Todd Rundgren on computers, Apple, interactive music, PatroNet, and more.

Here’s another archival nugget from the Japanese music book Todd Rundgren – Born to Synthesize: “There Goes the Troubador: A Rock Star Jumps Into Cyberspace” is a 1997 interview conducted by Kōichi Arata, one of Japan’s leading Todd Rundgren experts who wrote the Japanese liner notes for many Todd Rundgren releases. The interview comes from an interesting and sometimes forgotten period in Todd’s career where he was exploring the possibilities of computers and interactive multimedia.

Much like his early pioneering experiments in synthesizers and production, Todd’s work with computers in the ’90s was, in many ways, completely ahead of its time. While others were creating mundane sales-driven internet landing pages, Todd was self-producing his own music videos, exploring a world of interactive music released on Philips CD-i (Compact Disc Interactive), and researching other modes of expression that few other artists were even considering. While a lot of these concepts and visuals might look quite dated by now in 2025, Todd’s approach to producing his own content and his ideas on how music consumption will work in the future are all strangely prophetic, especially his thoughts on how listeners might have a “virtual record collection” and his PatroNet system, where fans support musicians directly (very similar what Patreon is today).

Below, the interview has been transcribed and translated (through Google so there might be some bits lost in translation) for archival purposes with accompanying visuals and videos from the era. We hope it’s a nice capsule into a time when the internet was a much simpler place…

---

An insatiable interest in computers

You've been interested in computers since you were a teenager.

TR: I’ve been interested in technology in general since I was in high school. This was when new concepts in math were being introduced. The binary system used in this field was what led to the digital world of today, and that’s when I started to get interested in computers. I would hang out in the accounting department of telephone companies and I was fascinated by their database mainframe computers. Telephone companies are public facilities, so they couldn’t refuse people to come and see them. They would explain things to me when I came, and I’d go back and they’d show me different things. Then, one of my good friends had a dad who worked at IBM, and he would sometimes bring old parts home. They were computer parts, like big aluminum machines, and one day I found a pulley. I was experimenting with slide guitar at the time, so I used that as a bottleneck. So I was using computers in music, so to speak (laughs).

You've said that if you hadn't become a musician, you might have become a computer programmer.

TR: When I graduated from high school, I had two areas where I thought I might be talented: computers and music. I chose music because I thought that if my band was successful, I would have some free time when I came home from a concert tour, and I could use that free time to learn programming.

So you learned programming by yourself.

TR: I was surrounded by people who knew a lot about computers, so I got advice from them. Roger Powell learned programming before me, and I was also friends with programmers who worked at Apple in its early days in California. They helped me, too. But computers are like music, and there are some things you can’t really understand unless you study them yourself over and over again.

You are an old Apple user, but did you get your hands on a lot of PCs from the early days and become obsessed with them?

TR: I bought them as soon as they came on the market. Most of them were made for the average hobbyist computer user. I’m not sure in what order, but I think I bought an Altair, which came as a pre-assembled kit. It was an old type of computer that didn’t have a monitor or anything and could only run programs using a tape reader called a teletype. I also had a Commodore PET, which had a black and white monitor and keyboard and looked like an electronic cash register. It used cassette tapes to store programs.

It was around that time that I got to know some people at the New York Institute of Technology, and I was really interested in their video art. It was probably the first school that really got into computer graphics, and they had access to a paintbox written by Alvy Ray Smith that would later be called the Quantel Paintbox. I think they were doing animation using 3D computer graphics as early as 1978. These early computers were used until color monitors became available.

Then finally Apple released a computer that was easy for users to program. Apple was the first company to develop a self-contained computer. The Apple II had a floppy disk drive instead of a cassette tape, and it could be hooked up to a color monitor. This was a big advantage, since I had originally been interested in using computers for graphics, not music.

I had hoped that I could do something like what they were trying to do there on a smaller scale with a personal computer. So I got a graphics tablet, learned to program, and started to imitate the Paintbox. It was a kind of graphics program where you put a pen connected to a cord on the square board of the tablet and move it, and your movements were displayed on the screen, and you could draw straight lines, curves, paint, and so on. Apple liked it, and they sold it as software. It was released by Apple in 1981 under the name “Utopia Graphics Tablet System.”

“I got involved in a wider programmer community outside of just Apple. It was really fun to be around them because they were always developing new things. It was even more interesting than being in the music industry.”

Todd Rundgren

So your relationship with Apple has been going on for quite some time.

TR: At that time, Apple was still a small company, so it was pretty easy to call them and say, “Hey, I’m doing this, can you take a look?” When I went to California for a concert or a recording session, I would stop by Apple and talk to them. I think the people who worked there knew that I was a musician, and they loved music, so I think they welcomed me. I was able to have a good relationship with Apple. I remember seeing a Macintosh, before it was even commercialized, with all its parts still on a desk. That was the first time I saw a mouse.

Then, I think it was 1985, I moved to Northern California and started getting to know not only Apple, but other computer people as well. This was around the time Silicon Valley was becoming known as the center of the computer industry. It was becoming more common for programmers from Apple to move to other companies, and in the late ’80s and early ’90s I worked at a company called General Magic with a lot of people I’d met at Apple. So I got involved in a wider programmer community outside of just Apple. It was really fun to be around them because they were always developing new things. It was even more interesting than being in the music industry.

Was there a common mentality between you and the people at Apple, like '60s hippie or outsider vibe?

TR: I think there was certainly some truth to that, but there was also a generational difference. I graduated high school in 1966 and was an avid listener of The Who, Cream, and The Yardbirds, but when Apple was founded in the late 1980s, their generation listened to a lot of punk rock, such as the Sex Pistols, which was popular at the time. Punk was anti-music music that came out after disco, meaning you weren’t allowed to play or sing well, so I think it was a very different musical background. In general, people in the computer industry liked music, but some liked heavy metal and others liked jazz. They never listened to the same genre of music, though.

I use a lot of electronic instruments, but it’s not like programming a computer. These were analogue pieces of equipment, and it took about an hour to connect each module with wires, tune the whole machine and get it to sound just right. In this case, programming the rhythm was more like a human effort.

Pursuing the possibilities of synthesizers and sequencers

Synthesizer music was on the rise in the early '70s. What did you think about the potential of computers and other technology for use in music?

TR: Synthesizers had already appeared about 10 years before personal computers began to be widely used. I think it was around 1970 when I started using synthesizers. I borrowed a Putney VCS3, which was then released by EMS, and used it for the recording of “Something/Anything?”. The nickname “Putney” came from the name of the town in England where this synthesizer was made, and it was a type that could input external sound sources such as microphones and keyboards. I think the Mini-Moog had also been released. In any case, they were not yet widespread.

The modular type of Moog was a huge bookcase and incredibly expensive. I remember meeting Brian Briggs around this time. He was an engineer at Bearsville, like me, and he had an album out. There were sequencers already. We used a sequencer a lot on “Initiation.”

I use a lot of programming, but it’s not like programming a computer. These are analogue pieces of equipment, and it took about an hour to wire up each module and tune the whole thing to get the right sound. In this case it was just a matter of turning a switch on and off. So it’s probably better to say it’s human controlled rather than machine controlled.

Then, the Munich Sound of Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder, and the techno sound of Kraftwerk and YMO started to attract attention. What did you think of their music?

TR: I think it’s a problem that musicians jumped on the sequencer too easily and incorporated it into their music. I don’t think Giorgio Moroder really understood the potential of the sequencer either. Was he serious about music? I think he was just lazy. Making music easily with the help of a machine is an easy problem to fall into when using a sequencer or computer. Of course, Kraftwerk used it well to reflect the inhuman image of the machine directly in their music, so that’s an excuse.

On "Faithful," you faithfully remade the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations." Did you actually use a Theremin like in the original?

TR: No, that was a simulated sound on a synthesizer. It’s pretty easy to replicate.

The Beach Boys also used ribbon synthesizer controllers in their concerts. I first saw the Theremin when a traveling preacher and his family came to a nearby church to play a concert.

He lined up a bunch of glasses filled with water, made a sound, and then shook his hands in the air… I was honestly pretty scared. But I was totally fascinated. I often heard it in science-fiction movies in the 1950s, and it was the main sound in “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” I once wrote music using the Theremin for a TV show called “Aliens in the Family,” which ended quickly. I wrote it for fun at the time, but it was a terrible idea (laughs).

Curiosity about the field of computer imaging

You mentioned computer graphics earlier. You were one of the earliest users of MTV in the late 1970s.

TR: I was certainly interested in MTV, but I wasn’t making work to promote new songs, which is what MTV is currently aiming for. I started working with video because I was strongly attracted to video as a medium. Unlike film, video allows you to watch footage shot on the spot, and at the same time, it has become a new visual medium that can be manipulated in various ways, and I was fascinated by its wide range of possibilities. So I guess you could say that my early works were not pop music, but classical and instrumental music that seemed interesting and could be visualized, and expressed them in video. I was interested in abstract visualization of music. I had no interest in musicians becoming actors and performing, and I didn’t see that as a challenge.

You built Utopia Video Studios at great expense so that you could produce broadcast quality videos. Did you have any partners?

TR: No, I didn’t have anyone. If I had to say, I guess Meat Loaf would be my partner. Most of the expenses came from the sales of that album (the big hit Bat Out of Hell produced by Todd). I wanted to develop a concept and experiment with what kind of image would be important, so I built a studio. Well, if I had the money to build a studio, I could have rented a pretty good commercial studio for a year. But it’s still important to have your own studio. Nowadays, you can do the same kind of production that you did in those big video studio with a personal computer. You can have the same kind of production environment on your desktop.

After that, new things were being developed for the Amiga, so what we were doing was no longer necessary, so we decided to go in a more interactive direction. “The Individualist” is an interactive title we made to test the possibilities of the CD, and it doesn’t have a big emphasis on computer graphics. There are some works that we scanned from traditional drawings by animators, but most of them were made using various graphic tools. Many people who worked with us on Nutopia participated in it.

The footage in "The Desktop Collection," which you released in the 1990s, was made using an Amiga and Video Toaster, I believe.

A lot of the work on there was made with NUtopia Digital Video, and “Theology” was one of the first works I did at that studio. I remade it many times, improving the software bit by bit, so there are several versions. That was the last version, but it was never finished in the long run. It was used as a demo reel to test how fast computers could process images, and as a soft copy.

Creator of Interactive Music

On the other hand, "No World Order TR-I" was an interactive title with a completely new concept.

TR: Yes. At one point, I realized that although I had been involved with computers for a long time, I had never directly applied it to music. My contract with Warner, which I had been working on for 19 years, was about to expire, but I had no intention of signing a new record contract because I didn’t feel that the record company-centered system was working in my favor. It all started with me thinking that I could somehow connect what I had been doing with computers to music, and change people’s perception of music. Pop and rock music used to be for young people, but as our generation gets older, it becomes more and more popular.

I started to feel that I no longer had the desire to listen to music in the background when I was doing aerobics or other exercises. I came up with the concept of recording music in parts in various variations and letting the computer assemble them as the listener likes. It took a long time because I had to come up with the concept, compose the music to fit it, and develop the technology to make it possible.

It uses a format called CD-I (Compact Disc Interactive), which was developed by Philips.

TR: The first production version was a CD-ROM, then they released a CD-ROM version for Macintosh and Windows. No World Order TR-i works the same on all three platforms. They didn’t think the CD-I would become a popular platform, so they were the first to be asked to make this title for CD-ROM. I think Philips wanted to prove that they had a different kind of device for music. But CD-i players didn’t sell in the US, and most people thought of them as games devices rather than multimedia devices. Maybe it was bad marketing, or maybe the software titles were too expensive and people thought it wasn’t worth buying new hardware to listen to them. It seems to have been moderately popular in Europe, but I don’t know how well it sold in the end.

Have there been any artists who have since created similar types of music that have embraced the interactive music concept you developed?

TR: This technology is not that common. I’ve seen something similar recently.

The other problem is how artists create music which doesn’t sound the same every time. It makes a big difference in how you think about it. I think it was a revolutionary idea when we developed it. Now that we have the tools to produce it, maybe someone will use it. So we want to make the tools available to as many people as possible who are interested, and we’re currently working on making it available on the web. That’s the thing, because in the future most media will be distributed from the web.

Peter Gabriel is another artist who is very keen to use computers and multimedia in his work. Have you ever discussed these topics with them?

TR: There aren’t many artists who are serious about multimedia, so you always see the same people at these kinds of events. I’ve met him at the venues a few times. I saw his first CD-I work “XPLORA1” from concept to commercialization because a friend of mine was involved in its planning from the very beginning, but I don’t really want to use such a huge archive. I don’t want to have to click constantly to see content. My work “No World Order Tr-i” is designed to flow almost automatically. You can change the direction of the flow, but the work doesn’t stop because the user doesn’t do anything. This is my idea of an interactive title. People like to be passive sometimes. I don’t like clicking here and there and solving puzzles. So Peter and I are in the same field, but we have very different ideas about what a work should be.

So what is your assessment of The Residents' CD-ROM work?

I think it’s a TR-l like work. I also participated in “Gingerbread Man” as a vocalist, and it’s really well done. It was a wise decision to put a CD-ROM in the magazine early. I can say that it’s definitely more successful than my work as a musician.

“You can support a lot of artists with a small fan base. If you get 5,000 fans at $20 each, that’s $100,000. A record company wouldn’t release a record for 5,000 fans, but that’s enough money for most artists to survive for a year.”

Todd Rundgren on his PatroNet system

An era where new songs are released from cyberspace

A plan that allows you to receive the latest music you create via the Internet will soon be available. What will that be like?

TR: It’s been over a year since I started thinking about this plan as a reality. The Internet was just becoming more common, and in the last year several people have come up with ways to distribute music online, and tools to download high-quality sound have been developed. Not all of my fans have computers, but many of them are interested and actually use computers and the Internet. These people will be the first listeners to hear my music as I create it. The rest of the audience will listen to it later through traditional means. The point is that you can apply for distribution via the web, and it’s not just a CD. It’s not about buying products, it’s about building relationships with the musicians. I sent the master tape of “Up Against It” to Pony Canyon the other day, and it’s available on CD.

This will be the last album I’ll be releasing. Up until this album, I had to record all the songs at once, but now I can create one or two songs at a time, and my fans can listen to them almost immediately. It will be available for distribution anywhere in the world where there is an internet connection. Of course, my Japanese fans will be able to listen to it right away.

Do I need any special applications or specialized software to distribute or play the music?

TR: We’re trying to make it as easy as possible. You probably won’t need anything other than a Netscape browser and some plug-in software that everyone already has. In the future, CD-Rs will become more common, and people will be able to get their own CD-making software and record the sounds we send them directly.

What role will the PatroNet play in that?

TR: PatroNet is a system that will manage all electronic, internet related, information transmissions, receive subscription information from fans, send emails to notify new music releases, etc. It will allow musicians to order CDs in the traditional way, and it will also allow musicians and fans to communicate with each other. It’s a system that anyone can use, of course, and I’m just the first person to use it. The PatroNet itself is not a new technology, but will utilize various audio standards and security techniques that are currently available. If I come up with an idea that is better than the existing systems, I may allocate some development time to it.

What kind of artists and music do you think would be suitable for PatroNet?

TR: I think it’s suitable for musicians who have been around for a long time and are already famous and have a decent record sales. The main buyers of records are young people, and I think it’s fair to say that most music these days is made to appeal to young people. Artists who have been around for 15 or 20 years don’t lose their old fans, but rather they lose their connection with them at some point. These artists who are well-known can tour, but their records aren’t’ selling, and their record contracts have expired. These artists still have fans, potentially. New artists may need to give away their music for free for a while after their debut in order to gain more fans. Of course, it’s up to them to decide how much of this free period they can use.

I think how well they promote it will determine how many people apply when it’s officially released. There are no limitations to the style of music. The concept of PatroNet is to be able to do whatever you want. If you have an idea, just do it. One day, a bunch of musicians come and you feel like it, you can record with a band, or the next day, you can do a completely different style. If you want to release it, just distribute it. The important thing is to keep creating. If it goes well, you can also use it to distribute books and games. I think a lot of things are possible.

“Instead of collecting records, you might have a virtual collection of all the recordings ever recorded, put it on the web, and pay $1 each time you listen to it.”

Do record companies feel threatened by this?

TR: Record companies are scared of the internet. They were worried it would happen, but they now know that this change is inevitable. I think they will probably do the same thing. Artists don’t necessarily start out with fans. Since they don’t have fans, companies have had to take the risk of making a record and then spending a lot of money on advertising to gain a lot of fans. This means that they can adopt our method of having fans who believe in the artist’s ability pay in advance. Of course, some artists may need a record for A&R evaluation or for promotion outside of the Internet environment.

PatroNet will change your music life

Do you think the internet is changing the idea of ​​pop music?

TR: Pop music changes as pop culture changes. Sociologically, the web reflects people’s interests and philosophies, but it has no direction in itself. It’s possible that people who like the web will have some influence on pop culture, and the connectivity of the web will have an impact. What we call pop music may change. If initiatives like PatroNet are successful, I think musicians will have enough fans to make a living regardless of their name value or career, and listeners with any taste will be able to find artists they want to support. Then trends won’t be measured by records sold only in a certain section of a record store.

That's right. As a general trend, I expect that artists will be given support in a desirable direction.

TR: In the end, you can support a lot of artists with a small fan base. If you get 5,000 fans at $20 each, that’s $100,000. A record company wouldn’t release a record for 5,000 fans, but that’s enough money for most artists to survive for a year. You don’t have to worry about the costs of releasing a record, and there are other good uses for it. For example, it solves the problem of pressings and inventory, which is a concern in the record world. No one knows how many copies of their record will sell, so they have to take a gamble, but if you take orders online, you know how many copies you need to press. It eliminates waste. Listeners may listen to the records they buy a lot at first, but then they stop listening and leave them on the record shelf. Instead of collecting records, you might have a virtual collection of all the recordings ever recorded, put it on the web, and pay $1 each time you listen to it. It also saves you money because you don’t have to pay for an entire album.

You also run an organization called Waking Dreams.

TR: In addition to the usual business of being a technology development company, Waking Dreams will also be signing deals with artists to distribute their music through PatroNet.

You've probably looked at a few other artists' websites, but were there any that caught your interest?

TR: I didn’t look at many pages, but most of them were sales promotions. I think the most interesting pages are the ones made by fans, because they express their honest opinions freely. There’s a page made for the purpose of sharing information about me. I was particularly impressed by the “TR Connection” page made by my fans. People who have seen it always say it was interesting. If you want to know anything about me, I recommend checking out this page.

---

Visit TR Connection: https://trconnection.com/

Revisit Todd Rundgren’s Favorite Blues, R&B, Soul, and Jazz Albums: https://insheepsclothinghifi.com/todd-rundgren-selects/