[MUSIC] What's up everybody, Metal Dave Glassner here along with my co-host Jason McMaster bringing you another episode of the Talk Louder Podcast. Today we are joined by Plasmatic's guitarist, Richie Stott's, and this is a really special episode for me because, as many of you may know, the Plasmatic's were the very first live band I ever saw in concert. I saw them in 1983 opening for Kiss on the Creatures of the Night Tour, and as I was telling Richie in the episode, I was prepared to have my mind blown anyway because I was going to see Kiss, you know, obviously going to blow my 16-year-old mind clean open, you know. This would've been '83. '83. '83. So I'm ready for the big show, I'm ready for all the crazy pyro, the theatrics, the energy, and but first I get treated to the Plasmatic's, whoa, yeah, totally blew my mind, warped me forever, it explains a lot, and you were like, it was Barnum and Bailey from hell. Exactly. That's where you were. Exactly. I mean, '83, I was at Raven and Metallica, and you were at Plasmatic's in Kiss, and both were mind-bending and transforming your head to another place immediately. And '83, you was a motherfucker. Yeah, that was an amazing time. I mean, to sit with the first band you ever saw was the Plasmatic's, I wear the badge of honor now. I commend you. It is a badge of honor. I mean, some people, and it's not their fault if they're young. You know, some people's first concert was, I don't know, Def Leppard on Hysteria or whatever. Or Barry Manuel or something. Or whatever, something their grandpa took him to. That's fine. That's great. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. It's ain't the fucking Plasmatic's. That's right. That's right. It's not the Plasmatic's. I mean, she could have dropped the chainsaw on your head. The shotgun could have had real shells in it. You don't know. I mean, the shit that those bands were doing even in '83, you can't do anymore. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can't do that. You couldn't get away with a lot of that stuff. You hear a lot of great stories today from Richie about things you could no longer get away. Yeah. Plasmatic's, of course, notorious for their on stage antics and their publicity guns. Great stories today. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I met him in Austin last year when he made an appearance. He's so sweet. He's so nice. Yeah. Yeah. And he's going to be back October 19th. So anyone listening or watching this episode that's in the Austin area, he'll be in South Austin at Paul Bearer Press on October 19th, he'll be playing with a local Plasmatic's tribute band called Tits Out. That's right. You heard that correctly. Tits Out. I saw them last year. I didn't play with them last year, but he was in the audience and he loved it. And so they invited him back in this year. He's actually going to play with them. Also marking a return. I did a gig with them last with Tits Out last year. It was Thunder Lightning, thin Lizzie tribute, Tits Out and Sad Wings, my Judas Priest tribute. And they were, I was like, what? Yeah. What's happening, right? It was pretty authentic, actually, which scares me a little bit. Right? Right? Well, there's a reason Richie's willing to get up and play with him. It's because they do it right. Exactly. That gig also marks the return of East Side Suicide's a local Austin band that hasn't played live. I don't think in 20 years they just released an album of old material that's been in the can or on the shelf forever and ever and ever. So anyway, if you're in the Austin area, October 19th, go see Richie Stott's at Paul Bearer Press. Yeah. Anyway, it was great to catch up with him, great to talk to him, lots of stories. It was an honor for me, you know, the fact that that was the first band I ever saw live. I can't believe that we've got this little podcast and Richie Stott's was on our show today. So, well, here's a little Easter egg for you. Congrats to Bobby Landgraaff on playing bass position for COC. Oh, did not know that. Well, take us out, Dave. Breaking news, breaking news, breaking news. Breaking news. Well, I'm sure everyone will hear about it before that. Yeah, he said it's okay to mention at this point, but it's been in the works for a little while. Congratulations to our friend Bobby Landgraaff. People who have questions about that little snippet of news can read all about it somewhere else. It's just not here. Yeah. Yeah. Well, congratulations to Bobby. Oh, yeah. Hey, on the podcast, talk about our podcast, Richie Stott's from the Plasmatics. Looking good. Got your stones jacket on. Yeah. Yeah. No, I got this off. Yeah. What a stolen jacket. Well, that's what I'm calling it from here. Yeah. He was wearing that when I met him. I think he lives in the jacket. Oh. That's my personality. I went to a stone exhibit. My stones thing would have taken out of that. And I do like the stone, but this jacket fits me. And so that's what I always wear it. And it's a good look for you. That's a good reason to wear it if it fits. Yes. Yeah. You know what they say? I don't know if they say this. If the jacket fits, Richie, thanks so much for joining us, man. I appreciate it, especially on short note is very kind of you to spend some time with us. No problem. I know you've got something going on in about 45 minutes, so we won't keep you. We'll jump right in and ask you first of all, let's start with the current. You got any musical projects you're working on currently? What's happening in the world of Richie Stott's right now? Well, I'm coming down to Austin in October 19th. And it's the all bearer anniversary, third anniversary party. They've invited me to come down, Craig Merritt runs that. And last year I was down there, as you know, signing some autographs and made an appearance. And they've convinced me to come down. And this time, bring my guitar and I'm going to play a few songs with a plasmatic cover band. It's out. Yes. Susie Bravo and Steve and I sort of band, I said, wow, these guys are great. And I can do this. I'd like to play. And they asked me back. And so that's what I'm doing now. And I haven't really played plasmatic songs about 40 years with a band. And so I've been working on, you know, relearning or practicing these songs. And I'm surprised how fast they are. So that's what I'm doing. Excellent. Yeah. Yeah. It's a challenge. I'm excited about doing it. And I got a guitar case to bring it down to play. I was like, how am I going to get my guitar down there? All these artistic things I haven't thought about in a long time. Yeah. Okay. Well, I saw you last year and tits out played then. And I was looking at you. You were in the crowd and you had this grin on your face that was ear to ear. I think you were just you were taking photos and film and video. It looked like you were having a great time. And the fact that you're coming back, I think just sort of says it all right there. Yeah, there was a few people like kind of what do you call slant dancing. And I was thinking, oh, I should do it. But then I was, I better not fall over. I really had a great time. And they were sort of touching that they were, you're playing these songs. They come down to Texas and wow, there's a band that's playing plasmatic songs. So, and I've been in contact with them. And I think it's great. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, it's I would like to, I mean, obviously I know the answer, but how many plasmatics tribute bands have you, do you know about? I have not, well, there was one here in New York a long, long time ago. And I did I play with them? I might have, no, I don't think so, there's a long time ago there was one. But I don't know any other bands that are plasmatic cover bands. I think there's some other one, but I haven't been keeping up on the plasmatic cover bands. Right. I just, well, I guess I was proving the point through your brain that it doesn't seem doesn't happen every day. Yeah. I mean, you can count them on one hand, you know, and that's also still keeps it keeps it cool. And, you know, no one's gate keeping the idea of a, for plasmatics tribute. So, well, these guys are actually, I think they keep the spirit right. Oh, yeah. And Suzy Bravo is a great, great character, great singer. I really think, I hope they go on and do some other stuff, you know, I know they do some other cover stuff too, and the band is really good. There's some Omega and CC and Dave, the drummer, and Steve, the guitar player, and Suzy. I think that right, I might, I might be wrong, but I think I get that right. Well, it was a lot of fun when you were here last year, and I was so glad to see that you're coming back. And you're also, there's also another band on that bill called East Side Suicide, which is making their return after God 20 years or something like that, led by our own Frankie Nowhere here in Austin, Texas, who's a great front man himself. So it's going to be a great day, October 19th, for all of you in the Austin area, Richie's going to be on hand playing some plasmatics tunes, signing some autographs, et cetera. October 19th at Paul Bearer Press. Let's go all the way back to the beginning, Richie. What got young Richie Stodds hooked on rock and roll, what album or concert or whatever made you go? That's what I want to do. I started this picture today, just on Facebook, and I sort of pictured Jack Cassidy and Yorima and Grace Slick and John Densmore at this Hollywood thing last year, so Hollywood Hall of Fame. And I always was like a big Jack Cassidy fan. I don't think too many people probably know who Jack Cassidy was, but he was the bass player for the Jefferson airplane. I always loved them. So it goes back that far, goes back to the days of the San Francisco sound and Jack Cassidy and Yorima, and then it was blue cheer, and then it was, well, this goes back to my high school, what I was inspired when I was a kid. And I always just loved, you know, sort of, I don't want to say revolutionary rock and roll, but loud rock and roll that was a little bit different. Yeah. And so what got me started was partially that and partially just the love of, oh, just wanting to be a guitar player. And I think I wanted to play the blues and stuff, but then I came down in New York and I realized I got to be something, I got to be something different. And I guess I'm a bit of an opportunist, when I came down here and the punk thing had just started, I came down in New York, like '73, '74, and CBGB just started. And I was like, I think I can do this stuff. I'm going to do it my own way. And glad you did. Yeah. That's just a short thing. I think I always wanted to be some kind of entertainer, like actor, performer, guitar player. Yeah. When you say you came down to New York, where are you coming from? Yeah. I grew up upstate New York. Well, people in New York City call it upstate and upstate. People call it, that's not upstate, but about an hour and a half, north of New York, a small town. And I reached, if you go back far enough, I went to college when I left high school and I quit, and I met some artists, and I came down to New York, and I was hanging out with them. So I kind of came from like an art, one of my friends were artists and sculptures and stuff, but that whole scene back then, the CBGB scene, a lot of those bands also had that same, kind of already feel, like even a Ramon or television and Bond, there was more about, well, it's the same thing probably now, but so I came down at that time. And then I got involved in the music business. And that led to me forming the Plasmatic. How did you meet Wendy O'Williams? I met Wendy, the long short of this is, I was approached by Rod Swenson, who was Wendy's partner. And Rod wanted to see me in a previous band, and he approached me and said, "You wanted to put a band together," but he really didn't know how to put a band together. And he wanted Wendy to be the singer. And Wendy didn't have any, had never sang in a band or anything. He said, "Look, I just want to put a band together with Wendy, the singer. If you could help me put a band together and start writing songs." And I was like, "Sure, let's do it." I was a young kid at that time, and I was an opportunity to do that. I just went for it. What did you see in Wendy? You said she wasn't really, she had no background as a singer necessarily, but it seems obvious in hindsight. But when you're meeting her for the first time, and no one knows who she is, what about her? What do you see in her that makes you go, "Yeah, I need to partner up with this girl?" I think that, well, it was, I think she had a real, a lot of excitement that wanted to do it, I don't think that she, I don't think any of us knew what was going to happen. And it's a good question. It was, like I said, it was an opportunity to start the band. Rod Shwenson had somewhat of a vision and a sense that he wanted to put this band together. He said, "Oh, I got some money, we can do a demo." And I was willing to do anything. It was a gamble. Yeah. I mean, we were thrown together, and I kind of trusted him, and I trusted her. Is she bringing lyrics in to, you know, in a rehearsal situation, where you guys are putting songs together? No. The band was very structured, and all of the life structure. So we had a manager, and Rod was working with me writing songs. So he said, "You write the music, I'll write the words, and I'll work with Wendy, and you work with the band." So the band would work up some songs, Rod would write the lyrics, and he would work with Wendy, then we would come together, and we started. We were all new to the whole thing, even myself. I had a band before, but I was writing songs, and you're young, young kids, you're not really sure what you're doing. Like, when we first started playing, you know, you get up on stage, and then you start learning, like, "Oh, God." By guitars, for instance, we get up on stage, and we decided that we're going to play. All the songs started very fast, and it's very short, and we were like 20. We came up with, "We're only going to do 20 minutes or 25 minutes." It's like a club would say, "Oh, you got to do 45 minutes, and you got to do three stats and stuff." We were like, "No, no, we're not. We're just going to do 25 minutes, and that's it." And then they would tell us that, but we didn't listen to them, and we just did 25 minutes, and they were like, "Oh, you're great. That's it. We want you to come back." Of course, it was so chaotic and crazy and nutty, so I think we were learning as we went. Okay. Yeah. You said chaotic, and I think that's a perfect word. And I've asked musicians on this show before, especially the theatrical type, the ones that put on a really high-energy show, or a show that's full of props or whatever. And certainly you guys did that. And I've seen the photos of you with blood running down your forehead. What's the most serious injury you ever suffered on stage? Well, okay, just like, for instance, the blood sick, the band evolved, even though there was no real master plan, like we didn't have a plan, like, "Oh, I'm going to have a mohawk haircut and come out there." But okay, especially in the beginning, okay, I think Rob came up with the idea of chainsawing the guitar at the end of this song we had called "Put Your Baby at the End." Yeah. But I think there was one of the shows, and I loved to meet Hendrix. You played the guitar behind your back. Yeah. I was like, "I did that," and I was like, "Oh, I started banging my head with the guitar." And I hit my head, and it was bleeding and stuff and everything. And so the next time, we were talking about it, they said, "Well, Rich, you really don't need to bang your head to get the blood effect." That was a cool effect. But why don't you get some fake blood, you know? You're not working to replicate it from real blood. But then I would put the blood on my head, but then sometimes I would actually still hit my head, it would bleed, and then the blood would get mixed up with the real blood. So the most serious injury I had, well, I had a few injuries. Wendy shot me, went down with the shotgun, he was the speaker cabinet in the back that would blow up. And Wendy would shoot the shotgun, and they would blow up, you know? She missed one time, shot me in the leg. We used to have TVs on the stage. I got infected by landing in the TV glass. But there was danger on the... There was danger on the stage. It was a big club, it was actually a big opera theatre on 14th Street called The Palladium, and it was one of our first shows where we blew up a car. And usually you had to have a major record deal to play there, but we were creating so much energy in New York that Ron Delser, the promoter, he was like, he promoted a Madison Square Garden and everything. We got booked in there to do the show, and I think Mitch Ryder was opening for us. Wow. One of those things was mismatched, but we had a Cadillac that we driven onto the stage, and this was our first time we were going to blow up a car on stage, and how we did it was like you drive the car on, and then the guys would sort of cut it up a little bit, cut the fenders off, cut the hood off, cut the roof off, and then kind of reassemble it. But underneath it all were these big cannons, they're like maybe a foot, and you put flash pots in, but heavy duty, and so when you would come up and throw the dynamite, first time we did it, we were playing to throw the dynamite in the car, and the car exploded. And all the pieces were held together by chains, so if the front fender blew out, it would blow up, but it just was like boom, but I think the thing on the hood, it broke or something, and it was a big, big, big stage, a big high stage, and when it happened, the hood went way up in the air, and it was smoke, and I was like where's the hood, and then there was silence, and it came down. And the reason it was silence, here's another thing, it was like a private, private Ryan moment, and because the speakers, on all our amplifiers, got blown, blew up. So we learned from that, and then we learned that, oh, well, the Marshall regular selection of speakers are too weak to hold that explosion, our implosion, so we flocked them out for these very expensive EVM Altech Lansing speakers, and they actually were able to hold the explosions, but all that stuff, going back to what you're saying, we learned on the road, I even learned from the experience, I remember Tommy Ramon came to the show, and I said, so what do you think? I was all excited, like, what do you think of a band, he says, you've got to get another guitar, I go what do you mean, he says you can't be tuning up on stage, you need a second guitar, and then, and I was like really, okay, so I had to get another flying rig, you know, and you know, like, I think they're the word like mother of necessity, necessity is the mother of invention. Right, the reason I play flying V's was because of a lefty, and they're easy to switch over and they're light. I started off with a less pull upside down with a cutaway on the top, if you play guitar, so I had the, I got the flying V, and then I said, oh, no, I got to get another flying V, so I got two flying V's, and then we, and then Tommy came again, he says, well, now you got two, a third one, you know what I mean, but actually, he was right because things are happening fast, you break a string and something like that, and actually one of my flying V's, I haven't, we've paired right now, because way back in the day, I broke the neck so many times, I used the, the headstocks were broken, and on the road, I would just take epoxy and just five minute epoxy and put the headstock back on, it was like that would snap off. Like, people talk to me like guitar tech stuff, and that's my guitar tech stuff. And going back to the back of guitar, you have a back up amp too, you got to have a back up marshal. That's right. Or back up marshal. And nowadays, like if I go see a band now, like I saw a band recently, some young, young kids, there's some really good bands now, they get all this stuff down, they got the guitar tuning down, they got the back up amps, they got the back up guitar, like, way back then, people didn't do that stuff, it was like, you learn as you go, and that goes with the stage, stage ground, you know. Was there, was there ever a stunt that you guys discussed in a meeting that you thought was just too out of, there's just no way somebody's going to get killed, or did you ever like cross something off the list and say, no, we can't do that? Yeah, there was things that we, that we, that we tried, like, what this was, things I thought was good, you know, like I was telling you about the shotgun running with, like, turn around and shoot, shoot, shoot the, you know, maybe shoot the speaker cabinets, they would blow up. And then we said, well, if we, if we put a box up in the, up in the, above the stage, we put, we had, we had chickens, we put actually live chickens up there. The chickens would fly all over the place, it didn't make any sense, really. And we did that for a few times, but there was a couple of problems. First of all, when the chickens land down on the stage, they just sort of stay on the stage running around, the people, unless you're waiting to back, wait in front, you really don't see them. We did one show where the chickens just got out in the audience and a few of them got killed and were dead, stomped, and Wendy was really upset about that. But what I was doing at the time, well, this is the funny things we used to do was I would go to this, you know, place, like one of these places, like, you know, like a, I don't know how to say this, but like a Chinese place, Asian place where they would sell the chickens in New York. My live chickens and stuff, you know, a lot of more Asian place. So I worked a deal out with the guy where I buy the chickens and I, for like we did a couple of shows over the weekend and then brought the cage, I put it up on a roof. And then after each show, I put them back in the cage and bring it back up to the roof. And then on Monday, I'd bring it back to sell them back to them, you know what I mean? But we did, that's kind of, that's not really documented in any stuff that we did or videos, but we did a much more dangerous thing on it. We did a peer show, but they still do, but they had these old peers on Hudson River. You can never do this now. I mean, this 1979, there's a video on YouTube, I think it's the peer 62, there's two video. One is Dr. Pepper and there's peer 62, but this one, we actually built and along with the road crow, we all contributed built a stage at the end of the pier. That's number one. And then we had all these amplifiers in the back that were kind of, a lot of them are phony and everything like that, but it looked like a big concert. So we had the stage for a couple of days. We're just out there building, like people weren't even, we told the fire department we're making a movie so they let us go and they didn't really care. So we built this stage and we built a ramp up there and underneath the stage, the sound that we, this guy got fired for this, but the, because we didn't, there was supposed to be explosions. The plan was we, we play a couple of songs. Wendy would jump off the stage and run to the front of the pier to get in the Cadillac and drive the Cadillac towards the stage. And as she got near the stage, she would jump out and as it hit the stage, it would all blow up and everything like that. But he was supposed to have some kind of, you know, some kind of fire, the technical thing that legal and stuff that would blow up. He had just put these, I don't know what you call them, ten gallon, fifty gallon drums or, you know, no distinction, you know, the big drum. Yeah, like an oil drum. He had the oil drums that he just cut them in half and he had them like about five or six of them underneath the stage. Holy shit. I don't know what gasoline. Oh my God. So my manager found out of it, I found out about it right before the show. And so he didn't fire him then, but he got fired after the end of the show. And, and so as, as the car came up, the ramp, it was supposed to come up the ramp, blow up, no, go, come up, blow up and go through the amps and hit the wall of the sandbags and stop at the end, but it just kept, well, first of all, blew up and it wasn't a good explosion. I'll have to admit, they look it, and by the way, we came in on a helicopter, you know, oh my God, but it blew up and it landed into the Hudson River, but on top of it, we had told the fire department and the police department that this was going to be a, or that this was going to be for a movie, but we didn't tell them that we posted all over the city that we, we had three concerts. Yeah. So all these people showed up, there was about 20,000 people all, all, all along the lines that appear and they're watching the whole thing and my parents came and, and then we got the news stations came and it was like that, it was real chaos. And if you could never do anything like that. And when the car, by the way, when the car went over the stage, it went through the sandbags and we just all ran and what it went right into the river. We all watched the car get sinking into the river. It's still there. The car is still there in the river? Well, I guess so. That's amazing. So did you guys, so having said that, it occurred to me, did you guys ever have a band meeting and say, you know what, the stunts might be overshadowing the music. Maybe we need to, to, to rein it in and let the music sort of take center stage. Or were you thinking, Hey, as long as people are paying attention, we're winning. Well, I think, you know, I think it went hand in hand. I think the music was reflective of this chaos, this, of what we were doing. I mean, as the guitar player musician, you know, I have to defend the music and I feel that the, the music kind of, the chicken and the egg, which came first. And, you know, I'm upstairs working on, like, right now I'm kind of, I'm working on about five songs that, that we're going to, I'm hopefully going to do with the band down Austin. And I'm going, damn, whether you like this music or not, it's hard to play. Yeah. I mean, and it really is. There was a crap to it. And we really worked hard. And we did like, we did one album with Jimmy or who produced the stonks album and now New Hall for the Ratchet, which is more punky, then we did another album, which is starting to move into maybe a more metalish direction. And then another EP that which, which even went more metal, Dan Hartman, which one of the producers and Dan. Was that metal priestess? Yeah. And Dan played with the Edgar Winter band and he did the whole solo stuff. But he's with a great musician. He was, he used to tell me like, oh man, if you're out of time with Edgar Winter, he'd come over and he had these pointy boots and he was, you know what I mean? So I, and then we did a final album with Kune Ta with Peter Dirks, which was more metal. But all those records were really well done and I think, and I think they're really good. And I actually, the last few weeks I've come to really appreciate like, man, this stuff's really good because it was well, well done. And whether you like or not, it's, it's not easy to play. Yeah. How did you get hooked up with Dieter Dirks for Kune Ta? You're famous for the scorpions and except German metal bands. Yeah. Right. We did it. We were going to do it. We, we, we, we didn't do an album with Capitol Records. The last one, Kune Ta, that I was, that I was in with the band. So the plan was that Dan was going to hopefully do that album and, and they liked, you know, the record company makes a big decision on all this stuff. And we liked Dan and we worked, we worked up all the songs with Dan and did a full demo at Electric Lady Clamps Studios, which was very good. But the record company decided they wanted to go with another's producer. And we all, I mean, I was, I remember what we were all listening to different producers. And I mean, I kind of felt bad that Dan wasn't chosen. And so we went with, we went with Dieter Dirks, but the funny thing is there's another record recently released, well, not recently, but maybe the last 20 years called Kuda Gras, which is the, the Dan Hartman version of Kude Ta. Oh, well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so we, you know, like once you get into like the major, the big labels and stuff, I mean, there's a lot of decisions that are, well, first of all, you're in a band. You're just, you know, people go, oh, why don't you do this? And you have a certain amount of voice, but it's a cut throw business, but it is decisions are being made for you. Well, yeah. I mean, decisions are always being made for you, you know, I mean, yeah, you don't. Yeah. It's no secret. Yeah. Even if you're like Bruce Brixton, he has to let you know, but you know, you try your bass and you fight hard for it. I mean, I love, I love working with Dan, but what works is working with Dieter was a great experience, too. Yeah. Did you record in Germany with him? Yeah. We went over, we went over to, I, my stomblin Germany, it's outside of Klunk, Klunk. Yeah. Yeah. And we were there for about, you know, like five or six weeks. And it was a real experience that he's like a real past master, master. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure he's been making, he made a lot of records that guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you learned something from all these guys. Oh, yeah. And even going back for the original Plasmatics, we work with actually Tari Ramon, which is a producer with Ed Stacium, who from, oh, yeah, Ramon. And so you, I mean, all these little things you learn, I remember Ed's going back to the beginning. I remember Ed Stacium used to like the mix and model and I go, what do you mean model? And he says, I just like model, but you can listen to it under, like you can listen to it on the car radio, you know. So, then you start listening, you go, oh, yeah, I see what you mean. So those sound, the rest, I mean, this is like, like, you know, feel spectrum mentality. Right. So the sound sounds great on a single speaker. Now, nowadays everything is not done that way, you know, but there's something nice about the Ramon. By the way, the Ramon's first album is an interesting thing. If you listen to it, maybe you know, but if you listen to the first album, you can do this, any album. But the first album is so pan left and right, the bass and the guitar, like the bass is over on one side and the guitar is on the other side and the drums right down the middle with the bubble. And it didn't, but then when you, when you listen to it on a stereo, you don't, you're not quite aware of that, but you go, oh, wow, that's why they kind of had this sound, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And then because there's such a simple band, it kind of worked. Right. Yeah. Like Van Halen recorded that way and the Beatles recorded that way. Yeah. You can get Stones and Beatles records in mono versions. There's a bunch of versions of them, but I think it's interesting. A lot of people don't realize, well, they would just be called young in my book where your car radio had one speaker was in the middle of the dashboard. That's it. They weren't in the doors. The wedding to left and right. It was one speaker right there in your face. Yeah. Right. And so like you start, you start being around these people and you start picking up things. Oh, wow. Yeah. You mix this way. You know, for the average person and actually the average musician, they, they understand that. But when I was like, I was, this was all, all new, you know, you kind of, you learn as you go. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Let me ask you this is, and bear with me. I know this is going to sound crazy, but was there ever any talk of continuing the plasmatics after Wendy passed away? And I know it sounds absurd because you can't replace Wendy Williams, but people also said the same thing about Bond Scott and Aussie Osborne and David Lee Roth. Was there any, ever any discussion, especially maybe in later years when sort of the plasmatics legacy even grew over time? Was there any discussion like that? I mean, people have like approached me and, and, and everything, it would be very difficult. I think it doesn't make any sense. I mean, it just doesn't make any sense. You'd have to get, first of all, you'd have to get, you'd have to get, I mean, who would be the band? I mean, there's myself and there's Wes, we, there's, there's two different drummers right now. Stu Deutsch, the original and TC Talver in the coup d'etat era, who would be, who would you choose? There's Chris Romanelli from the coup d'etat record and Jean Beauvoir. I mean, I don't know how it would really come about, but how do you replace Wendy? I mean, how do you do that? Right. Right. Yeah, I totally agree. I just threw it out there because I know a lot of people thought the same thing when other bands that had very iconic singers that you thought there's just no way you can continue without them and, and they somehow did and even had some success. I wanted to ask you also, I told you this when I met you in person and Jason knows this story. The plasmatics are the very first live band I ever saw in my life because you were touring with Kiss at the time on the Creatures of the Night tour. And I remember Riot was supposed to be the opening band and for some reason they canceled and they were replaced by the plasmatics. And I remember at that time being so upset because I wanted to see Riot and I didn't want anything to do with this quote unquote punk rock band. And today, today I love punk rock. But you talk about being corrupted right from the start. I mean, I was going to see Kiss, which would have been mind blowing enough. But you guys beat him to the punch. So the plasmatics are the first live band I ever saw in my life. And you're out doing arenas with Kiss. And now for Kiss at that time, that was not one of their go ahead. Go ahead. You have something? Yeah. Nothing. Go ahead. So Kiss at that time, that was not one of their better selling tours. But for you guys, it might have been the first time that you're out in arenas, is that? Oh, yeah. We never opened for bands. That was the first time we ever opened for bands. Wow. Yeah. Do you remember being treated well on that tour at all or do you recall or? Yeah. No, it was. It was great. I mean, they were, they were very nice. Everything was really good. I mean, were you guys fans of what they, you know, were you guys Kiss fans? I had, to me, like Kiss was like, they were so big. And I remember when we started the plasmatics, I mean, they were, this was around 1978, '79. I remember they played the garden. I was watching my TV. I said, Oh my God, this is so amazing. It's like theater, you know? Yeah. And so I always appreciated that theatrical style of them. But I was never part of the Kiss army. Oh, that's fair. Yeah. I was never part of the Kiss army and I had never gone see, seen them, but I, I love seeing the show. I mean, I love the jeans, the jeans face all. They were just great. Yeah. Because I was able to make the noise. It was just by himself. And the stage we go dark, you know, would be this feedback from the bass and I didn't know what was going on. It was like a Japan, like that Kabuki theater type of thing. And then all of a sudden, you would point to one side of the stage and this giant flame came up. I, you know, I thought it was great, but we had them on a couple of things though. I remember, and this is no knock on Kiss, I've never sang to, I think it was Vinnie or Vinnie Vincent was playing guitar. And I was watching the sound check and they had a line of marshals and amps and I was like, oh, man, they're making them, they're, they're not paying attention to details because during the sound check, the lights hit the back, the back line of the amps and he writes through. Yeah. dummy phony amps. Yeah. How could they miss it? Because what we did, we had phony amps too. We had only a cup balls, we could actually knock them over at the end of the day show. And you know, they were so funny, I would take like, I would go around and take truck logos off of trucks or some kind of logo, like white, you know, white trucks. You ever heard of white trucks? Yeah. Yeah. Is it not white trucks? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I unscrewed a few of them and just screwed them into my amp. And, and I remember I did that with another something else from the stereo speakers and we'd get calls like, oh, where do you get those white amps from? You know, there we, but what I did though was I had a speaker cabinet, but I opened them up and they took some plywood and just screwed, covered those speaker cabinets. Yeah. So like, nobody, if you looked in, you could say, yeah, covered up, so I think I said, I think it might have been Vinnie. I said, say you're missing that and he kind of chuckled, but I don't think they did anything about it. Yeah. Yeah. And then they probably just ordered a bunch of Marshall, Marshall, Marshall of your empties, empties. I was talking to this guy. It's funny that came up because we used to change bloody guitars on stage, right? And people go, what type of guitars were you, we've trained, we got letters and guitar player magazine, Rolling Stone, there was letters that he edited, or something about the last night, cutting up, cutting up perfectly good, less applause than how could they do it? First of all, who cares? And, but we, what we were doing, we were buying these guitars from this store up, up town here in the city and they were like, some of them, I, I met the guy the other day and I said, what were those guitars, he said, Montoya, they were just guitars. Yeah. Yeah. People would take the guitar parts and take out the, the, the humbuckers or keep the humbucker pickup. I took those pickups out and put them in my guitar, they're great stuff. So in other words, this was the one of the band. But so at the time, I remember this, my memory, I says, I remember like taking a magic market marker out and blocking out Montoya, and I had decals, Gibson decals, I was put on the top of the guitar, they looked like a Gibson guitar. And I was, I always told people, oh, yeah, I just, in my mind, I thought I had written to Gibson and they had sent them to me. So I talked to this guy who sold us the guitars, his name is Steve Friedman, he had a store called we buy guitars, and I said, Steve, first of all, I said, what was the name of the guitars? He says, Montoya. And I said, what's the story? Do you know anything about those decals? He says, oh, they were like bootleg decals I had bought, but I didn't know what to do with them. So I just gave him to you. I see. And you know, you can, you can still, you can still buy those decals on like online. You can just buy them. Oh, you can. Are you serious? Yeah. You just gave him an idea. No, no, this is not an SG. It is not a Gibson. Oh, you guys have decal. Look at the headstock. You can tell it's not a Gibson. So we had. Yeah. Oh, I see what you said. Yes. Yeah. That's a, that's a sticker. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not, not all the guitars were Gibson lookalikes. Okay. And like we had federal lookalikes. And we didn't have the federal decals, but for the gift ones, we did the, so like, I think there was a certain amount of, with the band, I mean, there was, you know, it was theatrical, but there was a lot of fun and playfulness in the band. And I mean, it was a certain edginess, like there might be something bad could happen. Like, yeah, like something, something could fly out and hit something. And people, people didn't get hurt. I mean, I jumped in the audience once, once time, one time, I had to say it, a broke a girl. No, right. And she was going to sue, which should, but I don't know whatever happened to it. I think the club covered it. But I mean, things did, did happen like that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you were a chaotic band. That's for sure. There's no question about that. And I want to respect your time. We're at the 45 minute mark, unless you have a few more minutes. I know you've got an obligation after us. So, yeah, well, we still got a couple of minutes, you know, I mean, if you don't, yeah, we can go for a couple more minutes if you have a couple more questions. Yeah. I would go ahead, Jake. I was just going to say, I feel like I, I want to give a little bit of credit to what you guys created by way of, you know, in the, in the mid eighties, there was this new genre, if you will, it was just a box. People started putting music and called crossover. And you know, by the late seventies, I feel like you guys, and there was some other people, definitely the sex pistols, because never mind the bullets to me is a kick ass, high energy rock and roll record. There's not one riff on bullets that's not just a kick ass Steve Jones rock and roll guitar riff. And I feel like you and what, what you guys sort of, you know, sewn together with some obviously some great minds. I didn't realize that Rod Swinson, I don't read Wikipedia, but I've heard Rod Swinson's name in the past. And I didn't know that he was kind of a mastermind, like the pistols had a mastermind to like kind of put put together this band, but it really worked well. And me being a kiss fan and a, and a just a seventies hard rock, a queen fan and Elton John fan and black Sabbath and whatever, you guys really put together some great things. And I feel like, and you've already mentioned your records evolved, you guys evolved a little bit as you went along and got, got bits of extreme kept happening. And I feel like that's how crossover eventually started to become called, well, we can't just call it hard rock anymore. You know what I mean? This is barely rock and roll anymore, because it's got all this chaos on top. So, and it's not just punk rock either. I don't feel like what you guys and, and what you and Wendy helped create together as the plasmatics was really a punk band. The attitude was punk, but I feel like you guys were progressive, not as a genre, but you know what I mean? You guys were really breaking molds and my hats off to you. I just, I've always appreciated that. Thank you, thank you, and I just, I have to just say, thank you, that was so nice that you said that, because I feel like even when, well, hold on, say, oh, oh, oh, wait a second, my battery's going to go bad here. Oh, get your charger. Where is the battery charger? Okay, hold on one second, hold on. Do your thing. All right, my wife in the background telling me, you like Stuntan. What I wanted to say is I agree with you, and one of the problems in a way I had when we were playing was I didn't consider like, oh, punk rock, like, I didn't really consider it, it's really a punk rock, I wouldn't have to leave. Yeah, that makes sense to me too, that you're not, you're not setting out to be this one thing. You're setting out to destroy, you know, you're an experiment. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And even like when we went at the coup d'etat and stuff, oh, you're heavy metal, and I always wanted to be the plasmat, you know, I felt like that's the defining thing. And I think the music, like I love the Ramones, and I love like those early bands, but not to get tactical like, but like, I mean, everybody plays one for five, but they were playing, their sound was way, I mean, some of our stuff's a little bit like that. But I think we were trying to do and more of a blues or even, blues is not the right thing, but not playing typical sort of, I don't want to say typical, but we were trying to explore stuff, you know, and stuff. And you know, you're playing loud music and it lends itself to, you know, playing kind of metalish sounding stuff and everything, but it doesn't have to be metal, you know. Motorhead is not metal, a motorhead is blues. Exactly. There's a song that we have upstairs, I mean, I'm up and upstairs, I'm playing right now called Master Plan, and it's kind of a fat, kind of, not a little bit about motorhead-ish sound. I know Master Plan. Yeah, I remember we actually, let me actually play that song with this, with wind, on the 45. Remember, let me just tell me, oh man, I really like that sound song, Master Plan. I saw it because it does sort of have a, it's an A and a psych, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and, and just, it has that sort of groove. And I really, I love that type of, that type of a bluesy rock. Yeah. That's got like a shimmy, shimmy to it. Yeah. But that's motorhead. That's motorhead. Yeah, that's what he does. I'm glad that we're bringing up motorhead because, you know, motorhead gets a lot of the credit for bringing the punks and the metalheads together. Yeah. And I would say the plasmatics did exactly the same thing. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And, you know, you might not get the notoriety for doing that, that motorhead did, but there's no question that you sort of bridge that gap between the punk rock audience and the heavy metal audience. And I think we all owe you a debt of gratitude for that because, as Jason said, there probably, there might not be bands like SOD or the chromags or DRI and things like that. That whole crossover genre. Right. If it wasn't for a band like the plasmatics, it was sort of merging that chaos with that speed and creating what at the time was a brand new genre. So a lot of the music we love can trace its roots back to the plasmatics. I think 79 and 80 are very important years for this, what we're talking about. This kind of movement, 79 and 80 are very volatile and important at the same time. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And like we were like, I always felt, I mean, I don't want to knock New York down either. I mean, I like New York, but like CBGB's, everybody loves CBGB's and everything like that. But, you know, we weren't blondie. We weren't, you know, television. We weren't, you know, different models and stuff. And I mean, I always said that there's a lot more rock outside of New York, you know, but it's another story actually. I don't listen to that. Well, I've always loved New York bands. Okay. I don't mean to put them down. No, you're not. He mentioned Riot. We love Riot. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Riot. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, you know what? Jason. Neil Smith from the Alice Cooper band played drums on one of the Plasmatics albums. We had New York on the show one time, and he talked about that a little bit. I thought that was really cool. He did because after our first album, and we did this tour, and then our drummer left with Stu Doyne. She left. And we were ready to go into the studio to record beyond this, our second album, which is called Beyond the Valley in 1984. And we were kind of didn't have a drummer, and we were kind of scrambling, and Neil did the record. You know, he came in like a pro and did it really quick. I mean, like a bit of a ringer, you know, but we, but then we wanted him to be in the band, but it didn't really work out. Like, I don't think it was me, the requirements were meeting what he wanted, but we, I love Neil, and by the way, he's another guy I'm still in touch with and talked to every once in a while, and, you know, we get along great. He's very tall, like I am. Oh, yeah. I'm not used to people really tall. So when somebody's really tall, it's like, wow, you know, how tall are you, you are tall. How tall are you? About six, six. Yeah. But I'm sure he's tall. He's like, you know, like, six, five now, five and a half, you know, with some, with some boots and the, and the mohawk out there, seven, five, we started, I had these, I had these blue, I got them up on St. Mark's, he's really cool blue shoes. They had these heels and stuff, and they were impossible to, well, they were good. I mean, I was young. I could jump around and hang out with them. But then I moved from, but I got rid of them and I moved to, here's another thing. I said, forget about these things, and then they got wrestling boots, you know, oh, fun. Yeah. Except don't step on any glass with wrestling. No, because there's no, there's no soul on them. They're like ballet shoes, right? So yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. There's always glass on a plasmatic stage. Yes. There is. Hey, have you ever heard of or do you? Do you remember a band, they're from the 80s, but they're still active from Florida called nasty savage. I've heard of them. Yeah. Their singer, Ronnie, nasty, Ronnie, he befriended Wendy and Wendy would, I think that nasty, I think nasty savage was in the late 80s, mid to late 80s, they were touring with like a bigger band and I can't remember who it was at the time. But like the, the headliner was back there and Wendy Oh shows up at the backstage door and comes in and the, the headliner was all, Oh, cool. Wendy Oh is here. And she beeline right past these rock stars is nasty Ronnie and, you know, who were the piddly opening band and went and gave Ronnie big hug and hung out with Ronnie and nasty savage all day in their dressing room and the headliner was like, who the fuck are these guys opening for us tonight? And I just thought that was the fucking coolest thing. And they have a lot in common. I don't know if, if when I say nasty, savage, anything really comes to mind. But Ronnie smashes TVs on his fucking head every night, okay, he cuts himself all up. He wears masks and he's like, he acts like he's talking to a ghost and he lays down roses like they're dead and he misses them and all this. It's fucking crazy. And they have a brand new record out. They've been around for 40 fucking years. He's going to be on our show here in a few weeks. And anyway, just want to bring that up because it had a windy connection. Well, we'll tell my settle out. I will. I will. He'll freak out. He loves that shit. And he, he still loves Mrs. Wendy and still loves loves the plasmatics. He'll love it that we talked to you today. Yeah. Richie, thank you so much for your time, man. I know we've. Thanks a lot. Yeah. Well, we'll look for you in Austin. Just a reminder to viewers and listeners, those of you in the Austin area, Richie will be in Austin, Texas, October 19th at Paul Bear Press in South Austin, signing autographs, playing with tits out the plasmatics tribute ban from here in Austin, Texas. And I know that's going to be a great time. So if you're in the neighborhood, go check it out. Go say hi to Richie. Yeah. Thank you so much for your time today, man. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me. I had a good, I really had a good time. Oh, good. We love to hear that. We love to hear that. We try not to make it be a both of them. It was an easy conversation. Thank you. Yeah. It's fun. We make it fun. Okay. On behalf of my cohost, Jason McMaster, I'm metal Dave Glessner along with our special guest today. That's on the talk louder podcast.
