The Apollo Stars: The Rock Stars of Scientology’s Sea Org.
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The Apollo Stars: The Rock Stars of Scientology’s Sea Org
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March 30, 2016
By
Daniel Dylan Wray
In 1974, the Apollo Stars released their only album, The Power of Source. Like many ’70s American rock bands, the Apollo Stars were young men with long hair, bushy moustaches, flapping flares and loud guitars. Unlike others, though, they were Scientologists and lived on a ship, the Apollo, with church founder L. Ron Hubbard, who was credited as the band’s producer and co-writer.
On board the Apollo was the church’s Sea Organization, or Sea Org. It comprises Scientology’s most dedicated members, who are required to sign a symbolic (but not legally binding) one billion-year contract to demonstrate their commitment to the church. The Sea Org was established in 1967, the same year that Hubbard purchased a fleet of ships including the Apollo, which was once a British Royal Navy landing ship called HMS Royal Scotsman and had served in World War II.
The purchase of these ships by Hubbard came at a legal crossroads for Scientology. In 1963, the church was raided by the United States Food and Drug Administration, with materials, books and E-Meters (used for displaying the ectodermal activity of a human being, an procedure known as ‘auditing’) being seized. The FDA believed that the church was making false medical claims through their practices and in 1967, when the church lost its tax-exempt status after an audit from the Inland Revenue Service, it moved its daily operations onto the water.
Scientology’s official line on the purchase of the fleet is that Hubbard formed the Sea Org in order for the church to focus on advanced research operations and supervise the church’s global organizations. However, given such raids and audits, which resulted in enormous debts and clashes with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, it’s been suggested that Hubbard was using the ships to evade U.S. authorities.
The truth is that there was no band, just individuals who happened to have their instruments.
The remaining traceable few members of the Apollo Stars are split between those who have remained in the church, those who have left, and those who have no desire to talk about it from either side. In a rare instance, though, three members were willing to tell their stories: Craig Ferreira, guitar player, co-writer and current church member; Neil Sarfati, saxophone player and group director, who left the church in 1976; and Tom Rodriguez, bongo player, who prefers not to reveal his current status in regards to the church.
The Power of Source is a disjointed album, weaving together rock, jazz, blues, soul and psychedelia. It’s also driven by a solid energy and experimental tendencies, the result of which is reminiscent of an African-indebted, acid jazz freak-out. A key reason for this is the social and ethnic construct of the group. The Apollo would sail primarily across the Mediterranean but often as far as Africa, picking up sounds and members along the way. Bongo player Rodriguez, for example, boarded the ship from Morocco in 1971.
It would be a further two years before anything resembling a recording act would start, though – and even then it was by accident. When the Apollo docked in Madeira on the Christmas of 1973, the local mayor inquired if there were any musicians on board to play in the town square. “The truth is that there was no band, just individuals who happened to have their instruments,” says Rodriguez. “An announcement was made for any musicians to come directly to the PR lounge. About ten of us showed up. We were told to ‘put something together’ immediately. We asked each other, ‘What songs do you know?’ and we ended up with about three or four songs.” They performed in the square and despite Rodriguez thinking they were “terrible,” they went down well with the locals and were asked back again to play on New Year’s Eve.
The Apollo Stars were born. The band as credited on The Power of Source consisted of Tamia Arbuckle (bass, guitar), Craig Ferreira (guitar), Luten Taylor (bass), Russ Meadows (bass, flute), Charlie Rush (drums), Kenny Campleman (flute), Bill Potter (saxophone), Neil Sarfati (saxophone) and Wayne Marple (trumpet). Ferreira claims to have put this lineup together, with Sarfati then positioning himself as a director of sorts. “I became the head of the whole troupe,” Sarfati says. “I guess I had the balls because I’m a New Yorker.”
According to Sarfati, the band had some big hitters in tow. Taylor was one of the original composers for the Mission Impossible theme tune, Potter had played for Big Mama Thornton and Ferreira recalls fellow guitar player Arbuckle as being a “Japanese rock star,” referring to his time in the RCA-signed band the Lead in the late ’60s. As for the other members, “A lot of the folks just came from playing in garage bands,” says Ferreira. Various members joined the church at different times and for different reasons, but Sarfati’s story was a fairly common one. “At the time [1973] I was 23 years old and lost. I didn't know where to go. I was looking for answers, and I thought that [the church] was the answer.”
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“We moved from the sea to land in ’75,” remembers Rodriguez. “I pretty much ceased being a band member then. Others continued to play together, when we had parties.” Sarfati left the Apollo Stars the following year.
“I ‘woke up’ in ’76, when they put me in a prison camp and I escaped. The more I went through it [prison], the more it awoke me. It had the reverse effect on me. I was thinking, ‘Holy fuck, what am I doing here?’” The escape involved having to trick his former bandmate, drummer Charlie Rush, into thinking that he had explosive diarrhea in order to temporarily get out of a cell. Sarfati grabbed some money and clothes that he’d stashed behind a dumpster, hopped a prison wall, made his way to the airport and never looked back, not to Scientology nor the Apollo Stars.
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