From Nirvana to Whitesnake.
It’s the odd but successful path Janet Billig has taken in her music business career.
In the late-’80s and ’90s, Billig was an alt-rock dynamo, cutting her teeth as a publicist for the likes of Smashing Pumpkins, Hole and White Zombie. She went on to manage Massachusetts bands like the Lemonheads and Dinosaur Jr., as well as Hole and Nirvana. Then she developed artists for Atlantic Records, including Jewel and Matchbox 20, but left to manage Guided by Voices and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
Oh how times have changed. Now Billig’s name is Billig Rich (after marrying music supervisor David Rich) and she is co-producer of the five-time Tony nominated Broadway musical “Rock of Ages,” a celebration of arena rock and hair metal that opens at the Colonial Theater Wednesday.
What would Kurt Cobain think?
“It is wild,” Billig Rich said by phone from Los Angeles. “(It’s) a whole different world. But I wasn’t a (hair metal) hater. It just wasn’t what I did. When you start listening to the songs, there’s such epic storytelling. These songs were like an inch away from show tunes anyway. These are big, almost the same as songs from ‘Cats’ or ‘Phantom.’ ”
Her cool Boston rock pals were understandably suspicious at first.
“When she first told me about ‘Rock of Ages,’ I was, like, ‘Eh, OK,”’ said Billig Rich’s friend Kay Hanley, former Letters to Cleo singer. “I went to see it work-shopped three times and then saw the full show. I love it so much. There’s a nostalgia factor, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not a wink-and-a-nod enjoyment. No irony. It’s like this big, enjoyable, fist-pumping singalong.”
Billig Rich’s principal role was to put together the show’s band and music, which was arranged by David Gibbs, formerly of Boston band Gigolo Aunts, now of the Low Stars.
Though “Rock of Ages” treats the commercial heavy rock of the ’80s fondly, Billig Rich hasn’t forgotten its absurdity.
“We take our rock seriously,” she said. “We want the sound to be authentic and it sounds amazing. But the time period was so funny. (The show) is not a joke fest, but with the big hair and the C.C. DeVille-ness of it all, we knew what we were doing.”
The play is rocker approved. Billig Rich, 43, sat with Motley Crue singer Vince Neil at one of the L.A. performances.
“He turned around and said to the writer Chris D’Arienzo, ‘I lived the Sunset Strip in the ’80s and now everyone can see what we were doing,’ ” Billig Rich recalled.
Are drugs in the show?
“Not as many as Vince Neil took,” Billig Rich said. “But we don’t recommend it for kids under 14. It’s not a family show. It’s sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, baby.”
Even if the rock by Whitesnake, Styx, Poison and Night Ranger is the kind alt-rockers rebelled against.
“We understand people are going to be rolling their eyes,” Billig Rich said, “and on paper it doesn’t look great. But what we know is once people come to see the show, they lose their minds. (Counting Crows’) Adam Duritz loves it. Rob Zombie loves it. Tom Morello, the king of cool, thinks it’s the greatest show ever.”
