Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Donnie Iris: The Hit You Know, The Career You Don’t [Episode 362]

Transcript

Donnie Iris: The Hit You Know, The Career You Don’t [Episode 362] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: In those years he had as many top hundred songs
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: as Springsteen did. Lover Boy had eight, Night Ranger had eight,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Thompson Twins had seven, Toto had seven, Van Halen had seven,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and Donnie and the Guys nine. When they were working
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: at the height of their powers with incredibly limited resources,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: they fielded a very competitive project. And if you like
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: rock and roll, if you like classic rock, if you
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: like power pop, for my money, they are the great
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: undiscovered nineteen eighties rock band.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: We're totally booming rock and roll.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I mean gotta leave you. You're reading Little Hens says
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: it's time to rock and roll rock band, roll up.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: I totally booked everybody. Welcome back to Booked on Rock
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: the podcast for those about to read and Rock Americ
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: sinach before we get started. Make sure you had two
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: booked on rock dot com or check the link in
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: the show notes to get fifteen percent off classic rock merchandise,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: said Old Glory Dot use steal. It's a steal.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: If you don't do it, it's like you're losing money.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Hell yeah, man, you get some some cool merch use
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: the code booked on Rock. You might. I don't know.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Maybe there's a few T shirts, Donnie Iris T shirts
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: in there. Maybe there's a few d X Ferris T
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: shirts in there. Who knows our guests, our returning.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Guest backlog of suburban metal dad T shirts that a
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: lot of people that I thought were my friends said
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: they would buy and did not.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: I've gotten that, Like, Oh no, man, I'm gonna head
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: on there. I'm gonna get some some of your merch cool.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'll get to it. But yeah, man, it's
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: great to have you back on. We wanted to do
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: this episode. You sent me this. This is the collector's
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: edition of the book on Donnie Iris, The Story of
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Donnie Iris and the Cruisers, And there it is. It's
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: the black and gold copy.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can only get it at live shows.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Man, this means a lot to me because I'm
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: a die hard Steelers fan. I'm from Connecticut, but Steelers
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: are my T shirt.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: I am tired in black and gold today in honor
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: of not only Donnie Iris, a rock and power pop
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: kink of Pittsburgh, but also if you're into this kind
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: of thing, The Roberto Clemente documentary is now available for
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: purchase on Amazon and Apple TV and Frickinstellar. Yeah, it's
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: it's the brand new one. It is produced by Lebron
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: James executive produced, and Richard Linkletter of Dazed and Confused.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Everybody wants some Fame Van Halen connection for you right there,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and it's good. It'll make you cry every possible way,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: like gout it joy, out of pride, out of sadness.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: It's incredible. So get that. We're talking Pittsburgh. What the
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: documentary is about. I mean, they nail the sports stuff, obviously,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: but the documentary is about a man who excels as
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: a human being. It's about human accomplishment, not just being
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: an excellent sports guy. If you are remotely inclined, I'm
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: giving this one the fairest money back guarantee, which I've
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: been offering for twenty years and I've never had to
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: actually pony up the cash. But if you get it
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: and you don't like it, I'll give you your money back.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: It's that damn good.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: It's that damn good. Yeah'm gonna check it out. My
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: brother's a huge Pirates fan. All right, so let's talk
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: about this one now. This is one of Pittsburgh's greats.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Donnie Iris, what drew you personally? What drew you to
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Donnie Iris as a subject for an entire book.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Well, I am from Pittsburgh, where they put classic rock
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: in the water the way that most towns do fluoride
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: and such. So I grew up listening to you know,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: when I started listening to the radio, the bands on
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: the radio were Van Halen, There's Rush, Tom Sawyer was
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: a single, so much good stuff, and Donnie Iris and
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the Cruisers were on the radio. And I grew up
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: in Pittsburgh, so of course Donnie Iris and the Cruisers
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: were on the radio. But compared to Van Halen, compared
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: to Rush, compared to all these all time great bands,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I never thought that Iris was lesser than those guys.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I just I don't think I even knew he was
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: local at the time. I just thought, here's these four, five,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: six great bands, And some of them went on to
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: outpace him a little bit. But in the years of
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty through nineteen eighty three eighty four, when they
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: had a major label affiliation, the Cruisers were putting up
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: competitive numbers against all those bands.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: And the song Aliah stood the test of time that
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: is still played on the radio. Also, he had love
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: is Like a Rock, which is one of my favorites.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, and if that's the way love ought to be
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: is not on your list, then check that shit out.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: I'll check it out.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Need that, you need that in your life.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. His best of is on Spotify, and I believe
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: a few albums are on there too.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the best of a more recent independent one on
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: the Christmas album, which is a stone cold classic. I
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: saw that Sergeant Pepper of Christmas albums. If you like
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Christmas music, which I do.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Cool. Yeah. Chapter two is I'll meet Donny Iris, so
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: let's do that. I always love the songs, but now
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: I love him even more because he's a diehard Steelers fan,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: which is great, and he bleeds black and gold he does. Yeah, yeah,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: you're right. Quote, but he's not from Pittsburgh in the
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: strictest downtown zip code two cents of the term.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Well in the other side. I'm told there's another side
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: of the state. I don't know. I haven't spent much
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: time there, but I'm told there's an area called Philadelphia
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: on the more easterly I've heard of it. They heard it,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: and over there they are kind of snobbish. If I
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: understand correctly about whether you are from Philly or quote
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: unquote from Philly. You've probably seen those demographics and memes
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: over the years, But Pittsburgh is all inclusive. If you
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: are generally from the Pittsburgh area within driving distance, it
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: counts you're Pittsburgh. So I grew up in the Styx,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: maybe forty five minutes south, but it still counts as Pittsburgh.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: So Donny's a little bit north. He's not a downtown
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: kind of guy. But most of us Pittsburghers who talk
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: like this a little bit, we ain't from all the
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: way downtown neither.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: What town is it that he was born in?
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Beaver Falls? Beaver Fallsier, Yeah, beaver And he settled down
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: in a place called Elwood City a little bit later.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: And you know, much to his credit, you know, there's
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: so many interesting little wrinkles to his career. When Donnie
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: started making money and being a famous rock star and
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: appearing on MTV, he did not buy a big house
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: in the suburbs. You know, all the things that he
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: did not do are so remarkable. So he grew up
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: where he grew up, and he stayed where he grew up,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: and he likes it there.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: His real name isn't Donnie by the way.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's the only thing that anybody has called
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: him his real name, and part of me if I'm
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: watching this as dominic Iurachi.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Well see it's pronounced closer to Iris. On the Jaggers
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: and Wild Cherry records, you'll see that name. That's him, right, yeah,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: or his childhood years.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Like he he's very much I mean, he's the kind
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: of old school Italian guy that you don't really see
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: him like that a lot anymore. You know, real love
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: and family, real close knit. A lot of things that
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: people would think are stereotypical apply to him. But it's
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: just that it was that kind of family. You know.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: His dad pushed I didn't push him to be successful,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: but his mom really taught in music. She had him
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: singing in front of people at the age of four,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: and he has not stopped. It's almost eighty years later.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: This week is Donnie Iris's birthday, we should say eighty three, eighty.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Three, and he still goes out and performs from time
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: to time. He does and sounds amazing. I saw a
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: clip on YouTube he does.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: He does he the band It was I forget if
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: it was two or three years ago, maybe his eightieth birthday.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: They this band that is over forty five years old
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: at this point, had their biggest concert ever. They sold
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: out a venue that held like five thousand in Pittsburgh,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Big Donnie Iris birthday party. So he's not part of
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: the everyday fabric of the city necessarily, but he is
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: still a very big deal around here. As I say
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: in the book, every city has somebody like Donnie Iris,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: somebody like Tommy Conwell and Philly. Yeah, it's the blues
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: band in Washington, d c. Nighthawks, Mother's Finest in Atlanta.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: But the point is that he's one of these people,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: you know, like the Cincinnati Bengals. You know, if you're
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: from Cincinnati, it's a big deal. Five hours away not
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: such a big deal. It's hard to.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Find a lot of fans well, and that happened a
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: lot back in the day. Local radio stations could break
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: these bands locally. Now it's a different it's a different
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: layout in terms of corporate radio, so the station sound
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: the same pretty much wherever you go if it's company.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: That I think is one of the wonderful things about
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: this story. It is a throwback to a time when
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: you could simply make a good record, really put your
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: heart into it, and there was a chance it could
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: get played on radio, and if it was received well
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: in Pittsburgh, it could break nationally. And it did. You know,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: it's it's this story in so many ways, documents, facets
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: and parts and periods of America that just are not
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: there anymore. And Donnie and the Cruisers is just such
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: a classic example of guys going, let's put on a
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: show and see who shows up and who likes it.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: And some people did and.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Do what made the Pittsburgh music scene such fertile ground
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: for musicians like Donnie. You know, Pittsburgh and.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Cleveland they too, even I think, let me think how
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: to say this. I'm an Akron and Akron is close
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: to Cleveland, but people from Akron would not say they're
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: from Cleveland in the way that somebody like me says
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: we're from Pittsburgh. But all of these areas that we
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: now know as the rust Belt are you know, really,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: you had a lot of boomers coming up in the scene.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: You have a lot of immigrant parents. To use it
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: in the loose sense of the term, the work ethic
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: is strong, and yeah, these people are not in the
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: hippis Metropolitans in the entire world. So people from Akron,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: people from Pittsburgh, people with Cleveland at a certain point
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: realized that if anything was going to happen good and
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: awesome and fun, they were going to have to take
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: personal responsibility for it. You couldn't just rely on people
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: come and to entertain you like you could in New
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: York City or Los Angeles, Like if you wanted to
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: see a show, you had to take some personal responsibility
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: for that.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: Before we get to this band, the Cruisers, talk about
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Pittsburgh's number one band for ten years, the Jaggers. This
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: is where Donnie wrote his way into the national spotlight
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: with the song The Rapper in nineteen sixty nine. Tell
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: us about the band, and yes, there is a Rolling
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Stones connection here to the name, which had two variations
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: on the spelling.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Yes, I mean Donnie. To give a little bit of
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: context for it, Donnie had top one hundred singles with
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: not one, not two, but three different bands over the
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: course of nineteen years, damn, near three decades. His first single,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: which was kind of a number one, he had kind
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: of a number two. There's a lot of these weird
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: distinctions in the Donnie story. Jaggers are this fascinating band
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: to me. They there are recordings of them singing the
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: standard Old Man River, the show tune. They recorded a
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: record with Gamble and Huffed, the Phillies Soul rock and
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: roll Hall of Fame sensations. A couple of them went
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: to Woodstock. They started off as is a very much
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Beatles inspired, the kind of band you see in the
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: movie that thing you do, just local guys having a
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: good time, signing up to play a club at the
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: beach for the summer. That kind of band. So they
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: went through all these different phases where they were just
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Beatles kind of guys, and they turned into a show band,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and then they went hippie for a while, and then
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: they went back to being a show band. They had
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: a real not Svanngali of a manager, but a guy
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: that really owned their showbiz chops. And out of it
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: all comes this single The Rapper that was number one
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: on one chart and number two on the other chart
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: that I guess you could call it an novelty single,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: but their artistic reach and accomplishments goes so much deeper
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: than that. It's interesting.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: And the Mick Jagger connection who came up with that,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: I forget which one you know, Mick Jagger, who has
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: been a name for as long as any of us
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: can remember, probably our grandparents.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Too, the Jaggers. The actual term jagger was a reference
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: to one of the many obscure Pittsburgh colloquialisms. Most people
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: would call them thorns. But in Pittsburgh, when we talk
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: about walking through the the woods, walking through the creek,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: as many people would say creek, we talk about being
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: beset by jaggers, being brushed, being brushed by thorns, and
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: jaggers with an S seemed like it had a good
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: double entendre to it, reference to the rock and roll
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: great also to the Pittsburgh term jagger, And eventually the
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: legal people got nervous about it and had them change
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: it from jaggers with an S too Jaggers with a Z.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: The Rapper, Donny told you the story behind the Rapper
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: and what inspired it? What's the story?
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: The role that Donnie plays in his career is super interesting.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: He does not write a lot, but when he picks
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: up a pen, lightning strikes. He was not the primary
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: songwriter in the band. He was not the primary singer
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: in the band even but one night, I mean So
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: many artists have a story like this. He wakes up
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: and he has an idea for a song, so he
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: grabs something and writes it all down and they go in.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: They record it. Sounds good. Next thing you know, it's
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: a runaway smash single about a kind of guy that
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: doesn't exist any well, I guess suppose they still exist.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: The pickup artist, a guy that would make his way
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: through the world just schmoozing women throwing cheesy lines at him.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Hey he had the rap i coffee or tea or me.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: He had the rap. So before there were rappers, there
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: were rappers.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they were on the label Sticks was on it
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: one time, wood Nickel.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah they ye had their career intersects with so many,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: so many big name people.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the pre famous hit making Sticks. Yeah
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: the wood Nickel Ears, which they've got some cool music
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: on wood Nickel, but yeah, they So they were on
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: that label and then they played their final show on
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: January seventeenth, nineteen seventy six. Donnie on his own, and
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: you're right, Donnie didn't know it. As the famous Jaggers
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: were crumbling. The creative and business team that would guide
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: him through the rest of his career was drifting toward him.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: What happens after the Jaggers and how does this next
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: gig lead to the Wild Cherry period.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Well, after the Jaggers, he spends some years in the
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: wilderness just trying to figure out what he wants to
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: do next, and eventually to earn a paycheck, he connects
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: with a band called Wild Cherry that we all know
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: best as to play that funky music band. And at
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: that point the band had already been joined by an
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: up and coming young musician named Mark Avsek. And that's
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: one of the really super interesting parts about the Donnie
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Iris saga. When you talk about the music of Donnie Iris,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: you're actually talking about a creative partnership between Donnie Iris
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: and his bandleader, producer, songwriter Mark Avsek.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's huge. Never knew about this guy, and I
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: wonder how that made him feel, because Donnie Iris took
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: the lion's share of the credit.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: He's absolutely like that. I mean, they have a He
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: can't compare the exact relationship to Steven Tyler Joe Perry,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: but it's one of those great rock and roll pairings
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: where the two of them just compliment each other so well, well,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Donnie is not again the biggest hit Donnie Irish ever
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: had he wrote, So I'm not discounting his creative powers,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: but he doesn't write that much. And then in Mark Avsec,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: he found somebody that wrote constantly but didn't want to
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: be in the spotlight. So Donnie is a great singer
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: for Mark's lyrics.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Also worked out perfectly.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'll tell you about who I think this
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: is a great detail about who Mark Avsec is as
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: a person, and it also sort of dovetails in with
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: their management, which is such a compelling story. The management
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: was Mike Belkin out of Cleveland. He was one of
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: those guys like Bill Graham was the epitome of it.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: But he was the guy that he and his brother
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: owned concerts in Cleveland. They were concert promoters and they
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: managed bands too, and were they great at it? We
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: can argue that point, you know, in some ways, know
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: in some ways certainly. But one of the bands that
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: he managed was Wild Cherry. When they had written this
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: new song called play that Funky Music that sounded pretty good.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: So this is what I love about Mark. They were
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: about to form a band and really go on or
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: run after this. This hot song that they had in
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: the harp or that they were going to release. So
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: they take Mark into the band and they say, here's
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: this song, play that funky music. We think it's good.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: What would you do with it? And Mark, to his credit,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: listens to it and goes, nothing, I wouldn't touch it.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: It's perfect like it is. And that's the kind of
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: guy that Mark is, Like, he doesn't have to have
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: his fingerprints on everything, he doesn't have to have his
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: name on it, he doesn't have to have the writing credit.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: He just wants to do the work and make the music.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: So when a lot of people would have gone in
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: and tinkered with that perfectly alchemized single, he said, no,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: just leave it alone.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Extremely rare in the music business, Yeah, in an ego
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: driven business.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And so they Donnie later joined the band. They
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: went to the band Wild Cherry late in their career,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: went to Muscle Shoals, hoping to make a great record.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: They were thinking that the music, the music there might
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: somehow rub off on them, and it did not for
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Wild Cherry. But while they were there, Donnie and Donnie
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: and Mark had this, you know, real kind of musical
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: love affair where they realized like, Wow, not only do
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: I like this guy, like we can really do good
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: work together. So while that record that Wild Cherry recorded
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: there was not a hit, it springboarded these guys into
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: a career that twenty one, nearly fifty years later, is
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: still going on.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Out From that came the Cruisers.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: From that came the Cruisers.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: All right, how do they run out the rest of
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: the lineup?
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: It's quite a lineup. And what I say in the
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: book is a lot of people have had comparable careers
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: to the Cruisers. Again, you know, the book to me
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: reminds me of the band in that thing you do,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: just a bunch of guys getting together, making music, going
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: on a run around the Merry Go Round and seeing
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: how far it goes. But these guys have stayed together
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: and accomplished a lot of really neat things. So Donnie
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: hits with three different bands. Mark he'd cut his teeth
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: in bands, including Breathless, led by Jonah Coslin, who was
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: one of the guys who was instrumental in the Michael
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Stanley band No pun intended, but drummer Kevin Valentine tremendously
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: talented guy, one of the many guys in the band
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: who went on to a remarkable second career. It's only
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: just now in recent years coming out that he was
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the studio drummer for Kiss through the nineties.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Man, that's so cool, and I knew that name as
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: soon as I saw it. He's on Psycho Circus, I think.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he played on a couple tracks on I Forget
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: the first album, but as the nineties went on, he
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: started off as a tech and then he played on
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: a couple of tracks. Then the next time out he
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: played on a couple more and on Psycho Circus. He
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: plays as much as you can while still being able
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: to say, well, Peter Cris is on the album. It's
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: all the.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Original guys, although I think he may be only all
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: but one or two tracks.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so he's on like everything except one or two,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: but there's just enough to say, well, yeah, Peter Cris.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Is on it, right. I think Into the Void has
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Peter And also the other one which you one of
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: the best, you got the best that song, I think
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Peter's on that one.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So Kevin's an accomplished drummer. He played with Sam
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Kinnison's rock and roll band.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: He did so many interesting things he's produced Graham Bonnett,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: did some work with Slash. Super talented guy, the original bassist,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Al Britton McClain, enigmatic guy, multi talented threat. The guy
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: that's been their basis now for so long is Paul Gole,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: who was really there for some things. He was there
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: in the California scene of the sixties just watching people
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: like eat acid and have meltdowns and wander off into
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: the Venice Beach.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: He's got the stories to succeed in that scene, but.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: He got involved in a very different kind of career
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: and the music came back to him and guitarist Marty Lee.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Marty Lee really powerful figure in the eighties. If you
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: look at some of the pictures of him in the book,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: and you know, if it's a good looking book, it's
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Marty's fault because he is a career creative person. He's
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: worked with advertising agencies for most of his life, and
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: he's the one who laid out and designed this book,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: which I think is definitely the best looking book I'm
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: probably ever going to be a associated with.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Were you able to talk to all the guys in
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: the band for the book?
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: I did? I did? I talked to all of them repeatedly, repeatedly,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and you know it's you mentioned Donnie's those clips that
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: surfaced a couple of years ago when they performed that
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: sold out concert. A few of those clips went online
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: and you see him, I don't want to say effortlessly,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: but he still can't hit the high notes the way
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: that he was hitting him in the eighties. Bob lef
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: SIT's the good Dude industry pund that got super excited
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: by that and invited Donnie onto his podcast, and you know,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: in typical Donnie fashion, Donnie doesn't like talking about Donnie
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: that much. So it was this big, high profile, celebratory
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: interview and Donnie just didn't have much to say. And
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: most of these guys don't have much to say. So
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: if you've seen the documentary, there is a documentary about them,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: doesn't get into that much depth. If you've heard Donnie
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: on podcasts, respect he is a great storyteller. He can
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: tell great stories about the band, but when you're asking
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: him point blank about himself, he's a humble guy. So
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: if you've seen them before in the documentary and interviews,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: in so many stories they've done, it's kind of like
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: those are stories that have the band recording just one
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: set of vocals on those and by me having access
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: to them over years and years, I was able to
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: get something that is not just one vocal pass but
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: you know, as they do on their records, I was
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: able to get sixty vocal passes. I was able to
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: not just get the story, but come back to it
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: and cross reference it and ask questions again and again
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: and again and again. And I think they got tired
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: of talking to me eventually, But now you know, I mean,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the book is seven eight years old. Now they've come
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: around and they realize what a good thing it is
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: that we were able to document so much of their history.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: How much then, do you think the fact that Humble
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Guy doesn't want to talk too much in interviews, maybe
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: that plays a role in why they didn't have the
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: kind of long term success. Maybe you gotta have that
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: front man that wants to go out there and promote
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: and do the interviews.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, to his credit, Donnie is not a
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: self serving, self obsessed mofo.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Self promoter.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And that was part of it. You know. I
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: went into the book thinking, and it is really my experience.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: When I play the band for people, they say, wow,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: this is good stuff. They should have been huge. It is. Yeah,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: going into the book, that was my thesis, like the
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Cruiser should have been bigger, and I believed that, but
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: you know, I probably the one thing I learned in
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: nine point two five years of Catholic school is that
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: life is not fair. So I went in thinking that
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: the Cruiser should have been bigger. But by the time
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I was done with the book, I was a man
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: and impressed and flabbergasmited points that they managed to accomplish
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: as much as they did with limited resources and the
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: limited connections. I mean, as I said, they like Donnie
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: kind of has a number one single, kind of not
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: the Cruisers sort of had a record deal, but not really.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: They made some videos, not big budgeted, they had a partner,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: you know, it was always something. So these guys really
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: overachieved for the modest amount of resources that they had
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: and the modest connections that they did.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Find the Booked on Rock website at bookednrock dot com.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: There and can find all the back episodes of the show,
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: the latest episode in video and audio, links to all
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: of the platforms where you can listen to the podcast,
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: plus all the social media platforms were on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: and x. Also check out the booked on Rock blog,
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: find your local independent bookstore, find out all the latest
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: hot rock book releases, and before you go, check out
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: the booked on Rock online store, pick up some booked
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: on rock merch. It's all at booked on Rock dot com.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: De X Ferris the author of the story of Donnie
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Iris and the Cruisers. As you mentioned, this came out actually,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: I think the actual release date would have been in
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: twenty seventeen.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: It came out. This is a This is a big books.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: It's essentially a seventy five for seventy five.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: There you go. Take a look at that sucker.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: It coincided with Donnie's seventy fifth birthday, and it just
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: coincidentally wound up having seventy five chapters. Because part of
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: what I do with the books is, whenever possible, I
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: try to write a lot of short chapters so you
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: can pick it up, put it down, pick it up,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: put it down, and not have to worry about where
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: you are in it.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: I just love that era, the late seventies, early eighties,
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: the height of the AOAR era. Yeah, absolutely, and they
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: wrote perfect alar radio friendly songs, but songs that stand
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: up a leah. That song, it's it's just a perfect
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: pop rock song. I guess you could call it a
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: rock and roll song.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: It's just so yeah. I mean, call it what you will,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: power pop, power power pop. I mean, if you're a
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: cheap trick fan, that's probably the word for it. Classic rock.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: I mean again, Pittsburgh is such a classic rock town,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: and Donnie is the guy that has gone the furthest
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: in that arena of the classic rock arena. Yeah, but
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: I intended it for it to be a small book
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: to something. I was going to set up bang out
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: quick nine months over forty thousand words, and then you've
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: tated in this gigantic coffee table book because there was
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: just a lot of good stuff that I you know,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: in my my less humble moments. I like to think
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: it mirrors their process because they're just so painstakingly creative.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: You know, they will put they never had much budget
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: to record with, but they would spend the important thing
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: they would and time on their records. You know, they
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: would never record a song with four tracks and say ah,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: that's good twenty you know, they had to go all
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: out you know, many of these these records have one
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty tracks, and every like ten years somebody
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: will come around, like Andrew WK or I forget who's
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: doing it lately, it's a woman artist just has these
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: like incredibly produced, lush tracks that just echo and they're
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: stacked up for days and days and days. Donnie was
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: doing that before it was cool, and when people do
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: it now, you know, generally the pop world reacts by saying,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: oh my god, the production, Wow, the effort. One hundred
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: and twenty tracks. And they were doing one hundred and
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: twenty tracks when it was very, very, very time demanding
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: and not easy to do.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's get into some of the songwriting. Let's talk
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: about that. We'll go to chapter sixteen, titled Bring on
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: the Eighties. Donnie's debut quote nineteen seventy nine. The story
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: of Donnie Iris and the Cruisers truly starts. After decades
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: of practice and preparation. Donnie is at a critical juncture.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: He hasn't had a hit song for decade. So now
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Donnie's thirty six years old, so that's, you know, in
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: rock and roll years, is up there. A year later,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: the first album is released back on the Streets comes
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: out July of nineteen eighty and on that album is
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: a song called a Leah written by Donnie and Mark Avsek.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: There's a fake story and there's a real story behind
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: the song. And you write about a nineteen eighty one
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: biography that claims the songs about Donnie's second wife, Leah
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Iris Jones not true. In fact, the real story is
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: far more complicated. What is the song really about?
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Very complicated. Mark originally wrote it as a sort of
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: homage in the style of a chant from The Wizard
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: of Oz, kind of the oh Oh Metallica would later
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: riff on just envisioned. He wrote a song about classic blunder,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: the Russians invading Afghanistan, and that's where the lyric here
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: we Go Again came from. And Aliah just started off
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: as a phonetic thing. It wasn't a girl's name, it
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: was just a chant ahi, something that was vaguely European sounding.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: And Mark eventually decided that set of lyrics was dumb
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: and there was no point to it. But the way
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the cruisers work is they don't really have demos. They
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: just start building a song and building it and building it,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: and they never restart over again with the intent to
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: make a better version. They just keep honing their initial thing.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: So they had this huge rock track with the chant
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: ali Ah on it, and Donnie says, I knew a
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: girl named Leah, So all of a sudden it changes
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: from it chant to girl's name, and now we're still
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: singing about her. And now women the world over are
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: named Leah in honor of this song. In Pittsburgh, GE's
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: common to find people named Ali.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Really Okay, what a groove and the guitar riff but.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Massive. Yeah. That turned up in the Netflix adaptation of
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: the comedy Wet Hot American Summer when they turned it
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: from a movie into a series and they had to
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: summoned the quintessential spirit of nineteen eighty one on a budget.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: They licensed that track for it. Wow, boy does it
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: feel nineteen eighty one, but it's also timeless.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: The Buddy Holly look that came after Aliah, Yeah, that's
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: thanks to Mark Yeah.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Donnie had always worn the Fortune four to ten
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: glasses and eventually it became part of their branding, their
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: visual identity. You know. Donnie was part of a wave
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: of guys like Elvis Costello that we're showing you that
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: it was in fact possible to rock a party and
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: wear glasses. And eventually Donnie started forgetting about the glasses
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: and he had to be reminded to put them on.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: You know. That's that's his one show business foible, the
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: one superficial thing he does. Aside from that, you know,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: he's famous for, you know, literally mowing the lawn and
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: then showing up to a gig and playing in his.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: So they're non prescription. I mean, they're just like he
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: can see just fine. He just wears them for the stage.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: I think at this point, you know, eighty three, I mean,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I'm fishing.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: He probably could. Yeah, and nowadays.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: It may be a little more fuss. But you know,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: as you see him on the cover of the book,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: it's Donnie without the glasses, and I think that's a
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: great picture. I mean, that's Donnie in front of a
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: lot of people, when you're seeing him in a way
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: that you've never seen him before. And that's what we
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: tried to do with the book and.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: A story behind the album covered back on the Street.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: It's a connection to Donnie's Jaggers days.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, at one point when Donnie was in the Jaggers
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: and they were going through one of their show band phases.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: They all had these yellow tuxedos matching yellow tuxedos, and
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Donnie was a guy that you seeing Joe Cocker sing
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: with a little help from my friends at Woodstock, really
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: put the zapp on his head. They still sing his
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: arrangement of that every single show. It's important to Donnie
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: and that's the kind of guy who Donnie was. So
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Donnie was going in a Woodstock direction and his band
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: are saying, you know, we all need to have these
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: yellow talxes on, you know, for the look the brand man.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: We got to do it. And Donnie hated that, and
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say complain. He was a team player.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: He would wear it on stage, but he didn't like it.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: And then years later, when they were shooting a relatively
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: low budget video for Ali, they were looking around for
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: things that could make it look distinct and Donnie reached
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: in his closet and found his yellow tuxedo. And then
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: a few months later, the guys that he used to
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: be in the Jaggers with that used to hear him
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: complain about this. Yellow talks all the time, look up
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: on MTV and there's their guy wearing the yellow tuxedo
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: that he used to complain about all the time.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: Lea reached number twenty nine on Billboard. The follow up
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: album was nineteen eighty one's King Cool and that is
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: the top forty single. Love is Like a Rock. Let's
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: talk about now. This is the recording process that you
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: referred to. It all starts with Kevin Valentine's drum part.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: He told you the story behind the creation of the song.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: This is a classic old school analog era story.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, just coming up with the beat and working
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: on it and building on it from there. And they
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: were doing yeah, obviously they didn't invent this kind of thing,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Pink Floyd do it, but they would have, you know,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: beats on tape, running around the studio, literally running around
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Mike's stands, and just in a primitive, literal loop of tape.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: They added upon layer I think on this one.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know again, you know Donnie and the Cruisers
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: real big signature thing is their production. These incredibly lushly
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: layered like guitar stacked up forty tracks tall Donnie's vocals.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: You're doing forty takes on the Christmas album, which I
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: realized that the idea of a Christmas album from a
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: classic rock band can be cheesy. But Donnie and Mark
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: put together a version of the Hally Loujah chorus. There's
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: nothing but Donnie singing it. I forget if it's eighty
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: or ninety or one hundred, but it's all different, Donnie
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Irish voices, Donnie recording all these different tracks, smashing them together,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: and his voice just gloriously rubs off against itself. And
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: that's been the real calling card. Yeah. Again, it's not
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: something that takes the most money, but it takes time
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: and most artists eventually tap out. Who wants to do
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: one hundred twenty vocal tracks? Well, Donnie maybe doesn't want to,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: but Mark has a vision for it, and Donnie trusts Mark,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: and Mark is usually right.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: And Marty Lee's riff on guitar.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Absolutely now now now now, now, don't know. Yeah, as
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Mark says, Marty comes up with cool stuff. That's what
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: he does.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. My Girl became his biggest hit on the Hot
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: one hundred peak, the number twenty five Sweet Mayor Lee
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: charted on the Rock Tracks chart at thirty one. Ben
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: had multiple charting singles, so why did they not reach
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: arena level theme at this point, they're stacking up the hits.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they they just simply were not connected. Yeah. I
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: mentioned their manager, you know, the late great Mike Belkan.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: He is a guy that managed Joe Walsh. He managed
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Barnstorm when Joe Walsh's band was called that he managed.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Tommy Bolan managed Wild Cherry. He was generally not able.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: I managed the James Gang, James Gang, and Joe Walsh
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: was with him. He was not able to launch a
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: lot of his bands directly into the stratosphere. So was
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: he a great manager in that regard? Well maybe not,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: but but none of his guys are broke. You know,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: even guys like Donnie that had modest success. He took
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: care of their money very well. He was able to
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: steer them. He was able to mentor them and stop
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: them from doing foolish things. So he maybe couldn't put
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: them directly on the charts. He was able to put
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: them up with a lot of good bands, get them
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: on good tours. But you know, in the nineteen eighties, frankly,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: they were not guys roaming the earth with baggies of
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: cocaine in their pocket saying hey, play the Donnie Irish
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: record and a lot of other big bands had that
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: going for them. Not naming names, we're just saying if
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: you wanted to get your record played, it took a
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: little bit of backscratching, and the Cruisers were able to
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: call in favors. But they weren't part of the payola system.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that is not a stretch. That's true. That
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: is what it was back in those days.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: And when it comes to as I alluded to, the
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: band did not truly have a major label deal. They
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: had a production deal with label that had a distribution
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: deal with MCA. And you've probably heard this in your travels.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: We refer to it in the book. MCA would sign
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of bands, but not do a lot with them.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: So the joke was that MCA stood for Music Cemetery
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: of America. And one guy that I talked to in
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: the book even turns it into a verb, like what
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: happened the Cruisers? They got Mcaight, they got signed to MCA,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: and not much really happened to him. So they did
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: not truly have a major label deal, so that even
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: when they were doing well, they were not a huge
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: priority for MCA.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you cannot understate the importance of that having that
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: label backing and putting money in to the tour, to
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: the promotion, to the whatever, booking the band wherever you
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: can book them to get to get some exposure, and
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: without it, then you're left to just a grassroots type
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: of thing.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, Jesse Jackson, whatever your opinion of him,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Jesse Jackson just died. And I thought of a quote
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: from around like nineteen ninety six. Someone was grilling him
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: about whether or not he was on the presidential ticket.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: They said, why aren't you, Why aren't you on the
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: presidential ticket? And he said, well, I'm not, but I'm qualified.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: And that's something I remember all these years later. And
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: Donnie is a band that Donnie and the Cruisers and
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Mark were not a band that was in the top ten.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: They were not in Hit Parader, they were not on
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: all these big tours necessarily, but they were qualified. They
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: had the stuff. Just you don't always get to be
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: on the biggest stage doing the biggest thing. There is
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: important work to do closer to home, important work to
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: do other places. You don't always get to be the
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: biggest star. You know, they still won the lottery. It
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: was just for a couple million, and that's like a guess,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: that's a figure of speech. I'm not talking about how
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: much they made, but they won the lottery. It was
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: just for closer to two million than one hundred million.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: They released The High in the Mighty in eighty two,
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: Fortune for ten and eighty three, No Musk, No Fuss,
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: and eighty five never able to recapture that commercial success
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: of previous singles. Were they also victims of changing radio
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: formats in the mid eighties.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a little bit of that. They got
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: hit with a lawsuit. It took a lot of their
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: time and money at a critical juncture when they really
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: should have been recording on the record or concentrating on
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: the record rather. Yeah, and then times were changing. You know.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: It's interesting around like eighty five, after their major label,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: not Deal but Connection went away, a couple people made
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: overtures to Donnie saying, you know, listen, dump Mark, dump
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: your partner. I know he's your guy, he's your boy whatever.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Nobody's not saying that's great, but you need to dump
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: him and come out to Hollywood and be this kind
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: of guy. And you know, we can keep you in
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: the game, but you got to dump all your friends
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: and Donnie, to his credit, this is the kind of
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: guy he is, realized that would be a foolish move
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: and he didn't want to stay in the spotlight at
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: the expense of betraying these people that had made his
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: success possible. He didn't want to leave his friends, and
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: that turned out to be exactly the right move, because
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: as you know, in nineteen eighty five eighty four, things
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: were changing anyway. So if I'm pretty sure if you
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: would have dumped Mark, he would have wound up not
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: more famous, we'll.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Say, but you hear that so many times. You don't
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: need those guys, man, you come with us be as
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: you know, got solo will take care of you. Man,
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: you got to get rid of those guys.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: And to his credit, like you said, being a Pittsburgh
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: rustbelt kind of guy, he was able to smell that
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: and he knew.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for checking out the Booked on Rock podcast.
• 43:33
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• 43:37
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• 43:39
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• 43:42
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• 43:45
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• 43:48
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• 43:50
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• 43:58
  Speaker 2: the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: to the show. Many bands fade away Cruisers though they
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: kept playing for decades and became a hometown institution in Pittsburgh.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: What became of downing the band after the eighties?
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: They know they got day jobs. Mark Avsek again the
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: extraordinary producer, band leader, songwriter. He is now the intellectual
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: property batman. He's an attorney who specialized as an international
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: intellectual property The Cruisers got hit with some would say
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: frivolous lawsuit. I can think of wards that are less
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: charitable than that. We're trying to keep it friendly. And
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: by having such a terrible experience in the legal system
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: when the band did slow down, Mark went to law
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: school and he had such a terrible experience with that,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: he thought, you know what, never again, It's not going
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: to happen to me. And if I can stop it,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: it's not going to happen to anybody else. So he's
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: still involved in intellectual property across many different fields. But
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: he's not just a rock and roll guy. I mean,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: if you have the patent to a blender and somehow
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: somebody in China acquired your schematics and now they're printing
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: bootleg blenders, Mark Afsick is the guy that you turn
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: to for justice. So that's that's a big part of
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: his daily life.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: A nineteen eighty one lawsuit and a twenty thirteen lawsuit right,
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: one was regarding Aliyah, and then in twenty thirteen a
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: lawsuit against Sony. The most significant was the two million
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: dollar lawsuit regarding Aliyah.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the one that really stopped them in their
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: tracks for a.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: While, accused of plagiarism, but they won.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was it was. Yeah, I'm Mark now that
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: he is an experienced eternal attorney readily calls a borderline frivolous.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: Mark Alton, Detroit songwriter. So, yeah, he copied his song
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: here I Go Again. Yeah, he claimed that because the.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: His contention was that he had submitted a song to
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: MCA and Los Angeles and because the cruisers had that
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: MCA connection, and because his song also featured the lyrics
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: here we Go Again, which I think have been used
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: somewhere between forty and fifty million times and other songs.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: The judge, for whatever reason, let that go through. And Mark,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: because he's a guy of fierce integrity and pride and
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: not in a bad way, he just refused to settle
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: the case. He wasn't going to let it go. So
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: they just let it play out. And it cost them
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of time, and it cost them a lot
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: of money, and it wound up costing them all there,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: all ea money. But at the end they were found
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: not guilty of plagiarism and he was able to walk
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: forth with his head held high.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I wonder if they but it was worth
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: it to them, sure, And I wonder if they recouped
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: that because if they're both on so they could both
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: have songwriting credit on it, so publishing.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's one of those things where you know,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: if they get money from MCA and they don't even
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: think about it, you know, they every now and then
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: people will ask them about, well, can you know, can
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: we get it on vinyl? And the label Rock Candy
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: did a great set of reissues a few years back,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: but people will ask the band about maybe get it
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: on vinyl. And now that MCA is part of the
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: universal conglomerate and they're such a relatively small band. You know,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: even somebody like Mark that understands intellectual property in corporate
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: structures and governance has no idea where he would even
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: begin to call at MCA to find out.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: But you know, if it's using a movie or a
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: television show or a Netflix series, they're going to cash
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: in on it.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that stuff is just little drops in
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: the bucket here. Sadly. You know, I've and much about
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: this about being you know, somebody makes things, you know,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: certain things like music and books you can spend infinite
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: time on and they're just not going to recoup the money.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: It has to be worth it just to make it exist.
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: What became of Donnie after the eighties?
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Now, so Donnie being an icon in Pittsburgh. People like
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: him because he's a likable guy, and he's he's a
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: solid guy. Your people are always buddying up to him
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: for this and that and the other thing. He met
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: somebody who has connections in the financial world, and he said,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Donnie you could be essentially a mortgage broker.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: And that that's a.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Very basic reduction of it. But he spent twenty years
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: in the mortgage affiliated business and broker professional financial world.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: All Right, a suit and.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: Tie plays a gig here and there, Yeah, playing a
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: couple showing.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they play between half a dozen and a dozen.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: You know, the band have not gone a year without
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: playing a song or without playing a show together since
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: they formed. You know, that's over forty five, forty six
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: years at this point. Even the year that Marty had
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: a heart attack on stage and almost died, they were
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: still back within the year playing together.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: So yeah, they they for a while they were obscure.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: It looked like they were over. But it's one of
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: those things where the band just slowly accrued more cachet
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: as time went on. They were playing state fairs. But
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: as you know, that's not bad money, no laugh and
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: go oh state fair, Yeah, state Fair is the kind
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: of gig that you want. And that's that's when Donnie
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: really came into his own. He stopped feeling the obligation
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: to act like he was a rock star. He would
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: just literally show up. As we said, from having mowned
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: the lawn. Yeah, just his regular clothes and just take
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: the stage and sing the hits, and that became more
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: and more valuable, valuable to people in the Tri State area.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: As the years went on.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: He had cancer, but thankfully beat it in twenty twenty three.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, shortly after. You know, it's always like the shoe
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: was always dropping. With his band, they had that incredible
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: sold out show, five thousand people, their biggest solo show ever.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: At that late late stage in their career, they were
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: getting national attention. And right after that, Donnie's diagnosed with cancer.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: But that's not going to stop him. You cannot stop
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: don it and only hope to contain him. He paid
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: the price for that. He you know, at that late
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: stage in his life, he still had longer hair than
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: you and me combined, and that has fallen by the waistside.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: But he still looks you know, on what little I
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: have up here has gone for good. I hope I
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: look as cool as Donnie does.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: The book Down Rock Podcast is part of the Bonus
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: podcasting work. If you're a fan of classic rock and
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: classic film like I am, go to Boneless Dot Lovable
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: Dot app to find over twenty great shows there that's
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: boneless dot lovable dot app, or just go to booked
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: on rock dot com, the Boneless podcasting network. It is
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: what you want it to be. Listen with confidence. By
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: the way, here's the image of the Christmas album So
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: ali Lujah, right, Allilujah? So is it sung to the
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: to the same like the same notes, chorus and all
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: that of Aliyah?
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: No, No, it's just a that's just a running uh
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: okay thing they have when I get a minute here
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: and people in my immediate circles know that this is ridiculous.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: More like, if I get a minute, but I'm gonna
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: launch it Donnie podcast, just a short series.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: Like oh you are cool, Yeah, that'd be great.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call it something on something to the effect
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: of a podcast.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it might be it, But I tell you I I.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: Played a small, small, small, small, tiny but important, I
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: think rolling that Christmas album. I was writing a feature
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: about Donnie's band leader. I was working for a Cleveland
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: newspaper at the time, and he just happened to be
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: starting work on that Christmas album. And I had I'm
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: a big Christmas music guy, I love Christmas music. Get
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: me started, And I talked to him and I happened
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: to have in the car A I'm trying to make
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: sure I'm being vague enough because I don't want to
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: mock anybody or point at anybody, So I haven't even
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: said the year I took a classic rock band's Christmas
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: album that they had recorded and they were very proud of.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: But it was basically them playing like plugging in and
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: playing jingle bells. And I gave it the mark and
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: I said, you can't do this, man, take this album.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: Listen to it, and this is what you're going for,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Like don't it's got to be you guys, Like, there's
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: no don't do this?
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: Why bother?
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And to his credit, he as he does. He
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: went way overboard on it, you know, as we did
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: with the book. Just spent a year just deeply immersed
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: in these incredibly like creative and thoughtful and elaborate renditions
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: of Christmas songs old and new. And that could be
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: the last Cruisers record we ever get. I mean, it's
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: over ten years old at this point, but it's amazing.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: If you like that kind of thing, it's Yeah, they
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: very much designed it so that people would pull it
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: out every year. People would have a reason to come
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: back and remember it, and now it's part of a
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: lot of people's Christmas traditions.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's cool on me, see, I think it's in
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: Spotify here it is. Yeah, they got the twentieth century
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: masters in there. You can't live on Love? What's that?
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: That's more recent single. The whole record and album thing
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: fell apart. They started dropping the song here and there,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: trying to see if it would catch on, and normally
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: they don't. But what can you do?
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: And what's the song you said I should listen to again?
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: Was it? That's the way, That's the.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: Way love ought to be. That's how I start the book.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: That's that's the one that when I was listening to
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: Van Halen on the radio and Rush and this was playing,
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: I just assumed they were three bands of equal stature.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: As I say at the beginning of the book, Uh,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: listen to it seriously. Note al Britton's propulsive bass line,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: Donnie's pumped and passionate vocals, Kevin's smashing, crashing drums. Listen
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: to it in the dark. I swear Marty's guitar and
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Mark's keyboards will actually shoot sparks, no flames. That's what
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: we're talking about here. That song is Why Donnie Iris
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: and the Cruisers. It's them at their glorious best. But
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: outside of Pittsburgh it was not a big song. So
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: the fall five hundred pages are.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: Why Okay, because the only two songs of here in Connecticut,
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: there's two songs that made the radio. Leah obviously and
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: Love is Like a Rocket. Yeah, those are the two.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: Those are the two, all right, So that's it. I'm
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: gonna listen to. I guarantee you because I was listening
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: to the Best Of I was going through them kind
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: of quickly, though, I wasn't really investing into each and
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: every song on that best of And I will do
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: that for you.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: I will.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: I promise I will listen every Yeah.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: And you know, and I'm not saying there Van Halen,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm not saying they're led Zeppelin. But for
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: AUP of Mortal guys, they did really well, you know,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: sure they did. If all you listen to is their
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: best of collection, it's an astounding collection. It's diverse, meticulously crafted,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: really good stuff.
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love these stories. These are the underdog bands.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, A lot of stuff on their other albums not
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: far behind. I mean, what we do in chapter one,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: as we look at, yeah, the metrics, the numbers. You know,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: from nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty five, Bruce Springsteen had
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: nine Hot one hundred singles nine songs by Mark Avsek nine,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: So in those years he had as many top hundred
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: songs as Springsteen did. Lover Boy had eight, Night Ranger
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: had eight, Thompson Twins had seven, Toto had seven, Van
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: Halen had seven, and Donnie and the Guys nine. Now, obviously,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: in the next five years Springsteen and Bullie would deeply
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: eclipse the Cruisers. But the point is again is that
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: when they were working at the height of their powers
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: with incredibly limited resources, they fielded a very competitive project.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: And if you like rock and roll, if you like
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: classic rock, if you like power pop, for my money,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: they are the great undiscovered nineteen eighties rock band.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: There you go. What a way to finish. And thank
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: you for sending me this book. And by the way,
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: also thank you for anointing me. Because on the package,
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: I come home from work and I'm looking at my
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: mail like, oh cool, looks like you know a book
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: is Manton and it says to the King Eric, I
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: was anointed the King by you. I that's that's quite
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: an honor.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: The idea that you read the books that you talk
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: about on your talk show, like you can lose your
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: union card for nobody does that? Like you don't you listeners,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: you don't understand how rare that is. It's amazing.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: I was going to frame that package, but I'm you know,
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: I just felt uncomfortable.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: So you can't, you know, nobody, You know, friends don't
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: keep track of favor. This is the third time you've
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: had me on.
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: So I had somebody, somebody came in my Lindlard came
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: in and had somebody making pair in my apartment and
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: there was the package on the counter. I'm like, what
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: this guy must be thinking, Like the fuck is this
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: guy the King? I could have explained, you don't understand.
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: That's the experiens point.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: So the cameos in this book, man, you you have
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: the guys working with the Jaggers, Gamble and huff Wild,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: Cherry Breathless, Kiss, Bon Jovi, Yeah, Santana, Cellar, Full of Noise,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Sonny Jirasi, Wolfman, Jack the Flavor, Fair Warning, A young
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: Trent Resnor.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, there's a Trent Resnor story in there.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: B Taylor, the James Gang, and so many others rock
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: and roll hall of famers left and right.
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: It's a great story. It's an underdog band, but it's
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: also it's written I've told you just before. I love
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: because it's written in your voice, and I love that.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: And you put in the You clearly put in the
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: time and the effort to really investigate and talk to
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: the band members and get the full story. So those
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: guys should be appreciative of that.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: Big fok book. I can't you know if nothing look
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: at the pictures. You don't even have to read it.
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's beautiful. And so you could go to Amazon
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: all the usual places, and where can people find you
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: online if they want to reach out to you, Just
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: do a search for d x Ferris Slayerbooks dot com.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: We'll get you to me, Dick Feris. Thanks man, this
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: was great. We wanted to do this and we made
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: it happen.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Keep having me back, and I'm not sure why, but
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to sign up.
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: Keep writing those books, man, Keep writing those books, and
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: you don't even have to to come back on. We'll
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: just find a reason to have you come back on.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: You're one of my favorite guests.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: I will try to do stuff.
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: Thank you, all right man.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: And Donnie Iris check him out. A lot of good stuff.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, all right man, thanks, thank you. That's it.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: It's in the books.