Steve Conte
If you only know Steve Conte for his top-shelf work in the Michael Monroe band, you’re missing the bigger picture of his wildly impressive career. The singer/songwriter/guitarist joins us to discuss his latest album, “The Concrete Jangle,” his years with the New York Dolls, that time he jammed with Chuck Berry, his ongoing hot streak with Michael Monroe and so much more. The guy just oozes rock’n’roll.
Created and Produced by Jared Tuten
what's up everybody metal Dave along with my cohost Jason McMaster bringing you another episode of the talk louder podcast today we are joined by Steve Conti guitar player for the Michael Monroe band he also spent a number of years with the New York Dolls he's got a prolific solo career his new album is called the concrete jangle yes jangle the concrete jangle he's got a new single out and he's on wicked cool records the label owned by little Steven bands and from a Bruce Springsteen fame and sopranos I guess yeah he's well well yeah so yeah he works for Silvio yeah that's frightening yeah but uh Steve anyone who knows me knows I'm a huge fan of the Michael Monroe band they put out five albums in recent years they've all been stellar Steve has been the constant guitar player on all five of those albums he's a terrific songwriter lyric lyricist he's much more than just the guy that plays a few barre chords he's he's quite the songwriter quite the lyricist and that band has rotated some guitar players in and out ginger from the wild hearts was in the band dragon from backyard babies was in the band and rich Jones from black halos is currently in the band with Steve so Steve has been the one constant and the records are fantastic if you haven't heard the last five Michael Monroe records go check them out and apparently they're hard to work on the next one so Steve's a busy man he's got a solo career he's got the Michael Monroe stuff and of course we had to pick his brain about the New York dolls and a bunch of other things he's got a new single out yeah we we like it we like it that's correct we like it no that's the name of the song we like it and it's called yeah and it's got cameos on the backup vocals it's got some people I mean as soon as as soon as I saw Danco Jones in there I was like all right I'm cool with this guy yeah that's all I needed to see was Danco in there and I was cool yeah but it's cool it's very it's there's a lot going on I don't just hear dirty rock and roll you know I hear boogie and it's very classic sounding it's not just I mean you could put a horn section over it like you would hear a horn section in a Rolling Stones tune or something sure yeah and that seems to be his forte yeah which makes sense that he works with Michael Monroe because this Michael Monroe plays the saxophone and it's very stonesy if the stones were a punk a big band punk band you know jazz punk rock band you know I don't know anyway I learned a lot from hanging out with Steve today and we were just I have to end with this or jump into this me and Dave were just kind of jiving and shooting the shit here before we press record for this intro I learned a lot hanging with Steve Conti today and this was one where going in and reading Steve's bio to quote fingers prepare for this which I don't really prepare for anything I did read through everything and it was a lot of like aha moments and stuff me and Dave have this thing that's that we don't really talk about and I brought it up that we don't really talk about it so I guess in reality we're talking about it right now with you the listener yeah that Steve this interview was what I call one of Dave's and like when I don't know Jean Hoeglen is on here yeah Jean was one of Jason's and I'll just follow Jason's lead and we we've never talked about it until right fucking now that we walk away from the text message going hey I just booked so-and-so hey oh hey I just booked so-and-so and I might even walk away going sounds familiar but who the fuck is that okay I'll just follow Dave's lead so oh this was one of Dave's and we were laughing about that in in at the end of a fucking awesome episode on the talk louder podcast with Steve Conti where going into it I was like yeah yeah yeah but not like dumbing it down just because it's one of Dave's quote fingers yeah and me I was just gonna I was along for the ride oh this would be cool I would learn a lot and meaning I usually won't have a lot of questions or jump in and go on oh I have that record and that but I did I did have a few things to add and I was I'm not patting myself on the back I'm just saying it was one of Dave's and I learned a lot and it was great and he was great and I was kind of enamored with him he's a cool he's a cool a really cool rock and roll personality um very east coast all about if you if you don't even need to see a picture when I say east coast dirty rock and roll singer songwriter guitar player and he plays with Mike Monroe and he was in the New York Dolls 2.0 and he knows cheetah chrome motherfucker and he worked has worked with all Sylvain blah blah blah you already know what he looks like what he smells like and what he sounds like yeah uh so yeah I'm just saying I'm just cheerleading uh this episode I had a fucking blast hanging out with Steve today so yeah absolutely it's so funny that we're that you bring this up and we're talking about it because we've been doing this podcast for three and a half years and you I have or had this conversation before but I guarantee you just like you said there's times I shoot you a text and I go hey I just booked so and so and I'm sure you're shaking your head going okay whatever right there's a fuck is that okay whatever you do the same to me and I go walking away it's uh it's one of Jason's metal dudes I don't know who this guy is whatever but I'll just follow along and we've done it to each other I've walked away from some episodes that you booked and I've just been like wow that dude was super cool and I learned so much and I've got a whole new respect for him and you've done the same with some of the guests that I booked so it works people somehow yeah words you know yeah before we before we get into uh the interview here with Steve Conti uh I want to do a shout out to Mark Moots who uh displayed to me a screenshot of his Spotify account with the talk louder you know account open and it says something weird like quote unplayed unquote something and that what that means and he had to explain I'm like what am I looking at I don't even use Spotify but what does this mean and he had to explain he says it means I've watched every episode or her listen to every episode on my Spotify account that you guys have ever made well that's like 200 episodes yeah for three years of podcasting releasing at least one a week for three years yeah and he's listened to every single minute of me and Dave be dumb yeah I was going to say is he a glutton for punishment or well all my my response to him immediately was time on your hands yeah time on your hands and his his response was I believe something like I listened to it in the car on my way to work I listened to it while I'm tattooing I listened to it while I'm you know so it just kind of goes to show that one man's junk is another man's treasure so thank you to Mark Mootz for for putting up with the torture that is the talk louder podcast but I wanted to like come up with and you guys kind of I don't know Jared seemed like he was Jared our producer seemed to be into it but I almost feel like and I I'm stealing this idea from the Danco Jones podcast that if you're on the show more than or if you're on the show three times you get a patch and the patch doesn't say I was on the Danco Jones show three times but I've been on the Danco Jones three times and he sent me a patch and he you know so I thought that and the patch is cool and I just wanted to do a talk louder patch for people like Mark Mootz who he wasn't trying to prove anything other than he just goes hey man hurry up and make some more because I've listened to all of them and it was just really weird and and very cool at the same time so at least I can do I don't have a patch for people who can prove to us that they've listened to every episode but a shout out will have to do now so yeah and and a shout out on my behalf Mark has also sent us some of his records he has a band called Wait of the Tide so go check that out if you're interested it's it's metal it's heavy this is the I believe the the second record and then the new one is the third the third record I thought yeah the the thing he sent us the other day is the upcoming third one that comes out in September I believe yeah it's not out yet so don't get too excited yeah but there are previous releases the band's called Wait of the Tide Mark Mootz we thank you so much for listening to every single episode you're you are wrong with you bro no I'm kidding you might want to seek some medical help for that but we do appreciate well the guys the guy's cool as hell and supports the show so we appreciate that very right right for what it's worth yeah yeah well without further ado man we got a great episode today with Steve Conte it's a great great great episode we've learned so much we appreciate it his time we thank him for joining us here he is today Steve Conte on the talk louder podcast that's me I'm a little fuzzy right I was gonna say rock and roll is fuzzy around the edges if I remember the clock so you know I'm enjoying a beverage here there you go there you go well man thanks for joining us today I'm a huge fan our audience is gonna know you mostly for your work with Michael Monroe and the New York Dog but that's only a fraction of your career and I want to talk about as much of it as we can and let's start with the timely stuff you've got a new single in a new video the song is called We Like It off of your album Conte the Concrete Jangle clever play on words there Steve thank you for getting that correct you know people have said the concrete jungle yeah that's what it would be if I wanted to name it the same old thing that everyone else named their album and the and the rickin bocker is a bit of a as a clue as well if you're in the know but you know like people aren't in the know you know what I'm saying yeah well you're single yeah the single and the video uh special guests on that video we've had a lot of them on this show we've had Tommy Price and the black halo's Danko Jones Danko Jones we love Danko it's Tommy in the video I don't think he's in the video because seeing Ian Hunter Michael Imperial Lee you know some big names that I wasn't able to get for the video I mean actually it's kind of good that I couldn't get them all because uh there was there's only 15 times that we say yeah yeah we like it and I already had to gang up sometimes three or four people in one screen at the same time I would have never been able to fit everybody's there's like 60 people that sing on it yeah yeah well I think that's a testament to your your vast circle of friends and musical connections so yeah it's a great song too a nice it's kind of got a glam rock sort of backbeat and it's a bit of a stomper and it's obviously memorable right off the bat so tell us a little bit about you know you can start with that song and just the album as a whole I know the album you wrote about half of it with your songwriting hero Andrew Partridge sorry Andy Partridge from XDC how long have you known him and how did this songwriting collaboration come about I met let's see going all the way back to the early 2000s we had a mutual friend who built guitars for him and who repaired my guitars in New York and when I heard that my my friend Dennis Fano he makes guitars called Fano guitars which now he stole the now it's called no Vogue guitars but he was making a an acoustic for Andy I said you're kidding me I said you got to give Andy my latest record you know I think you really love it it was an album I did with my brother called Bleed Together and we were calling ourselves the Contees right it was a very adventurous musically kind of thing went from like psycho Billy garage to like jazz lounge moves really creative um underrated and I think it should be released now but anyway Andy really liked the album but we weren't personally in touch I got messages back through my friend and then it wasn't until I joined the New York Dolls and started became president Steve Lillywhite producer who had done two XDC albums Black Sea and drums and wires and we were chatting with him on Twitter and we wrote Andy into the conversation and Andy said hey you stole my dream gig I wanted to be the guitarist in New York Dolls I went I had no idea that's really wild and we just started chatting after that and um sending each other private messages and um and then I was coming through his town of Swindon in England with Alice Cooper I was put on the road with Michael Monroe we were opening for Alice and Andy said I hear you'll be in my shitty shithole town I'll buy you lunch and I was like yes so we uh that day Andy came pick me up at the arena we went out we had lunch I came back I played the show with Michael and then I jumped on stage with Alice and did schools out so what a day that was man and it was like hanging out with with an old friend we just we had never been in each other's presence before but we knew enough about each other I was a huge fan of his I don't know what he thought about my music besides that one album years before but um yeah we just got along really great and then um he started giving me really great write-ups and reviews and quotes for my next couple albums um I think it was a branch cheer and um also Steve Conti NYC yeah and then uh then I asked him point blank I said would you like to write my next single for me with four wicked cool records and he said well it's not a no but uh I sort of swore off writing with other people and I said well not a no it was encouraging so I ran away and whipped up this track that I thought he'd really like and I sent it to him and he was like it's great but it's um it sounds too finished because why don't we start something from scratch wow uh we uh he said let's do a zoom I said great and we were supposed to write one song we end up doing a bunch of zooms and writing eight songs wow wow so when you're writing with one of your heroes like that uh what and you're an accomplished songwriter yourself um what do you what do you learn from Andy when you're having these sessions oh my god man I mean completely different approach to songwriting than I have okay it's I've tried to like figure out how to make it natural to me but it's really his unique thing he um he hears music as colors and pictures wow so when he hears a riff like we're writing one of the songs and he played this chord and he went ooh sounds like a bell and we kept playing it and dang he like one last bell he just came out with this okay wow it's a song about a bell and what's the bell mean and you know and then we you know you get a hook you get a title you get a vibe for what the song is you know sounds like and then you write it from there so we're like well what does the bell stand for it stands for truth and freedom and you know this bell is going to usher in a new era of truth and out with the old misinformation and you know obviously hopefully of course yeah who knows what's really going to happen but that was our wish you know so that's just one example of uh of how he you know he's a he's a painter and an artist so he really thinks visually and and hears visually you know I more or less uh you know I if I have a piece of music first sometimes uh you know I'll go through a hundred different you know lyrics and hooks until I find one that clicks you know yeah and I'm kind of like putting things together rather than what does this sound like does it sound like a cucumber you know or whatever you know I mean I don't think like that so um yeah it's really unique it's really cool that you you could you know zoom be in a room it whatever with someone you have that much respect for and walk away going holy shit and like learn because there's not one way to write a song and you know that and he knows that uh and just to like even to like soak up the way that someone else who you respect does it probably can help you and has it helped you as a writer like just moving forward on your own shit oh yeah I mean you know even on on the same album I mean I had to you know we wrote five songs we wrote all the songs on side A so tracks one through five and I didn't arrange it this way on purpose to put all the partridge conti conti partridge he insisted that my name go first by the way which is very humble of him but I didn't like put those first like okay here's the great songwriter stuff for it just worked out that way as I was arranging the album what felt good going from one thing to another I was like oh look at that all the partridge conti songs are on one side but I had to pick five other songs of mine that would go along with those and some I picked a couple of older ones a girl with no name and Motor City Love Machine were both from the 80s I mean I wrote them 40 years ago wow Motor City Love Machine had updated lyrics it was called something else back then but you know he raised the bar for me so I was like I can't have no shabby songs on site right and actually some people who have listened to the album said you know I thought that was one of Andy's you know your second side stuff and okay wow I like your stuff as much as the you and Andy stuff and I was like god you know that's a huge compliment but even in the songs I was writing with him people said oh that line must be Andy's and like no it's actually mine you know like some weird lyrics that I thought I would never be able to get into a song like Quasimodo and Oligark and it's a really strange words a pyromaniac like I would never try and put those words in but do you play the form I was like Andy's gonna hate these because they're too weird and of course who am I thinking it's too weird any partridge is a fucking weird songwriter and a great weird songwriter not specific to what you're what you're telling us now but when you're when you're writing lyrics do you do you have like I have just stacks of notes everywhere and I call I go through them all the fucking time they're fucking every yeah here we go here's the same shit yeah same shit yeah I yeah exactly yeah exactly but I didn't see you anymore this is only the top layer in my jewelry yeah I love it I love it it's I got the same disease man i got a hundred of these yeah so so cassettes cassette you know look at this 90 minute cassettes from the 80s 90s you know that's just from this morning right yeah the pandemic was good for one thing me going through all of that stacks of cassettes and keep and throw and keep and throw anyway what I was getting at that's hilarious what I was getting at is do you when you're you know you hear something or something pops up and that's a cool word or that's a weird phrase and I'm gonna try to get that in a song one day is it do you find it hard just whether you're working with Andy or outside collab or not do you find it that you I'm gonna you know I till I'm gonna try really hard to get quasi-modo in a song you know or is it it was it was never that okay gorgeous but but you know thank God for this yeah notes on his phone you're invaluable it like sinks to my computer at home so like I'm at home I just write everything in notes now yeah and then when I'm on the train or in the car or yeah I don't have my computer with me I got everything from my lyric writing here on my phone too and I can update and updates at home and great but yeah uh no there wasn't a conscience like I'm gonna write some weird shit you know it was just like it came out at the time and I went oh Andy's probably gonna nix that one you know and he didn't and I'm like of course he didn't because he likes weird shit so when you're working you know I if I wasn't writing it with Andy I might have said oh I can't put that word in right I don't you know I would I would get excited I'm conscious of being too weird you know I get excited when I finally figured out a way I can put you know oh yeah I get excited when I figure out a way to get something weird I've always wanted to wow I used a new word instead of the same shit all the time you know yeah I mean there's a song I have give me give me rock away I don't know if you know my last yeah yeah yeah I saw that on your you know there's a I always wanted to get the town Sheep's Head Bay into a song it's always been a funny part of Queens New York and you know I always laughed at it when I was a kid Sheep's Head Bay and I got it into a song I was like nice you know every time I played the song I just love shouting at Sheep's Head Bay when I'm like playing live you know getting landmarks from your from growing up I think in your lyrics is has always been a really cool thing and yeah I mean any lame strawberry fields perfect yeah exactly perfect did you notice at any point during your writing with Andy was there ever a time where you felt like he learned something from you yeah he um what I don't know if he would say it that way but you know there's there's a quote that he gave me for the album he said um I hate Steve Conti he's got more hair than me he's a better guitar player than me and uh I tried to ruin his new record by writing it with him but it didn't work it's great so you know something like that paraphrasing that's a pea that's pretty good yeah he begs my guitar playing because you know he's like a self-taught like he plays in he's a great guitar player but you know in a non-traditional kind of way like I've learned to play in so many different bags and styles because I've had to I'm only a you know Andy's had a career as being Andy Partridge's soul life right or singer guitar player for XDC and solo he hasn't had to like go play a freaking wedding or a you know or a country gig or a R&B covered band you know I've had to do all kinds of different things so I'm like well versed in a lot of different styles you know I've played funk and soul and blues country and folk and jazz you know so you know yeah so I you know he respects that about me I played him one of my like bebop jazz songs that I wrote back when I was like studying bebop pretty hard and he went you can play that I never knew you could do that he goes why are you messing with mere pop music with your kind of musicianship and I was like I love the right songs man you know yeah I didn't want to you know I studied real hard at jazz for like five or ten years somewhere in there and you know I realized I don't want to starve just playing jazz I mean I love I love dressing up and having my hair freaky and you know writing songs and singing and being crazy on stage and you know I'm going to put a suit on and play my little jazz gigs you know yeah although I love the music you know I've listened to have a thingy and John Scholfield and West Montgomery and there's some of my favorite music ever is jazz well you got to put on your rat scallion uniform like you described and go play jazz yeah well I believe me I've been racking my brain how to bridge those two worlds for decades now it can be done you you got it in you I wanted to have you on the show I started you know going down the rabbit hole and I got stuck on Bronx cheer man that is a great great record in fact I tried to buy it off your website and it said it was sold out so then I went and I looked somewhere else just before we started this conversation today that was last night and I start I looked somewhere else and I found it available elsewhere and I may have this wrong it might be available on your website and wasn't available at first place but the fact of the matter is at some point it's sold out of somewhere and I wasn't surprised because it's a really really good record and I found it to be like it's it's got a lot of garage rock and a lot of soul and a lot of grit and there's a lot of I noticed your songwriting style your lyrics lend themselves to like storytelling and building characters and things like that and I get all that I love to hear music visually like you were saying earlier about Andy it's all right yeah it's okay we had my little boy hey dude bring him in yeah it's totally fine hey dude hey buddy that's bad as he just came back from the pool hey guys welcome buddy how you doing buddy all right i'll see you in a little while okay yeah we're we're all good with that kind of we've had cats cats and dogs kids and cats and chickens yeah yeah yeah anyway i'm sorry i didn't all good wrong's here yeah what oh yeah lyrics and stories and characters yeah yeah um any particular song it thank you know i like uh i like recovery doll is that was that the title yeah yeah that one and uh uh my degeneration and dog days of summer and uh the one that i really liked it was kind of a little separate from the rest in my opinion was guilty because guilty kind of had like a real moody vibe to it or something it was something about that song but the whole album as a collection was fantastic oh thank you well you know some of them are autobiographical guilty is about you know an old girlfriend totally happened you know um and so is my degeneration that's kind of the story of my growing up in suburban New Jersey and driving into Manhattan to you know cop pills and other stuff at the park you know yeah and then trying to drive home after doing them not very wise thing i'd suggest that to anyone but you know those kind of songs it's a bit of a cautionary tale and and i actually say in there i go uh if what is it one of my favorite lines i've ever written actually um if i could get a refund on my misspent youth i wouldn't change a thing i'm better for it that's the truth yeah yeah i know um a lot of stuff is just you know written from from true thing true you know situations and like recovery doll i was thinking about i like to make like composites for people so it's not only about one person right and sometimes i'll purposely change it if i think it's too close to like oh this person's gonna know it's about them then i'll make it a guy instead of a girl or a girl instead of a guy or just thinking that's so vain i was thinking about thunders um and you know it was my it was my wish for them you know didn't work in their cases you know they all it succumbed to the addictions but you know um that was my my wish that they were going to get over it you know yeah still with us um there's another one you mentioned dog there's a summer that's you know just kind of every kid sure you know going back to school and then those last couple days of august our boy school's gonna start uh you know but it actually could be a fun thing you know you you're going to the gap and buying new jeans and the gap back when i was a kid it was actual Levi's it wasn't you know yeah yeah we remember it wasn't like gap gap it was Levi's Strauss you know what i'm saying yeah well i can't i can't recommend that album enough anyone watching or listening uh if you haven't delved into Steve's solo career i would say start with bronch's cheer because i love it it's just got so it's kind of got a little tom petty and a little there's something there's something it's not soul music but the music has soul if it's yeah well you know my favorite singers have always been soul singers you know i mean obviously the black singers like Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder and Sly Stone and and then you know like white soul singers like Rod Stewart and Paul Rogers and Steve Marriott yeah you know i'm not much of a punk screamer yeah i like the music to have like punk energy sometimes but i remember one guy coming in my getting in my face in a gig and going punk punk you're not sure you're punk i'm like yeah i'm not a punk singer dude is there a story behind the title bronch's cheer isn't that like isn't that New York slang for something or well bronch cheer is a you know uh okay okay and uh i live in the Bronx okay just so happens that the kid on the album is in protest of and now i don't want to get too political here i don't know where anybody's leaning but that picture is a kid uh protesting with a bunch of other high school students protesting the election of Donald Trump in Manhattan okay avenue all right 2016 actual photo yeah an actual photo yeah i had to blur out some of the kids because they didn't give me permission but that main kid gave me permission and i saw that photo in New York magazine i went wow that's my cover right there i looked up the photographer i found him nice feel and uh you know wow nice good work record let's uh let's talk about your time in the New York dolls uh you talked you mentioned earlier you said uh that Andy said that you stole his dream gig and i was thinking to myself you stole everybody's dream gig everybody wanted to be johnny thunders in the New York dolls so and you got the gig how did that come about there was no audition there was no cattle call though like David uh asked a couple of well respected guitarist that he knew that he was working with in New York um i'm putting the dolls back together for one gig he said who should i call and everybody told him the same thing they said call Connie don't call anybody else he's the right guy he's got the right look nose hair kibson's marshall you know yeah um Italian you know so uh like genzali you know thunders yeah so uh but it really you know but you know he's not a junky fuck up so right right he might stick around yeah so uh you know David called i i actually knew he was going to call because one of the guys who um recommended me called and said Steve i just gave you a number to david joe hanson this guy Larry saltman great guitar player of new york so i just gave you names david and also jimmy vivino from the conan show uh the max one bird seven yeah he gave uh david my name and number and he uh they told me yeah i gave you a number to david he's gonna be calling you and um sure enough phone rang and he's like Steve it's david joe hanson you know it's pretty good uh you know meet up and so we uh we went we had lunch and uh we only talked we just gapped the david joe hanson eats that's that yeah he actually eats he eats he had apple cantaloupe and uh was that a place called the cosmic coffee shop which was around the corner from where he was living and on the upper west side and um yeah after an hour of chatting he went well i took the liberty of uh making this you know he threw this envelope on a table i took the liberty of making this package for you it's got cds and charts and uh you know what do you think you want to do this gig and i was like hell yeah so we thought it was one gig at the world festival hall we walked outside the the restaurant and all of a sudden there were like all these music people just like happen to be walking towards the diner there and they saw me and david joe hanson were like what's going on here i was like uh you know and then speculation started you know brewing and uh the next thing i knew you know it was it was out there you know yeah yeah the guy and i didn't even he'd never even heard a note of of my book well he probably researched me on the internet he probably like looked at youtube and listened to my records and okay the guy can play or or he just saw the nose and the hair well i think i've had a lot to do with the personality because we talked for quite a while and you know obviously obviously yeah capable musician but it is true you can creep on anybody now yeah i thought you could what do you mean by that anybody can go oh so and so and go look you up and watch videos oh yeah find out where you live and all that shit yeah stalk yeah creep yeah so i remember uh the dolls play i'm in austin texas jason is right outside of austin so we're in austin texas i remember he played south by south west it stubs i think love that town love that place and it was day my first record i made my first record there in 1989 company wolves oh you made that nasty mercury yeah we recorded in austin at studio d yeah which was where the uh george's satellites recorded there's stuff and i used rick's and uh and um dance uh high watts and marshals and we used our producer and yeah it was a whole and cool i might have that record around here somewhere i had no idea a few yeah this is this the landfill behind me yeah no the good shits over there somewhere i i remember that gig it was like the buzzed about show in town and you know so me and my buddies we went and we saw you and it was amazing that we're in san atonia or did you see it here dave i saw here it stubs oh cool stuff the the dolls the dolls yeah i thought david said uh is that the very first one where david said we're looking for a record deal on stage i think so yeah yeah yeah yeah and um yeah i think we played a couple of new songs since we just started writing songs we played one of mine called punishing world yeah yeah and uh of course she had sammy yafa in the band uh so when you first joined the dolls did you did you play uh that first gig with uh arthur kane yes okay so yeah i when i joined the dolls it was me arthur david solyne and brian dalini and brian coonin who was david's like musical director from his buster point next two days he was really a guitar player but david put him on keyboards because he also played piano he had him there just kind of to be the musical director in case you know things went wrong yeah but we didn't really need him because you know we were everybody was good enough and then we ended up you know having a completely different lineup for the uh well we had a different drummer for the morsey shows in london we had gerry power from the liberties and drums and then when we came back to the states brian dalini rejoined the band but uh yeah arthur was was there from from day one and you know uh i told him the story of uh how doll's first drummer billy mercia you know the story of how he died yeah band even came out he died in the bathtub in england rantrex and then he like drowned or something in it i think people tried to pour coffee down his throat and he drowned from the coffee or something but anyway i told arthur that um billy's family moved into my town in new jersey where i was grown up and this guy al faunce mercia used to follow me around going hey man you look like jonnie funders he'd be like whoo that was a kid he was like jonnie funders you know new york bells heartbreakers i had no idea so he brought all the records over to my house Sylvain Sylvain the criminals thunders the heartbreakers the dolls he brought uh the boe album uh a lad insane where boe talks about billy doll on the oven and so like i grew up with this guy the the brother of the the doll's drummer and uh i told arthur this and arthur was like it's fate that you're in this band you know wow he he was such a great guy man man that is that is crazy yeah that is crazy yeah 25 years or whatever 15 years later after you know that yeah that whatever it was they their hands have called me you know it's like this is freaky you know so obviously it lasted more than a gig you did two albums or three albums but four is there a live live album there's two live albums there's the one from rough festival hall with arthur okay pvd that's called morcy presents return to the new york bells then there is uh the pink album one day it will please us then there's because i said so oh before because i said so we did a live at the film or east okay yeah because i said so two live albums two studio albums so we have a we have a buddy here in town that played uh in Sylvain's band a few years ago and they toured japan and they did a bunch of dates in the in the us and he lives five minutes from me so Sylvain i went to their rehearsal and watched and you got to meet Sylvain and hang around and then when they played shows i was kind of in on in the inner circle so i was getting to know Sylvain a little bit not like you but enough to where we would talk and hang out and stuff and by all accounts everybody just absolutely loved that guy what uh would yeah tell me um what's your most vivid memory of cil besides him calling everybody jackson jackson yeah oh man um i'd have to go down a list man um i mean we wrote songs together i went to his his house we were his apartment in new york we have some amazing record like and half hour like boss and over that we were writing together you know i recorded in my phone and i still have it um you know just he's he was such a free spirit like just a natural you know all he did was he was just you open up the dictionary look for rock and roll and there's this picture you know i mean that's what he was he wasn't like not like me or like i did a little this a little that he was just from straight down the middle rock and roll and um but he did love you know like french film music and like it was really eclectic in what he liked but when it came down to writing songs he was like you know all key of a bogey you know yeah and it had to be sexy he's like that's not sexy enough you know and he had points with the kids you know he was always talking like that and like the kids are like 60 years old now so man and he was such a character with his like mispronunciations of words too like he would say the craziest things like uh paste yourself yeah be good there you go hey man watch out with that alcohol you know paste yourself very good like that i mean really hilarious and yeah ah man uh i got to i got into play on a couple of my uh or at least one of my solo tracks and one of my records which he's the same place guitar tarsal on and yeah i i'm just a guy he's a beautiful guy yeah we should we should give name to jason cottwith's who was playing with so was that a guy yeah yeah yeah he played uh he's got a band now called the oxies and in fact i think little steven has played him on his show yeah probably right alongside some of your stuff yeah i'm sure what band was the end at the time though with sill was he and it was it was called Sylvain Sylvain in the Sylvain's oh yeah no but it was he and a part of another band before that was he like the murder that he devils or one of the red city rockers or something that he was playing with from texas i thought there was a bunch of stuff around here uh he played in the bulimics and then he played with uh he played with cheetah chrome for a while too and that sort of led to the he was in the the the 2.0 version of the dead boys if you will and he played uh on with cheetah when cheetah was out as a solo artist before he reformed the dead boys and then jason stayed with them they call him ginchie they don't call him jason they call him ginchie yeah everybody calls them ginchie ginchie gin yeah yeah yeah yeah you guys are you guys are kindred spirits you you would hit it off right yeah yeah you guys would yeah he's he's uh he's a rock and roll motherfucker that's for sure yeah i was in a narrow smith tribute band for him with him for a while and that was a lot of fun working with him yeah he's a he's a great player and all of his influences are right up your alley oh yeah oh no yeah because of him we got we all here in austin some of us you know got to know sylvane a bit because he was hanging around and uh and he was just uh such a charismatic dude and and so much fun to be around and i was just in awe that i was even sitting in a in a rehearsal room the size of a walk-in closet watching them run through new york doll songs i was like i cannot believe i'm sitting here watching this it's crazy it's great yeah that's kind of the you know that's kind of the first feeling i had although you know i wasn't really a doll's fan grown up so it was like it was a little like yeah so what you know but wow i was aware that i was in the presence of you know legends oh yeah especially when him and arthur started talking about remember maxis kansas city when bebebebebe and i'd be like thanks again this city you know because i was a kid like looking at the this we had a magazine called rock scene magazine and uh like everybody would be in there you know like thunders and the heartbreakers and joyous and solo this was like at that a doll's broke up yeah um you know i'd be looking at maxis kansas city and there'd be like you know the stooges being there were eggy and you know be like maxes if i could only get into max since i was only like 17 or 16 and these guys are talking about you know we were part of the revolution and i was like yes you were yeah so speaking of were you a fan of hanoy rocks before you joined the michael roving? same thing same thing didn't uh never heard a hanoy rock song in my life before with michael i knew uh michael solo stuff because uh we had we were on the same label actually and so with the dolls the company was was on mercury, new york dolls was on mercury and michael munro was on mercury yeah mercury poisoning as we were in parker put it once so uh yeah when we signed to mercury company was we went up and we met everyone at the label and they pointed us to the supply closet they said god take whatever you want and we're going through there i was like oh james brown box said it like both diddley hit all the stacks boxes and everything uh thanks take some of these you know new cds too and we're going through i'm going oh i don't know who this is uh michael munro who's this oh at least man of rocks solo okay took it and really like jail rock and roll yeah jail rock and roll is gonna say yeah that was the song and uh and uh more that one that's all i knew that's all i knew of michael was rock and roll and that actual was in the video and um and then it never really took off yeah i had two steps from the move and dead dead jail or rock and roll that's about all i had yeah i think uh steve's talking about uh is the album called not faking it was yeah that's right that's right that's right that's right tommy price played drums on that firehouse the price is on it all my friends were you know i i didn't know at the time that these friends of mine you know uh phil grandi was a guitar player i knew him from around town and joe cocker he was played with and um who else uh tommy and um well jimmy rip the other guitar player i've come to know over the past years he played with jagger and he's in television till tom verlaine passed um but yeah there's a lot of like it was kind of a studio cats album you know yeah um like because we just played a bunch of the stuff from not faking it when we did uh we did a show in in japan recently where we did the whole two steps from the move album and the whole not faking an album one now we did like our set after that's a gig that's a gig i would have known most of the songs it was fun but you know it's interesting you know the difference between playing a hanor rock song with where it was a band yeah and like not faking it was like a bunch of studio guys with a producer saying you know try this sound you know um there's a big difference in in the vibe you know yeah yeah and uh that's why you know we only do certain songs from that album because it's uh it's kind of slick you know what i mean yeah yeah is it safe to say that uh that sammy got you into the michael one row band for me time in the new york dolls yeah yeah that's what happened we were you know i find that you know these reunion things um they're very interesting at first you know everybody who never saw the dolls you know you know rushed out to see us the first like i was in the band six years so the first two years was like everything was sold out all the time and then it just kind of got a little bit less and and by the end um i needed to work more i just had a kid and everything and and uh so sammy had rekindled his friendship with michael and they were working on a little something together and this around 2009 and then uh around 2010 it was just like man the work was really drying up for the dolls and uh uh sammy said you want to do this with michael and i said sure i'll check it out and i came uh went out west and did a few gigs we actually came to south by southwest i was there i was right in front of you oh yeah you brought out cheetah chrome oh yeah we played silver spurs we played you know yeah the rusty spurs rusty spurs right you know by day that was a as a gay gay bar i never set foot in that place but i was like if something's going to get me into that bar it's the michaelman row band and i was already familiar with ginger at that point so i went down and to this day to this day you know they're all the time now i don't even know if it's open anymore but no but i will say to this day it is in the top five best gigs i've ever seen and it was just a daytime bar room all sweaty rock and roll show it was so good i think we did ain't nothing to do with cheetah that's right you did yeah yeah that was a that was a blast we did that and and i think we played maggie maze maybe uh yes yeah up top yeah and then you played the continental club before you left town oh okay right yeah rondo uh how the hundred risk of it set that up yeah um so you got into the michaelman row band and let me and let me also say that i think that you guys have the hottest streak in rock and roll you're on you've got five albums out since sensory overdrive and that was 2011 and that album won award after award after award and critics top of the list and all this stuff that album was amazing and you followed it consistently with nothing but stellar records ever since five albums in a row and they're all quality and you uh are one of the you're the constant guitar player on all those records because at first it was you and ginger then it was you and dragon now it's been you and rich jones i once did an interview with michael and i said is it safe at this point to say that steve canti is your secret weapon and he said he said i don't know if it's a secret but he is a weapon so those five records man i will say it to anyone who will listen and even people that won't those are five stellar records and i'm so excited to hear the new one i know you guys are working on it but tell me a little bit about because some of the songs that i like the most are yours uh uh i stayed in stained glass heart for example i thought when i heard that song if that song would have been sung by pink you know some some some woman pop artist or whatever it would have been a smash hit i mean it was so good that is such a great song and in the video is so much fun and i love the scene in the video where you're being dropped from that thing and you're kind of winking your mouth yeah tell me about that video like i can people like a camera right here and they drop you know you go up like i don't know how many feet in the air but it just drops it yeah i'm like no this camera is going to capture me like puking or something well when there's one scene where you're being dropped and as you're being dropped you wink your eye oh really yeah yeah watch it more than me oh man i'm telling you it's i gotta go look at it now it's ear candy to the max man oh wow have video shoot you guys shot it in an abandoned amusement parker it oh well wasn't abandoned because the ride still worked obviously right i mean it was after hours or so yeah it was after hours it was uh it's place called lina maki in health thinking we actually we should do most of our videos in health thinking we do most work gigs in health thinking in finland but um yeah that was done there uh bellard laurie side was done with sat at the slash show and backstage at tabastia where we play yeah so we all of our stuff is uh it's done there but um yes thank god so hard is a good one that's a dragon riff the very opening riff that i can head and then i wrote the song off of that so that's that's my favorite album personally you're all over now just because i wrote most of the songs on it but it was a really creative like everybody chipped in and it wasn't like lately we've had this trend in the band where i bring my songs already finished rich brings his songs in already finished we do demos at home um and that kind of adds it kind of makes it a little too one-dimensional but this new album we actually wrote some stuff together jamming in a room so um this is going to have some fresh sounds on it but um that horns and halo's album was uh was really good for stuff like that and y'all would bring in a riff and uh uh uh uh uh um soul surrender you know and you know where it was up to me to make you know because everybody was like oh ginger's gone he wrote most of the songs on the first album what are we gonna do now and i said hello yeah yeah and that's no they didn't know that i could really they didn't know what i was capable of you know so yeah and ginger's a hell of a songwriter ginger's a hell of a songwriter so like you stepped up and yeah you're all over that uh horns and halo's record and i uh black out states i love that record is i mean i love all five of them but there's a song on there who one of the singles is old king's road oh yeah i think a lot of people assume that that's michael's song because it has a lot of references to the old punk scene and and there's like uh references maybe not direct references but maybe indirect references to like Sid Vicious and the whole punk rock scene but that's all you isn't it i'm smart i know how to get michael to sing one of my songs yeah make it about him and make it about punk 77 and one and you're in you know like ballad on the lower east side well it's about new york people think that's a michael song too that's a hundred percent my song yeah yeah i live in new york and i lived here he lived here for like 10 years maybe i've lived here 40 years you know i know what new york was i know what it is i know what it's become i know it's gone downhill so you know whenever things are different today back in new york i know what i'm talking about but you know everybody thinks well michael lived on the hills angels block you know third street so you know i included that and i included all this stuff so it sounded like it was a song written by him yeah yeah he likes that he appreciated it yeah the other song that uh has your stamp all over it that is just pure ear candy is uh going down with the ship what what a tune man i mean that's song you know i must say uh king's road and uh ship or uh well king's road had a bit of sammy and and rich on the music but i wrote the lyrics and melody okay text and story and everything and ship was me and rich together but yeah i had a lot to do with the melody and lyrics on that but yeah it's it's a really good team that we got yeah work together you know where are you on the new album i got uh six songs that i'm uh a part of about probably three or just me and three are with the band so yeah it's pretty uh it's gonna be very interesting so we've we've talked we had michael on the show and you know we talked a little bit about you the michael and roe band was in texas for south by south west but we can't get you guys over here for a north american tour and i understand why uh but i've pitched to michael and i've always thought it was odd that guns and roses wouldn't pick you up and bring you over here considering their long standing friendship with michael yeah who knows why you know because the music business is like uh you know they don't care about friendships you know they care about ticket sales sure so you know wait i saw it's a bone once in a while slash put us on a gig in finland or you know uh and ginar put us on a gig while we played in finland but we also did the the new stadium in uh london hotzburg uh stadium what is it i don't know i don't know i've gotten him uh stadium last summer two summers ago um so yeah yeah i've just always thought you know alice has us open up once or twice we did actually a tour with alice and we did a tour with motorhead but um um but then home vampires but you know believe me i'm always rocking my brain trying to figure out why don't they have us out more often yeah come up with this we're really fucking good man you know yeah i mean maybe i don't know i'm not gonna say it but all i'm saying is we're really fucking good yeah oh i know man i've seen you guys you know maybe it's maybe it's not the right kind of warm up act you know so it's my kind of warm up act i don't it's my kind of headline again i'm not bringing more energy and craziness than the real act then you don't want that yeah you gotta tell everybody i'm not saying that's a fact or that everybody sure anybody even thinks that that's just me sure sure well i think people understand that when there's a package tour and that that you just see the poster and it makes you go just take my money because i worship both bands there has to be some the reason why that's happening if you if you're in the know as to why so-and-so is supporting so-and-so but if it's just you know a headliner with and they're okay that's not gonna make me buy the ticket the headliners but you know what i'm saying like yeah well i don't know who's been opening for kuber or ginar or slash in the states but uh you know have a look at those you know google that up and find out and see who those people are i don't think the bills probably make as much sense as it would have michael but right but number one it's expensive to get the band over here because right three of the guys live in europe one of the guys live in canada and i'm in i can only win in the states now yeah it's a time when me and sammy lived here um but now sammy's in back in finland riches in canada crawls in spain michaels in finland um so you know word visas uh flights hotels you know people say oh you're my favorite band come play nebraska oh yeah right we're gonna do uh you know how we gonna get out to nebraska once you know you play you pretty much come here you play the coast you play new york in la and then what happens to the big country in between yeah it's a long time to get all the way across in a tour bus or you got to fly again and well they don't fans don't care if you've spent all of the money made available to you to just get there to play at the roller rink yeah yeah government they get on a plane and come to finland where we play every year i keep telling people take a trip man yeah yeah freaking us for watching your life you know yeah that's in the iowa i think that in this in this new way in this new world i think a lot of a lot of uh legacy bands as well as you know i don't know metallica have the type of fan that will make a weekender out of it they'll fly from la to detroit to see a two-day fiasco crazy metallic a takeover where they go to all the these parties and they pay thousands of dollars sure but they get a vip and they blah blah blah blah blah so so why wouldn't you do that for the dolls or you know michael or you know why wouldn't you you know it's the same it's the same thing to me and i think that fans are willing to do that now then the ones that are in omaha are going dude how come you can't can't complain my party you know yeah my party right so yeah you got to tell us that you got to tell us the chugberry story oh i'll tell you this right very sorry but i'm going to say if you know i can't offer this to everyone but if either of you guys ever wanted to come over to Finland to see a show i'll make sure you don't have to pay to get into the festival i'll comp your ticket wow buy a plane ticket oh man see it yeah see what that's all that kind of thing oh i got to take a plane i'm gonna stay in a hotel then i got to buy the ticket but i'm telling you you hit me up that's wow that's a pretty damn good offer yeah you know we're playing all summer we're playing we're opening for Bruce Dickinson actually in Italy but other than and that's a great that's a great bill is that the mandrake project is that thing he's doing now thanks so i'm not really sure but uh but we have probably 10 gigs in in Finland all summer long just look at the website website and hey if you feel like you want to have an adventure you know are you doing 10 gigs like in a row not in a row no fly over you fly hungry weekends it's like okay okay yeah we'll play on like a friday and a saturday maybe a sunday sometimes damn do you get to use your frequent flyer miles to bet that that card carrion member i bet yeah i know there's so much yeah well thank you for that man we might have to take you up on that that's uh i don't think we've ever been offered such a generous deal on this show man i knew we'd start at this podcast for sunday i'm reading it so we could go to Finland yeah well you know you know it's 14 years i've been with michael now yeah yeah that's more than twice as long as the dolls and it's probably the longest band i've ever been into my life yeah that's 20 years for me and yafa playing together this year wow yeah so uh makes it kind of meant to be sort of a thing that's good yeah you guys do great work man you guys do great work together yeah but tell us the chuck berry story now if i if i understand this correctly chuck was playing a show somewhere in your neck of the woods and chuck apparently hires a backing band when he plays gigs yeah and he found out that the backing band which was your band had a guitar player which was you and he said i don't need another guitar player i don't share my stage with another guitar player i'm the guitar player but he gave you a chance or something and then you take it from there and correct me if i'm wrong well he said uh this was at the metallands race uh you know the big stadium had a racetrack when they do horse races and uh was at the racetrack i don't know how many people had held 500,000 i have no idea but um i got the gig because the guy who bugled for the horse races was a great jazz trumpet player who played with my mom who's a jazz singer far out and i had worked on gigs with him too so he was like when he and he was booking all of the entertainment for the racetrack that that summer so when Chuck came through he said oh i know that you know steven is and brother john really loved chuck berry so he called me up and he said you want to be the band i said hell yeah we had a blues band called the Hudson Riverettes and um but we had a harmonica player singer we didn't need him obviously but we took the rest of the band we took drums piano bass and guitar and so the uh the promoter picked him up from the chuck up from the airport and uh Chuck said who's my band tonight he said uh it's uh Chuck great band the county brothers john and bay steve on guitar guitar i don't use no other guitar player and he took on uh don't uh don't worry this guy frankie said to him don't worry steve's really good he can lay back Chuck says i gave me one song if he ain't happening my thumb off the stage so they tell me this right before we go on right so i'm like i'm gonna lay way back but Chuck comes in you know comes into the dressing room we're like ah Chuck man so great to me we love all the records we're like you know we're not worthy and uh and he gives us instructions he's like you know watch my foot and watch my neck and you know and he goes and listen to the lyrics if it wasn't for the lyrics we'd be playing the same song all night so so we get out there on this stage and we do a you know a bunch of his classics you know probably four or five tunes and then he goes into a slow blues it hurts me too you know that one when things go wrong go wrong with you it hurts me too we do that and when it comes time for it's then the middle would have been a time for a truck to play solo he turns to me gives me a solo i'm like i thought he's gonna throw me off the stage five songs ago now he's giving me a solo so he gives me a solo i play the solo he's like get in the man play the man can play take another one give me another solo all right then we come back we do a bunch more Chuck we do like five more Chuck songs does another slow blues and does the same thing take a solo can the man play take another one like this is like more than i could have hoped for it and uh then on Johnny Be Good which is the first solo i ever learned in my life the first guitar solo at 13 years old and my father took me to see Chuck at Madison Square Garden when i was 13 wow here i am playing Johnny Be Good with him and as soon as he starts it he goes bad at bad at his high eastern pops and i'm like okay how's he gonna play that riff when it gets to the middle you can't so right i'm like i'm waiting i'm going oh boy is this gonna be it and he goes bad and and and and and and and and and Johnny Be Good points to me i'm like i've been waiting my whole life for this moment and i just played the Johnny Be Good solo that i learned from Chuck when i was 13 and my smile so i got it on video too i got the whole thing on video which one day i will chop up and put songs on youtube probably but i haven't done it yet wow but uh yeah you can see my smile is so wide looks like my face is gonna crack in half oh my god that's a big deal what year was that 1988 okay wow that i mean that's just crazy that's huge man that is that if you're a rock and roll guitar player it just doesn't get better than that right there i mean not only playing with him but taking the solo because he was and he needed help and you saved the day oh yeah and then after the song of his minutes guitar goes change my string i was like okay and he takes my telly which i had you know he's huge he's huge hands and you know he's tall as a huge long strap i give him my telly it's like up to here on i mean i'm gonna fly then you know and he spends 10 minutes untuning my perfectly tuned telly because his hands are so big he pulls the strings out of tune when he plays he knows just how much to detune the strings to have it be in tune when he actually plays right so then i take his guitar and i restrain it and i come out back out on the stage and it's like around my knees you know because the strap is so long and his guitar is tuned perfectly and i give it back to him after any spends another 10 minutes untuning his guitar for his hands you know so yeah it was incredible oh god man that's a serious story man yeah man i've told it you know in various pieces um but uh i haven't told you the whole thing so i'm saving it for my book someday yeah there you go yeah well so you've done you've done this with chugberry you've you've played and collaborated with eric burden paul simon we didn't even get to build his squire and we didn't even spend much time on company of wolves but you've done so much really really really cool stuff um is there anything what's left on your bucket list bucket list i mean besides just making more records on my own and getting my band my new band out there and you know making better and better records and writing better songs for myself as far as other artists i'd like to play with the list is short but um some of them will never happen like paul westburg one of my favorite songwriters but he's the director he's not he's not doing anything christy high in the pretenders i'd love to be in the guitar playing that band robert plant would love to play in any of robert's bands he's just like a musical treasure yeah um i would say rod steward because i love his voice but you know i don't know what he's up to musically he's been doing like jazz song book stuff that i would do with him i'd want to rock out with him yeah you know peat and roger you know who i love to play with them yeah you know they have a second guitar player i'd love to just be in the shadows and just play the who songs come on sure sure sure we'll never say never i mean or the king's if they ever go on the road again right if you know they might need another guy right i'm a curtain i don't care as long as i get to play water lu sun set and well never say never i mean you got on stage and you played with chuck berry so anything's possible i guess sounds like um sounds like uh it's kind of my cue i proudly teach for a corporate company called the school of rock and i'm a show director show show director there i've done stuff i've done stuff for them yeah nice nice nice um it's a great company i've been with them over 19 years now so i'm directing a glen johns the producer glen johns show so all of the people are on your short bucket list we're doing songs we're doing kinks who first zaplin songs blah blah blah uh it's going to be great but yeah you know who glen johns is because you just rattled off all his peeps yeah exactly yeah and and his brother andy yeah well of course yeah he was the next era probably yeah free i think and humble pie yeah yeah we're doing stone cold fever yeah so let's touch real quick on uh company of wolves and then we'll let you go uh because it kind of all started there for you as far as a major label and and and exposure on mtv and uh this was 1989 and well he had already played with chuck berry so well yeah yeah but nobody knew about it yeah so company of wolves the the album comes out i believe in 1989 90 90 okay and we all know that the the musical landscape is changing about that time so what what happened to you as far as the band was the band kind of lost in the shuffle like so many others and if so what lessons did you learn what did you walk away from that experience with that you know helped guide you moving forward timing is everything hmm um relationships or everything um having a record company with a president is everything uh you know the president left right after our record came out so there was nobody you know championing it anymore the guy who signed us well the ainar guy who signed us was still there but um and you know as far as the timing goes you know was right just a year before grunge so soon as nirvana came out forget it man nobody wanted anything to do with a rock and roll band had to be you know detuned you know post punk uh messy you know flannels and beards and you know short and doc martens and heroine uh you know nobody wanted to know about a fun-loving bunch of rock and rollers from New York City everybody flocked to Seattle to find the next you know stolen type of pilots or you know screaming trees or whoever yeah tried to get candle box in there but yeah y'all knew it wasn't the real thing yeah um but uh yeah so it was uh it was a timing thing and you know I mean what when we got signed I was like this is it this is what I've been working my whole life towards my life is totally gonna change now and well you know it did but not in the way I thought it was gonna be you know it's almost like it's almost like the work got harder for you well you know and back then it wasn't there was no DIY aesthetic you know if you did the DIY thing oh you're a loser because you can't get signed by major label you know that was the the thinking um it's none of this you know sitting around you know making your own fires and you know trying to get hand them out to be hey come to my gig there's none of that it was like the major label the the major booking agent you know we had CAA in California was our agent and Larry Mazer was our manager he managed kiss he managed Cinderella and mercury was our label you know everything was done for us and you know of course you know you pay for that in a certain way too and a lot of stuff went wrong and because you don't have your hand on the on the wheel you know and I mean every band I've done since then I've done 10 times the amount of work but it's been satisfying because I get to like decide every day it's not like oh you're going to put that single out yeah I mean I couldn't believe when they said they were going to put out called the wild as the first single and then the distance was the second single they were going to try and cross it over onto pop radio and the timing and everything was so often weird and you know they didn't have a label president I mean people there were really good people they really liked us they were behind us but it was no you know nobody's steering the ship I hate to generalize but you know that was happening across the board for a lot of yeah class of 88 89 even a debut album came out in 89 yeah my record came out in 89 and what was that dangerous toys oh you're in dangerous toys yeah oh I like that band I think we played a show together didn't we maybe LaMores something like that yeah remember you guys and in fact I think the girl who ran our street team or support team as we called it might have worked with you guys did you know Colleen Andrews from Massachusetts no it's not ringing a bell christian Andrews hmm anyway um yeah I remember you guys yeah that was the that was the era of that kind of shit yeah stuff against the wall and see what sticks right with rock bands with hair okay um with like target them as a hairband and we were not a hairband and of course not of course not but you know they were like well we can't get you in the enrolling stone and everything because you're not big enough yet and I was like of course I don't expect that but but we can't get you anywhere really because you know it's all metal magazines and you guys aren't metal like right okay you know we're wearing jeans and boots and t-shirts and you know we still look pretty rock and roll but you know we didn't have the glam shit going on yeah uh there's a lot of there's a lot of good dirty rock and roll bands that were coming out around that time that from from all coasts uh you know junkyard and circus of power and raging slab and rhino bucket and there's a bunch of dirty looks dirty looks that are already been around for a little while yeah yeah so our our drummer signed them frankie loraka really no man no drummer frankie loraka was an a&r guy at Atlantic records and he also signed the spin doctors oh far out he's kind of Pennsylvania people he signed dirty looks and mr big and uh yeah a bunch of people wow crazy but we were more we weren't so dirty we were more of a band like I don't want to say we're like mr big because we didn't have all those chops and everything but you know we we liked our melodies and yeah that's cool so we're singing and you know we like tom petty and it was kind of americana it wasn't like metal you know right but there's eppling a cheap trick and sure but but where do you but where do you fit is is really where where it was at the time as far as climate where do you fit yeah because uh you know you're not poison and you're not bonjovi but you're also not metallica or nirvana see what's in my point it's a gamble yeah i know it was uh we were a bit of a marketing nightmare yeah yeah which i continue that trend up to this day you know like every every album i make is different i mean i have an americana album and then i want to make a punk rock garage album that i make an americana album that i make it some kind of combination between the two and then i make this power pop brit pop album with any partridge so you know i don't know what's next but doing you know doing your own thing and that's that's just diy anyway so doing your own thing and and like putting your whole like world and someone else's hands and then just going all right i'll just wait you know no it's the work is about to get even that's what i meant a minute ago it's like the work is finally you're really gonna have to work hard now especially if no one's there to like use your word champion your record you just handed in so yeah well little steven uh right now in my case little steven champions uh me because he's the guy who signs me you know and he yeah the one who approves all the songs uh on the record you know so if he doesn't like a song it doesn't go on you know right here's all the songs and you know and i mean i the last that branch cheer record i was about to go to another label with it and i i called them up and said uh look i'm going to take this record around you know you want to hear it first and uh they said sure as i said it on over and i went oh we we love it but well steven said yeah but you got to change this and this and this and i went oh man i just spent like past year perfecting the sequencing and the cover and everything i said please just give it another chance and he listened to it again anyway it's fine so you know yeah but you know he and you know besides championing it as a part of his label you know he also plays it on his radio show and correct he's not gonna ruin his station with music he doesn't like so sure i get it i get that hey do you know uh do you have are you friendly with jessie malon do you know what his current situation is yes um uh jessie just texted me the other day i had been uh you know following along sorry i'm so sweaty in here man i had to turn the acu off so we're gonna let you go i'm just you'll never hear me speak um yeah i've been uh um following along with his progress or what he's trying to do you know he's getting these treatments in south america and um i hadn't heard from him you know i i donated to him and texan once in a while texan left for him like hey remember this photo remember this song we did together these things on gamut giving rockaway and the side mercedes-benz we actually do that on it um and i hadn't heard from him and then the other day he texted me out of the blue he's like steve man i just heard your latest single on underground garage so great i was like oh man so great to hear from me all tied up was the song which is very kind of americana which makes sense of jessie we'd like that one yeah um so uh but i don't know what his situation is if he's getting better or you know i know he's a fighter and he is a positive thinker so yeah certainly he ain't given up anything he can do to um try and overcome what he's the hand he's been dealt yeah fucking drag i'm a i'm a big fan of his as well and i figured you might stay in touch and be know something so uh for what it's worth next time you text him send tell him that texas wishes him well and uh you know we're hoping he gets back on stage where he belongs real soon yeah so too steve we're gonna let you go man we've been more than generous with your time today what a great conversation man i so appreciate you joining us i thank you for all the music dude you you've your your riffs and your lyrics have come out of my speakers for years and years and years and my life is better for it so thank you and i might just show up and knock on your door in finland one day so oh please do please yeah thank you guys for having me it was a great chat it's nice to talk to guys that actually know about music and you know and then in bands and head record deals like you know we give a shit about rock and roll and it's people say it's a dying breed you know at the last of a dying breed and it's like i i think they're out there i just think that they're grown up and have jobs yeah yeah i mean i have you know two boys and and you know my 15 year old you know he wants to be in the hip-hop you know something he's getting his haircut you know like a shave that it fades up you know and he's you know walking around quoting hip-hop songs i'm like when you know when he was a little kid before he started going to school and being with his friends and being influenced by that he listened to nothing but what i listened to and he loved it you know bow diddley and the coasters and lewie jordan and like you know old blues out there williams and a lot of black music a lot of r&b and and classic rock and roll chuck and stones and zeppelin and you know i went through my entire cd collection a to z but you know cute okay here's queen you know i mean he knew all the stuff and then you know he got with his friends and then i was like just a paper one direction and styles and you know you know but that's the most popular music these days and you know yeah for kids and maybe that's a lucky for us you know everybody can make an album on their laptop and put it up on Spotify and youtube and you know it's got a level the playing field and the music is which is good for independent artists like myself and um but you know you got to wade through a whole lot of shit you know yeah right but those were the gatekeepers said this is what you should listen to now lay shove it down your throat you know yeah well i uh it's it's probably no different than you know the babysitter turning me on to elton john and then the kid across the street playing me kiss alive but between there was queen and bowie and alice cooper and then you i see that and then and then ac dc judus priest and then it just thin lizzy ufo and the whole the whole nine and then but see that that feels more less trendy than going well these guys look cool i want to hang out with you but you can't hang out with them unless you wear a justin beiber t-shirt it's just a different key to get into the kingdom i guess i don't know yeah i i don't know but uh well hopefully it's hopefully it's just a phase Steve just a phase that's what they always say dad phase is going on for a pretty long time now yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean i have nothing against hip-hop you know yeah i got some hip-hop albums that i love sure Angelo and you know i think the angel is brilliant yeah a good song is a good song and you know that yeah you know i mean guys that can say i prefer singing to talking you know yeah although you know there's some great rhymes i'm entertained by by some rhymes are really great you know and beastie boys i love you know love that that's pretty much classic rock now yeah i know it's like uh you know i just don't like stuff that's made by a machine you know and not with an ai man it's going to get even worse you know it's like people are writing songs with ai and like having just got no soul you know no human yeah yeah yeah synthetic thought that's what i call it you know it'll probably get more intelligent which will be really scary to see how it develops over the years but i don't know it's nothing like you know some ways personal experience you know yeah the new freddy mercury record will be out any day now okay and the video i've heard some crazy ai stuff like did you hear the uh what was called it was oasis but uh aisis or something like that they called it haven't heard that when they took this this band who had a bunch of songs it was like an unknown band but they're pretty good they opted to take their singer's voice off it and do an ai version of Liam Gallagher i'm not Liam um no yeah yeah Liam Liam is a singer yeah yeah it's it they did an ai version of Liam singing on these songs and it sounds like freaking great oasis record wow not great it's not as good as oasis of course but right but freaky was like one of the first ai things i heard it was like a year and a half ago came out check it out it's on youtube scary yeah i don't know man it's just that's a horror show to me yeah yeah yeah we'll keep doing what you're doing yeah why don't you keep doing what you're doing with keep banging on keep banging on wood and wire mount that's what we want yeah that's what i can do and yeah and keep writing those lyrics and rhyming those crazy words man will you the singer and dangerous to us yeah that's right no right we still play we just we're we've got some summer shows coming up is the back room still there no uh it closed down uh 10 years ago i'm guessing and they and some friends of ours just made a movie documentary a documentary about the place called uh the uh bloody and bruised the untold story of the back room uh love that yeah i saw stray cats there in 89 when we were recording dude i saw so much good shit there man it's on i saw Nazareth and cheap trick and the Ramones and just keep going it's crazy dude yeah that documentary is currently on the film uh film festival circuit that's right gonna make this way out to you or not announced so yeah it's called bloody and bruised the game how good the back room oh i'll see you that for sure and by the way Steve we were talking about dirty looks earlier Jason has been doing some one-off gigs fronting uh dirty looks up in the Pennsylvania area because of course Henrik is no longer with us but yes turn on the screw yeah man screw and you one of my favorites i do remember turn at the screw yeah that was the album i think title two wasn't it yeah that was the title track and the one before that was cool from the wire wire yeah man and yeah Frankie signed down uh we used to you know see Henrik and all those guys around the we all hung around at the Atlantic records office and you know we had nice we'd go out can we go in the uh in the break room and steal our coffee and muffin and of course today you know yeah neat and then they hadn't eaten in a couple days you know oh get it Steve it was awesome hanging with you man thank you so much dude let's do it again some time i hope yeah absolutely Steve thank you for your time on behalf of my co-host Jason McMaster I'm metal dale along with our special guest today Steve Conti on the talk louder podcast bye
