Russ Greilich, Golden Era Musician

TRANSCRIPT:

I’m Russ Greilich. And I’ve been a sound engineer and a musician. I’ve done composition and arranging here for about thirty years. Yeah.

Come around 1983, I came to Golden Era Productions and I was working under Mr. Miscavige on the sound lines. And working on the restoration of Mr. Hubbard’s lectures. And a few years later, Ron shows up. And I remember when I first met Ron like I could not correlate him being Mr. [David] Miscavige’s father. It, like, didn’t totally make sense. It was kind of an odd position, because Ron was kind of this crass, kind of, grumpy old man and Mr. [David] Miscavige was totally and utterly different.

Specifically our other trumpet player that was in the band, Carl Leach, who was a fabulous trumpet player and he was actually trying to get Ron to play. Anyway I was the boss at that time, and Ron came to me and he said, “That’s it, I think Carl is trying to, like, unmock me and just get rid of me, right and I’m going to talk to Dave about that.” And, he had told Carl that he was going to do that. He threatened Carl about this. And Carl came and he was like totally and utterly mortified and he says, “Look, I, I’m just trying to help Ron, you know, get his chops in 'cause he, he’s continually playing out of tune and... and now he’s, he’s saying that, you know he’s gonna tell Mr. Miscavige that, you know, I’m... I’m giving him a hard time. And I’m just like…..” Anyway that never happened and I took care of business on that but, that... that was the idea.

I mean, I’ve personally experienced Ron using this con game of the fact that he’s, was Mr. [David] Miscavige’s father. And a specific time, one time when we went to the Freewinds, which is our religious retreat—it’s a ship—and we went in there and Ron was basically meeting a new steward there.

And that steward didn’t know who Ron was and he wasn’t getting what he wanted. So, he... “Wait a second, wait a second. Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am? I’m Mr. Miscavige’s father. Now, I want this, that and the other thing.” And of course, the person was like “whoa!” Okay, so what is really, really, really messed up about that, is that Ron was like the worst trumpet player in the band, and in terms of any position in the organization, he really didn’t have anything. And there is no job, or post, called “Mr. Miscavige's father.” But, he was making this happen, you know, to get the guy to snap to.

This... this whole con game and this whole like attempt to extort people and use the fact that, you know, Ron was father to Mr. Miscavige was all in Ron’s mind. It was a whole game that he was just playing and he was playing on the fact that staff and so forth respect Mr. [David] Miscavige so much. And so he would, he would take that fact and he’d twist it and he, he’d use it to... to basically make his way through the studio and you know get a free ride. That’s what he was doing. And he’s doing that now with the book. In a... it’s a different way but it really is, you know, out of the same fabric. Because what he’s doing here now, is Mr. Miscavige and Scientology and that name and that carrier wave and “I am his father” and so forth, it’s just another form of the same thing. Ron is trying to make a buck off this book by doing that.

Yeah, these claims on this micro-management and these unreal deadlines, is... ugh… it’s just such hogwash. I worked personally with Mr. [David] Miscavige for years. And, he took a lot of care to make sure the product was right and there was a lot of collaboration and a lot of coordination and so forth. But my job was my job and his job was his job. And if I was doing my job and we were getting it done, that’s really the bottom line what he wanted to see and make sure it was being done right. And since my job dealt with Mr. Hubbard’s lectures, he definitely was keeping, you know, a careful eye on that. Of course, he would. I mean, this is the scriptures of the religion. But, I mean, the simplicity of it, is I would work out a mix and I would basically make my evaluation of how that particular lecture needed to be handled and what restoration needed to be done. And I was the one that would propose it to him. And he’d listen, he... he’d side-check it. And he’d say “yeah—this is good” or, you know, “let’s try this.” That’s not micro-management. That’s responsibility.

Some of the greatest moments of my life actually were working with Mr. [David] Miscavige. We worked really hard and we had a lot of projects that we did that meant a lot to me personally and meant a lot to the religion. And that’s because, a task that I had was the restoration of Mr. Hubbard’s lectures. And our religion has all of Mr. Hubbard’s lectures recorded on tape and I had the honor of being able to do the restorations and make them available.

Well, Mr. [David] Miscavige oversaw that project and he took care of making sure that all those lectures that were in harm's way originally, were preserved, kept and then made available to all our parishioners. And, the, the care that he took to make sure that all that was done right and the correspondence that we had and so forth is, it's just… there’s no words for it, because it... it was an awesome project. We got it done. And, so now you have, all of Mr. Hubbard’s scriptures, all the technology of Dianetics and Scientology available to anybody in a, in a great form, in a great presentation. And it’s safe.

When we first started that project, at that time parishioners did not have, for instance, materials, specifically, you know, the tapes and all of the technology that somebody studies when they’re in Dianetics and Scientology. And today all of it is available. It’s available and anybody at all can walk into a Church at any time and they can actually have the legacy of Mr. Hubbard and the Dianetics and Scientology religion in a presentation and a form that’s very easy to follow, simple to have.

And all of the Churches and so forth as well—basically, what Mr. [David] Miscavige has done is he’s taken Mr. Hubbard’s vision and the policy and the technology of Dianetics and Scientology and… and put it there all… all over the planet, all over the world, so that it’s available for anyone. And it was not like that before he took it under his wing and took charge and dealt with it.

Working with Mr. [David] Miscavige was the best. Give an example. I had a really, really long series of lectures that was gonna take a while for production in order to get it done. And he knew this. And he took the care to, like get all the lines set up and everything ready to go. And we worked on this and we worked on it really dedicatedly. And we… day in, day out and at the end of that project it was unbelievable. He knew that I really love music and I was a member of the band. And I got a brand-new special edition tenor saxophone, a huge bonus, three days off and I mean it was just great. I mean and that, that’s the way it was working with him. When, when you had things that needed to get done, you were like on it, he was right there with you and at the end of it, it was a job well done and it was always, always acknowledged.

CHAPTERS:

#1 Russ Greilich introduces himself. #2 Working with Ron Miscavige. Ron Miscavige threats. #3 Ron Miscavige the con man. #4 Doing his job and working with Mr. David Miscavige. #5 Working for Mr. David Miscavige on lecture restoration. #6 Big reward from Mr. David Miscavige.