Finding Mental Balance (With Balance)

Photos courtesy of Peppy Castro

By Ira Kantor

Because of the ongoing pandemic, my family and I have entered week six at my in-laws in southern New Jersey, limiting (masked) outside activity to walking the dog and food/grocery pickup runs.

I’m tired; I’m punchy; I’m going somewhat stir crazy since I don’t know when we’ll be going home.

But — on the plus side — I have a new favorite song to ease my troubled mind.

It’s a track I actually discovered over the summer while driving around on Cape Cod. I had the Sirius XM 80s on 8 channel on and they were counting down “the greatest Top 40 hits” from whichever August week it was in 1981. That’s when I heard the driving drumbeat, the rolling bass, the polished keyboard chords, and the dynamic voice. When I hear something I don’t know that managed to dent a chart at one time, I ask for silence so I can absorb as much about a song as possible.

“Breaking Away” by power pop group Balance would just barely miss the Top 20 that year, peaking at Number 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 in what would amount to a four-month chart run. After that first listen, I downloaded the three-minute song to my iPod and added it to my gym playlist.

Fast forward to now and this is the song keeping me sane as I try to follow a routine of staying safe and healthy during the pandemic. It’s now an ingrained part of my day. Sometimes I play it once; sometimes four times daily. It doesn’t matter if I’m stopping at CVS or picking up deli for dinner. The song is my jolt of emotional caffeine to keep me going and help me attain as much normalcy as possible:

“Don’t put chains to keep me waiting,
Can’t explain you know I’ve been saying that
Someday soon you know I’ll be breaking away!
Every night you try to change me.
It’s not right, I feel you caging me.
Don’t tie me down,
‘Cause you know I’ll be breaking away!”

Once Castro reaches the end of this stanza and sustains his note, all backed by band mate Bob Kulick’s biting guitar plucking, the song’s hit power is ever-present. I’m hooked every time. I’m now in the midst of turning others on to it — my wife; my best friends; a colleague in Australia seeking out feel good music to celebrate pandemic restrictions being lifted some.

In order to know where this rejuvenating adrenaline shot of art came from, I reached out to Castro to learn more about how the song’s origins and legacy. Prior to forming Balance, Castro was a founder of the psychedelic rock group The Blues Magoos and starred in the original Broadway production of “Hair.” He’s since worked with everyone from Laura Branigan, to members of Kiss, to Joan Jett.

“A gift from God,” he told me of “Breaking Away,” the first single for Balance — a trio of Castro, Kulick and musician Doug Katsaros. “I wrote the song in 20 minutes and then tweaked it from there. When the song came out of me, I remember pushing back my chair in amazement and saying to myself, “Where the fuck did that come from?” Because 20 minutes earlier it didn’t exist. I looked up and said thank you to my higher power.”

“Breaking Away” isn’t as edgy as some of the other songs on Balance’s 1981 eponymous album (on Portrait) which are more guitar-driven and faster in sound and style. Particular album standouts include “I’m Through Loving You,” “American Dream” and “Haunting.” Yet I always come back to their hit – maybe because it’s a happy song, one that reflects not letting others bring you down. The shimmering synthesizer melodies playing throughout sounds like gold flakes floating through the air.

“I knew it was special,” Castro told me. “However, with all the other material we had as a band, this was probably the least favorite of my partners. I guess they thought it was too simple. I kept telling them, ‘It’s a hit.’ Fortunately, the label agreed.”

While “Breaking Away” would help land the group on “Solid Gold” (a YouTube video worth watching despite iffy sound quality), Balance would eventually encounter a problematic mix of management and record label mishaps and disband. If you want to be thoroughly entertained though, find the video where the song is used as the musical backdrop for numerous film dance clips (“Napoleon Dynamite,” “Saturday Night Fever,” “Reservoir Dogs,” and “Urban Cowboy” included). Castro describes it as “great feel, good fun.”

He further adds that the song’s staying power helps make Balance a “musical high point” in his career given “the records hold up and are something to be proud of regardless of success.”

“Always trust your gut instinct. Because there were so many things in the marketplace called ‘Breaking Away’ — a movie, a hit song (Al Jarreau), even a TV series. So I was heavily discouraged by others to abort the song,” Castro says. “Thankfully, I didn’t listen and went with my gut which told me the song is a hit and makes people feel good.”

I’m glad he knows how right he is.

###

Check out Peppy Castro’s latest song “I Don’t Know Why.”