From Cambridge to New York City, new book documents lives of farm boys turned nightclub owners
Lon Ballinger says memoir 'documents the importance of following trends'
From Cambridge to Toronto to New York City, the Ballinger brothers built some of the most popular night clubs in North America.
The story of the four brothers has now been chronicled in a memoir written by one of them, Lon Ballinger.
His book Party Boys details their experience of growing up poor and how they rose to success, bumping shoulders with some of the biggest celebrities in the world.
Ballinger joined CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition host Craig Norris to talk about the book.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Audio of the interview can be found at the bottom of this article.
Craig Norris: Your book takes us through all of your different business ventures. Let's start at the beginning. You and your three brothers grew up on a farm just outside of Cambridge. How does this happen? How do you go from farming to nightclubs?
Lon Ballinger: We were young and adventurous. Our parents weren't really the typical farmers. They moved up to a farm and took the kids out of the city. They were city people and so we always kind of had that thread running through us, you know, that whole thing.
But they were serious about farming and we had to bale hay and clean cows and make food for the animals and we had to do that all the time. So we picked up this great work habit. Our ethics and work habits were really defined by the farm.
And as we grew up, of course, and we became more interested in what was going on outside of the farm, we kind of just gravitated to what we could do. We came from a real hard scrabble kind of an upbringing and I documented in my book.
The book is a memoir of our lives in eight different sections, so that it shows our growing up, our first business, our first nightclub, our experience in Toronto, when we moved to New York, the things that happened, the people we met, the events that occurred and why we lasted for 30 years in a city that really doesn't take any prisoners.
A lot of it was because of the lessons we learned in Canada and the upbringing on the farm and even when we were in Cambridge, we learned so many of our lessons at our club, Ballingers there and all that. We were there for about four years and had great success, learned how to run a nightclub properly.
And then we went to Toronto and we created the modern day nightclub business there. And we kind of always had our eyes set on the world stage. And that's what motivated and drove us there.
But I can tell you Canada had a big, big impact upon us and how we were able to be so successful in New York City because being Canadians, we learned to follow the rules.
Norris: You and your brothers, though, like when you were really super young, what did you see or what were you exposed to that made you think, you know, we should get into nightclub owning?
Ballinger: Well, that was sort of something that happened over time. We were part of the evolution of life. I think when we were kids growing up in the 50s and 60s that everything was kind programmed. The boys stood on one side of the hall, the girls on the other. And then they were allowed to intermingle at certain times.
But as we got older and looser and the birth control pill was invented and people became more demanding of their rights and aware that they had decisions that they could make on their own, I think we were part of that.
We were part of that hippie culture, I think, and that kind of spearheaded a lot of changes and movements and even keeps working and keeps moving into what we're experiencing in today's life.
I wanted the book to be from the eyes of somebody who lived the life. I really wrote the book for my grand kids because I knew I wouldn't be around to explain to them. And I didn't want to leave a salacious book or a book that told bad stories. I wanted it to be about great experiences and how you handle things and how you manage crises and how you find successes and the importance of paying attention to trends and the importance of listening to people.
Because I found that most of the people who ever complained, all they really wanted was for you to listen. They don't expect you to do that much, but you could have at least had the courtesy to listen to what their problems were and understand them and try to work with them.
Norris: It wasn't all smooth sailing, though. If you can just give us a brief synopsis of crossing paths with the Hell's Angels.
Ballinger: Well, that happened at Cambridge. That's where I learned how to run security.
My brothers and I learned how to run security because of the Hell's Angels. We first opened up in 1979, in Cambridge. We were just kids not trying to figure this out. We were pretending we were nightclub guys, but we were just foreign kids who decided to go into the disco business. So we didn't have all that experience.
So one night, I think it was a Friday night, the Hell's Angels on a bunch of thugs kind of guys from Cambridge came in. We let them in and they drank and then they blew up and beat everybody up, including ourselves.
And I called the police and a great big red-faced cop came tearing in with his cruiser and he tore into me and he said to me stuff that I never forgot in my life. His was face was red, he was spitting on me. And he said you let them into this place, you took their money, you sold them the booze and now you call on me to clean up your mess.
My brother was in the intensive care. I was cut off and messed up. I thought he was going to be sympathetic but he tore into me but I never forgot what he said and the expectations that the police had of a nightclub owner.
And after that, we never let people push us around and we just took control of our building.
Norris: There are places in Toronto that are pretty seminal clubs that you guys owned. I've been to two of three: The Boom Boom Room, the Big Bop, which was great. Twilight Zone, which was also great.
But I want to talk about you in New York City: Webster Hall. That's like a seminal joint, right? Tell us about some of the moments and people you met there.
Ballinger: Well, we did President [Bill] Clinton's inauguration. We all got to know the president and that was kind of a treat for us and the whole city piled in and enjoyed us.
We did those great events. We did Madonna, we did Prince … Prince was the most amazing artist I ever saw in my life. And Ray Charles was right behind him. So because they both came in with big orchestras that they managed and operated. So they were very special things to witness.
Our New Year's Eve, even our opening party, you know, with Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers doing handstands and jumping and dancing on the dance floor and RuPaul coming out of the ceiling.
I think I did a pretty good job in my book there of kind of itemizing things and I did my best. It took me two-and-a-half years to write that book and I really wanted it to be something that could last through history and tell a story of what happened when the Internet came into business. You know, that was a huge impact on clubs and, and music business. And so I think I documented well from a nightclub guys point of view.
I think my book, too, documents the importance of following trends. We were early with hip hop, we probably mainstreamed hip hop and at least in New York because in 1992, we created one of our floors as a hip hop floor and it became so successful. And electronic dance music when we created our Webster Hall records, we were doing techno and house and even hip hop and indie rock.
There were so many things that, I really tried hard to make sure that my story had a beginning, a middle and an end that people I think could follow fairly easily.
LISTEN | New memoir details how Cambridge's Ballinger brothers built a nightclub empire:
