Many of you have been asking questions for months and feeling confused over the changes that have been happening with Ronn’s band Player. So I want to clarify some misconceptions and point out some facts because you as fans deserve to know the truth. As most of you know Player started in 1977 and Ronn is a founding member, they had the number one hit song, “Baby Come Back” and as a result, toured with Eric Clapton, Heart, Boz Scaggs and Kenny Loggins. Then Peter Beckett’s ego clashed with the co-writer of “Baby Come Back” JC Crowley and Peter abandoned the band because he didn’t want to play with JC anymore. He decided to come back after a short time and regrouped with Ronn and original drummer John Friesen and did the album, “Room with a View” when they found another record company. After that album, the band experienced a slow down and didn’t get any tours, so Ronn decided to try his hand at acting, a suggestion their RSO manager, Robert Stigwood gave him. Peter again decided to regroup with just John Friesen during the time Ronn was away acting and this was the only album Ronn did not do called, “Spies of Life.” This album also didn’t do much for Player and the group died shortly afterward in 1982. JC Crowley went on to do country music and battled throat cancer, John Friesen became the owner of a video company, Ronn became Ridge Forrester and Peter was the guitarist in “Little River Band” for 9 years. So Player died and wasn’t thought of anymore.
After a 13 year period of Player being completely dead, Ronn and Peter again regrouped in 1995 and began recording and performing as Player again. They produced “The Best of Player” and “Lost In Reality” album, as well as, two solo albums for Ronn and Ronn toured Australia twice in the early part of 2000. It seemed many people knew the song “Baby Come Back,” but did not know who did that song. Many fans thought Hall and Oates, or Ambrosia did that song, so having Player out there with social media and the Internet gave fans more awareness about them. Since Ronn was so popular on “The Bold and The Beautiful” this brought many fans to become aware of Player, and Ronn did International and national press to give fans first hand knowledge about the band and the song. This was something Player had not had in years. “Baby come Back” had been featured in a Swifter commercial, in the movie, “Transformers” and in a Toyota commercial in Australia. Ronn got royalties on all of these things because the song was his as much his as it was Peter’s. Plus all the national and International press Ronn was getting for the band garnered a lot of fans together to know the group that actually did that song.
I remembered when I first met Ronn in 2004 and I said to him, ‘You mean you did that song and no one knows you did that song?” Player at that time, had no presence online and Ronn complained he had no time to do music due to his schedule on B&B. Peter Beckett was having marital problems and no longer touring with Little River Band. So I decided to put together jam parties as a excuse to have them get together and just have fun playing music. Some of our first jam parties included, Corey Feldman, Patrick Cassidy and Patrick Muldoon. Patti Myers started out as a Peter Beckett fan who did a website for him and then one for Ronn and one for Player. She would find old Player videos and pics and put them on her site. Peter had no interest or time to learn anything about the web and so he allowed Patti to do everything for him. Then when a Ronn Moss fan came along to do a site for him, Patti got jealous and I had to mediate between them to the point that Ronn asked me to do a site for him so that we wouldn’t go through this kind of nonsense. As the web started to change and social media became more and more necessary this proved to be a good thing. Ronn was a verified celebrity with a large fan base and we needed to make sure fans were indeed getting news directly from him and we wanted to make sure they got the facts straight. So we have always been totally hands on regarding you our fans. I think you know this already by now. You know when you to you talk to us you are indeed talking directly to us and not some fan who may twist things around and hurt your brand. In this case, the brand of Player.
Since Peter insisted that he still needed Patti to do his website he asked if we would keep letting her do the Player website and at the time that wasn’t a problem for us. Ronn even allowed her to sell photos of him and Peter on her site and not pay us anything to make her happy and give her a little money, something Peter never seemed to have, so that she would continue doing Peter’s site and social media. I had my own site and Ronn’s site and then we started DevRonn with our spice in 2008, so my plate was indeed full. I love marketing and thought that Player was very talented and could be brought back into the limelight with a bit of savvy work. Peter had gone through a divorce and was working at Guitar Center when he met Rob Math in 2008 who became Player’s guitarist. Ronn brought in the ultra talented Jawn Star and the four of them were now Player. However, let’s be clear, Peter only viewed them as side men who would never actually be Player because he and Ronn were the originals. Ronn did not treat them that way or view them that way. I have promoted Player here on this blog since 2009 in countless posts, as well as, articles in magazines. We thought it was such a talented foursome and their harmonies were what the baby boomers craved that we just didn’t hear live anymore. I knew if I loved it and could listen to it all day long, then you guys would love it also. We rehearsed them in our garage for years for the few gigs that they got during that time and I blogged about them continuously here. Peter lived rent free in one of our houses for about 6 months after his divorce where he wrote songs for their now, “Too Many Reasons” CD and I encouraged Ronn to find themselves a manager. I tried to get them on television by having friends I knew see them perform at home which led to “The Hollywood Christmas Parade” performance in 2010.
A buzz began around this time and they seemed to get a few more gigs in various places. Seems fans were especially curious to see Ronn perform in person. At every show, Ronn would give credit to Peter for writing ‘Baby Come Back” and tell the story of how he, JC and Peter auditioned live for Robert Stigwood to garner their record deal with RSO. They did it live because a tape could be put on the shelf. So Peter Beckett did not get a record deal all by himself, nor did a write “Baby Come Back” all by himself, it was the three of them collaborating which led to that moment and then Ronn brought in his child hood friend and drummer, John Friesen and Player was born.
When Patti Myers started to diminish Ronn on the Player website in favor of Peter, we knew we had some problems that weren’t going to go away. Peter depended on her and had no knowledge of social media, she did his tweets, postings as him and now Peter’s new wife Eden answered his emails. We needed to protect Ronn’s brand online and with social media and so we acquired the Playertheband.com domain. Ronn had it years before and that’s why Patti had Player-theband.com as her domain. I tried to keep up with all the changes online regarding Twitter, Instagram, Periscope etc and it was getting overwhelming, however I could see Player was indeed growing and so was Ronn.
When Ronn left B&B he was free to tour with Peter and Player became a touring band again when their new manager got them a record deal with Frontier’s because they were based in Italy and Ronn is so popular there. And he got them on the “Sail Rock Tour” in 2013 with other notable acts like, Christopher Cross, Orleans and John Ford Coley. It was just Ronn and Peter touring and singing only three songs as it was not cost effective to have a 5 piece band of their tour and they were the original members. Fans seemed thrilled and this led to General Hospital contacting Ronn and asking if Player would sing “Baby Come Back” for their nurses ball show. This also led to us having them seen on our “Celebrity Wife Swap” episode on ABC and putting Player’s name on national television again. I wrote articles in magazines and marketed them on our social media and in press continuously for years. I even had them play a charity event I did at the Canyon Club for animal rescue to give Player another chance to be seen and heard. Then Ronn was asked to tour in Australia again and they only wanted Ronn, but he insisted on bringing Player and the entire band so that they could experience a proper tour in late 2014. This was great for Player and that extensive 14 date tour was the most the entire band ever had. I thought it was odd that Peter was acting so strange during this tour and telling everyone he owned Player suddenly, which I didn’t know what that meant. Since I was live streaming way back then, I happened to get a strong enough signal one night to chat with you guys and Peter went off on me saying I wasn’t allowed to do that? This remark made no sense, since everyone had a cell phone and was doing it at the time. I told him he was ungrateful and was afraid that Ronn would be upset with me when I told him about the blowup with Peter. Turns out nearly everyone had problems with Peter on this tour and we vowed never to try and bring Player overseas again. It seemed Peter was getting pissed and jealous of all the attention Ronn had with fans who lined up every night for photos with him. I thought this was odd given Peter had been overseas and toured with Ronn before, so he knew what to expect. Nevertheless, this tour led to more tour dates in the states with acts like “Little River Band” and “Ambrosia” for the “Rock the Yacht Tour” in 2015 which featured again only Ronn and Peter as Player. They had not been a touring band for a long time and it was not cost effective to have the entire band tour the states like these other bands that had been touring for years. Player needed to work up and build up to that.
I watched the entire band sit on the sidelines after touring Australia as they watched only Ronn and Peter tour as Player for over a year. Then in early 2016, the entire band got a concert in Palm Springs for one show and I knew they were itching to do more. Ronn had expressed the desire to do some acoustic classic rock cover songs and Peter had no interest, nor did he have any interest in doing any charities, but the rest of the band did. I had a few contacts and managed to get them a couple of things locally just to play together as “Ronn Moss and Friends” and then Peter went nuts. He phoned Ronn and had lunch with him telling him he no longer wanted to play with the boys as Player and that there weren’t any gigs for them anyway, only for the two of them. So Peter sent a letter to the band telling them he no longer needed their service for Player. It was an underhanded move because we had just booked a big concert on a cruise for the following year called, “The Rock and Romance Cruise.” It was awesome because it was the first cruise to have nothing but acts from the 70s like “America” “Peter Frampton” and “Ambrosia.” We were excited to have the entire band go on that cruise, but it was a year away.
After only Ronn and Peter performed together as Player in the summer of 2016, we figured the entire band would regroup for the upcoming “Rock and Romance Cruise,” but Peter brought in a local guy, Buster Akrey who he claimed would be better than Jawn Star to rehearse for the upcoming cruise gig because he lived close to us all and Jawn lived two hours away. He said Burleigh Drummond would be playing in “Ambrosia” on the cruise anyway, so he was thrilled to play as Player’s drummer and he brought back Rob Math as guitarist. Ronn was very torn about this because the band with Jawn and Jimmy worked so well in Australia. Now they were going to have to train two new guys with all the music of Player and rehearsed for over a month for the cruise. Peter made it seem like it was only for this one gig because at the time that’s all Player as an entire band had. We got to know Buster and he seemed like a nice guy who just wanted to be in a band. I think Peter made him think that just to use him for his devious plan to push Ronn out of the band. What we didn’t know was how underhanded and manipulative Peter was being this whole time. He wanted to ace out Jawn Star who had been with Player for 10 years because he was brought into the band by Ronn and he wanted to bring back Rob Math because he brought him into the band. He also wanted to start recording new Player music with other notable acts playing on the album, but without Ronn. He told Ronn about what he was doing, but never invited Ronn to play and acted like he was going to, but never did. Back in 2015, Eden approached Ronn and JC Crowley to join Peter on a lawsuit against Universal for back royalties as Player. During this lawsuit, they file a frivolous lawsuit against Keith Urban without our knowledge. It was embarrassing because Keith is actually friends with Ronn. We found out when Peter made a statement that was even more embarrassing saying that Keith was only famous because he was married to Nicole Kidman. JC and Ronn never would have participated in this Universal lawsuit if we knew what we know now. This was a sneaky underhanded move to have us help pay for this lawyer that was going after back royalties for Player.
After the Rock and Romance cruise happened, Player performed at the Conejo Valley Days fair because Buster was in charge of that fair and then the same promoter from the cruise phoned Ronn about Player performing in Huntington Beach last summer, as well as, in Beverly Hills last September. Ronn was already booked for some solo projects in Belgium and told Peter to just do that one as Peter Beckett of Player along with a couple of other gigs that required just the two of them. There has never been many gigs for the entire band and Ronn and Peter only sang about three songs when touring as Player anyway. So it shouldn’t have been a big deal and Peter knew Ronn always had work in various countries in the past, so going away for Ronn wasn’t anything new for Peter. Most of the time in the past, Ronn would find a way to include Peter and bring him along even when he didn’t have to, but he stopped doing this after the Australian tour because there seemed to be jealousy brewing from Peter towards Ronn. Peter was telling the band members that he owned Player and he wrote the songs and it was his band to the point that the boys were asking me it this was true. I found it odd that he was acting that way given he knew how vast Ronn’s fan base was and how loyal they were to Ronn. Also it was Ronn selling the tickets to this tour and he was who they wanted to see and it was Ronn doing all of the press. I also started to feel a weirdness from Eden and heard from fans that Patti was saying demeaning things about Ronn and me. My gut instinct or intuition, which I trust wholeheartedly told me something was not right with them. I express this to Ronn and thought it was odd that I always got along with Peter and now he was constantly bitching and yelling to Ronn that I should have nothing to do with Player business. Suddenly, they seemed to be competing instead of collaborating with us online and I knew that meant Patti feeling powerful because she was speaking for Player and Peter.
Gradually, we would catch Patti diminishing Ronn in the Player site bio and changing facts about Player online to favor Peter. I noticed she did a reverbnation and bandsintown page for Player and Peter but not for Ronn. I started to notice how the fans were bombarding Ronn for autographs and selfies as Eden, who was now tour manager, merchandise girl and Peter’s wife collected money from merchandise with Ronn’s photo on them and yet the accounting was always a bit off because there were merchandise with Ronn’s photos on them that were sold like those guitar pics and yet Ronn didn’t get a dime of it. I started to get angry and I knew something was terribly wrong with this picture. At the time, I was fighting an ear infection and on my way to my aunt’s funeral and Ronn and I were always busy with many other things. So as I noticed this and felt strange I told Ronn my feelings and that we needed to make some changes regarding this.
Then as soon as we arrived in Belgium last summer we started having strange emails from Peter to Ronn regarding this so called sub bass player that was going to be used for only one gig since Ronn was away. Patti was posting flyers with this bass player on it as Player and it was confusing fans. I knew nothing of this and told Ronn he needed to discuss this with Peter because fans were confused. Peter assured him it was for one gig and he wasn’t trying to nudge him out of the band or anything, which looking back is very telling. Then his emails got very angry suddenly blaming me yet again for something I had nothing to do with regarding fans fighting online over that sub bass player. I seemed to be blamed for everything and yet I had hardly had anything to do with Player at that time and we were in Belgium. Ultimatums were given to Ronn if he wanted to stay in the band and he was being treated like a hired musician rather than a partner, which is what he’s been to Peter for years. Ronn kept trying to get Peter to wait until we got home to discuss things face to face and he just seemed like he was looking for any excuse to to blame me and piss off Ronn.
It became obvious something more devious was going on and we noticed Patti was changing things online like the Facebook Player page that was always PlayerBeckettMoss to PeterBeckettPlayer. An online fight between Eden and our fanclub president Angelique occurred when Angelique caught Patti and Eden posting things sayings only Peter was Player and then taking down the posts. Eden threaten her when she posted she didn’t consider this a real Player concert without Ronn and that Ronn’s fans had the right to know he wasn’t there. Eden went on to say that Ronn knew and that and he was a sub bass player for Ronn and that she needed to take down her post or she would sue her. All this crazy drama was being sent to us and Ronn had told Peter this bass player and their postings would confuse fans to begin with and he was not comfortable with them doing this, but Peter said this guy was for only one gig and they couldn’t afford to not take a gig just because Ronn was away, so Ronn had no choice but to allow it.
After this gig, Peter sent the drama post between Angelique and Eden claiming I was behind this! Assuming I must be telling fans what to say online like I have time to do this with Ronn’s vast fan base and they shouldn’t post their thoughts on fan pages?? They made such a big deal out of Angelique’s post and then Peter admitted he registered the Player trademark three years ago solely to himself and that he was calling the shots and that Ronn would not be touring anymore. I believe they were deliberately creating issues that were not there to make Ronn quit the band, when that didn’t happen, he was given ultimatums.
Patti has been constantly changing things online with Player’s wiki page and trying to just push Ronn out like he never existed. So we had no choice but to get an attorney and we have tried to amicably to talk to them face to face, but they refuse. Peter then changed a gig that was advertised for months with just Ronn and Peter to just himself at the last minute and started telling promoters Ronn was no longer in Player and to book him for half the price. It really was disgusting to see such anger, greed and manipulation done to us after all the work we have put into trying to bring Player back for years, way before Eden was ever involved. Since we owned the domain playertheband.com from years ago, we decided we needed to activate that again because we had to protect Ronn’s presence from being manipulated by Patti in favor of only Peter and put up a website after seeing her antics regarding Ronn online. This domain along with my playerangels.com has enraged Peter and Eden who want total control of everything Player with no respect for Ronn and his contributions for years of rehearsals, tours and publicity, simply crazy and unbelievable that someone can be so demeaning and ungrateful, not to mention egotistical.
Suddenly, Player is only about Peter because he co-wrote and sings lead on “Baby Come Back, and “Ronn isn’t Player? If you look at Player’s original video for that song with over 48 million views so many comments refer to Ronn and his recognition as Ridge Forrester, which brought attention to Player, now Peter suddenly wants those fans to be gone and disregarded as true Player fans? Player performing on General Hospital was because of Ronn, not Peter and that national exposure helped the band. Ronn touring together with Peter for the past five years has helped bring Player back into the limelight. Peter was not touring as Player by himself and now he’s suddenly Player by himself because he registered the trademark secretly behind Ronn’s back? Why did he keep that a secret? Why are they telling fans Ronn left the band and now claiming we are lying? Why is Patti manipulating Player’s history online in favor of Peter? Why are they deleting fans speaking out? Trademarks are for consumers, the public, which means you the fans who buy the tickets to concerts and albums. Trademarks are not for a person solely to do as they wish with no regard for the buying public.
After so many years together, this has caused great confusion among Ronn’s fans and as always we tell you the truth of what’s happening with us. Sometimes we must endure challenges in life, but the truth always prevails and at the end of the day life goes on with other adventures that lead us to our destiny. Ronn will be just fine with or without Player and is having a blast doing “Ronn Moss and Friends.” It really is sad that a friend would do something like this to someone who has been nothing but giving and good. Since Trademark disputes are on a case by case basis, we must go this route because Ronn should have the right to regroup Player if Peter passed away tomorrow. He played on all these albums, toured and gave tons of publicity to this band and brand that is rightful also his and NOT solely Peter’s. It’s truly egotistical for Peter to believe it’s all about him. As one of Peter’s biggest fans I don’t care anymore to hear his voice and the passion I had for his music isn’t what it once was now. How can he stand to even look at himself in the mirror after a betrayal this low is beyond sad. So I’m confident that truth, as always will prevail and all the fans that we have brought to Player over the years will stand up and voice their opinion loud and clearly in hopes that Mr. Beckett will start to understand what exactly he’s done and is continuing to do and why it’s not right. Trying to steal something that you know wasn’t created solely by you alone is wrong. Peter had no respect for JC Crowley and didn’t not inform him either of registering this trademark. If you really own something and really believe that why would you keep that a secret from the other founding members of the group? Why would you embark on a lawsuit with those original members and call them Player when you wanted their money and help to fight for your back royalties? But, claim them not to be Player suddenly because you see an interest now in the entire band and don’t want to share a stage anymore with your friend of 40 years, why??
Suddenly, it’s your band instead of our band. Suddenly “Baby Come Back” is your song and Ronn’s bass riff had absolutely nothing to do with it? Personally, the harmonies of that song is what you remember most and what was played in the movie “Transformers” and in the “Swifer” commercial. Player was a group effort torn apart by ego, lies and manipulation for total control because of greed and jealousy. That’s the complete truth and pretty obvious to see. Patti got extremely competitive with me online and at one point took down my Player Angels website I let her create for you guys to share pics and experiences from Player concerts. We even made up cool sexy Player t-shirts with Patti’s website on the back to grow the Player Angels. I tried to make everything a team effort. Eden was one of the first ones I gave a shirt to. Then to find out that Patti tried to steal my Player Angels domain and point it to Peter’s Limey Cowboy site was beyond baffling. When I addressed it and pointed it to Ronn’s site suddenly Eden and Patti hated Player Angels. They really believed they owned my domain because it had the word Player in it that’s how naive Peter was and is about the web. I guess he thinks he owns anything with the name Player in and will attempt to sue anyone using the word Player even in a sentence now.
Ronn and I fronted the band’s merchandise with those shirts and Peter paid nothing. Ronn and got most of the best gigs Player had gotten and the best publicity for the band, as well as, it’s only proper tour. Seriously, do you think after all we have done to bring this dead band back that Ronn would just leave? Why was Peter suddenly so angry at Ronn and I over what exactly? We hardly saw them unless there was a gig anyway? And now they want you the fans to believe them and accept Peter only as Player because he wrote and sang their number one hit song and it’s all about him dammit! You crazy Ridge fans don’t care about music only Ronn who contributed nothing and means nothing. In fact, Eden once told a magazine that wrote Ronn was the lead singer of Player in Belgium that Ronn was Peter’s bass player. Actually, Ronn was Peter’s partner for many years over two decades actually and they got along fine and never had issues before? And Ronn also sang lead on Player songs, as well as, his own solo songs that were from time to time included in former Player sets. They collaborated and didn’t compete and it was magical. What this all boils down to is pure greed, ego and an over inflated sense of entitlement with no respect for all that has been given to him over the years by Ronn.
I think this is very apparent to most people now based on his recent open letter trying to do damage control for lying to fans that he continues to exaggerate and lie. Ronn left Player numerous times? Really? We tried to sabotage their gig? I think the fans spoke out like they are doing in droves now and Eden didn’t like it and accused us of doing it, like I have time to tell each of you what your feelings are and what you should post? These lame excuses are just pitiful and very telling to how many lies they have told not only to you the fans, but to promoters and to colleagues in their devious attempt to steal something that is not theirs solely to begin with. And to say Ronn sang Player songs, he sang one song, “Baby Come Back,” which he has earned the right to sing forever! In fact, Peter does not own any of the publishing to that song, he sold all the rights to Universal music. Here is a copy of the original Trademark for the band as you an clearly see Ronn’s name is listed and Player is not a solo artist. I’m confident truth will prevail over blatant lies here. Player for the past few years has been mostly Ronn and Peter singing about three songs. If he was Player all by himself why was Ronn even there? Why keep the fact that he registered the trademark a secret? And what is this reference to camp DevRonn? All I ever did was promote the hell out of him and Player over the years. It’s so pathetic this situation I almost feel sorry for him, but I don’t. He deserves exactly what’s coming to him for all the lies and deception to someone who has stood by him through thick and thin and that’s a fact. Ronn couldn’t have been a better friend or bandmate.