About Me
Before they formed Mr. Mister, Richard Page & Steve George, were already highly respected studio musicians. They have been hired by a wide range of artists, from all possible music styles, to do some session work on their albums; as songwriters, musicians and mostly to do some backing vocals.
It all started at high school, were Richard and Steve grew up together. So they often played together in a lot of high school bands. At the age of 19 Steve was playing in Los Angeles with a group called Andy Hardy, named after the movie character played by Mickey Rooney in the late '30s and '40s. After a time Richard joined the band, replacing the only black member who had left the band. He had also begun writing his own material. So he started a new band called Joyce, named after it's guitarist's girlfriend. He began as a drummer, later playing the lead guitar. In search of fortune and fame they moved to Hollywood, but soon enough Richard came back to L.A., broke but unbowed.He joined Steve again, and soon they found themselves playing funk in "The Red Onion", a black club somewhere in L.A. They even moved further to Las Vegas, and immediately found work in some clubs, sometimes playing seven or eight sets a night. This was of course very exhaustive and Richard's voice couldn't take it any longer. So they decided to end their collaboration. While Steve continued to work in Vegas, Richard moved to San Diego to attend a music school for performing arts, take composition and theatre lessons. So he still was able to play occasionally in some school bands. When he had no more money left to cover his studies, he relocated to a tiny apartment in Studio City, Los Angeles to earn some money by playing in different bands. He even played in a country and western band, but that lasted only for a few weeks.
Richard called up Steve again, to record a demo of original material. This tape ended up on the desk of A&R-man Bobby Colomby (the former drummer of Blood, Sweat & Tears), who offered them to sign with Epic Records. It was 1977 and Pages was born. The bass player, not Richard, named the group. They played mainly jazz/fusion. A first album entitled "Pages" was released in 1978, followed by the single "If I Saw You Again" (b/w "I get it from you").
Their first album wasn't a commercial breakthrough. But they didn't give up and a year later, in 1979, a second album titled "Future Street" was released, containing the single "I Do Believe In You" which appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts on December 1st 1979 and peaking at 84. Again the album was produced by Bobby Colomby. With the release of of their second Epic LP, Pages went in a harder direction and was well on the way to blazing a new trail on the rock frontier. However, their music still wasn't that popular at that particular time. It didn't seem to fit in anywhere. It was the era of disco, or on the other hand progressive rock. There was nothing in-between ...
Failure brought them to switch to another record label, Capitol Records. They also found a new producer: the award-winning musician/composer/producer Jay Graydon. Pages now turned to a Toto-like pop/rock style and in January 1981 a third album titled "Pages" saw the light of day, producing two singles: "You Need A Hero" (b/w "Midnight angel") and "Come On Home" (b/w "Sesatia"). These singles were the two Bobby Colomby-produced tracks on the album. After Pages broke up in 1981, Richard and Steve continued working as session musicians. it was during a concert tour as backing vocalists of Andy Gibb that the idea rose to form another band, but this time with regular members. This was the beginning of Mr. Mister.
