexuality and androgyny openly on TV and afterwards we [got] reprimanded. We didn’t understand what the big deal was,” he laughs.

Dave flips through a coffee table volume called The Songbook, which has an autobiographical analysis of all his work and how his most prolific work came to be. It's an unbelievably interesting and candid testimonial about the most important music of the last 30 years, with incredible photography. Dave recently re-arranged and re-recorded many of his early songs with a huge orchestra and is touring as Dave Stewart’s Rock Fabulous Orchestra. I never thought that a song like "Sweet Dreams" could sound any better if its essential element of electronic synth tones were replaced by a string section, but the new version rocks harder and sounds better than the original. Ditto for "Don’t Come Around Here No More."

As if being a composer and a capitalist weren’t enough, Stewart is also an advocate for social change. His beautiful and moving song “An American Prayer” was written five years ago with Bono, but emerged in this election season to remind voters what ideals make up the American dream. The song invokes one of Dr. Martin Luther King’s most famous speeches and the line “When you get to the top of the mountain, will you still remember me?” The irony of an Englishman opining about American ideals and values wasn’t lost on Stewart nor on a significant portion of his audience as he describes how some people took issue. “I live in America, I have kids in school here, and the rest of the world is pretty concerned about what happens here,” he laughs. “Everywhere you go outside the U.S., the world is paying very close attention to what happened here now.”

So if you are looking for the next big thing or a gift for your loved one, jump into Dave’s rock fabulous world on the Jimmyjane website at www.jimmyjane.com. Watch the video and listen to the song before you peruse the products. It will help set the mood. And after you are well acquainted with the Jimmyjane + Rock Fabulous brand, you may want to ‘do it again’ just like his song says, because as Dave confidently stated at the start of our interview – nothing beats a good idea.