Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Back To The Big Hair & Epic Riffs: Why 80s Hair Metal Still Rocks Our World [Episode 194]

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Back To The Big Hair & Epic Riffs: Why 80s Hair Metal Still Rocks Our World [Episode 194] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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We're totally booked rock and roll. I mean, I'll leave you. You're
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reading. Little Hands says it's time to rock and roll roll. I totally
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booked. Hey guys, welcome back to Booked on Rock, the podcast for
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those about to read and rock. Find the podcast online at booked on rock
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dot com, where you can find every episode of Booked on Rock, along
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at the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it at booked on Rock.
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If you like what you see, make sure you click the like and subscribe
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buttons. That goes a long way to support the podcast. This episode's guest
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is author Stephen Blush. His book American hair Metal Can't Get Enough has just
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been released. This is an expanded edition of the book originally released by Feral
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House back in two thousand and American hair Metal Can't Get Enough features hundreds of
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photographs of bands including Poison, Cinderella, Motley, Cruz, skid Row,
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Ratt, and Stripper Wild, quotes from the major players of the era,
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including David ly Roth, John bon Jovi, Sebastian Bach, Tommy Lee,
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Nikki Six, Brett Michaels, Don Dokin, and many of the era's unsung
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heroes. This expanded edition includes more photos, more quotes, and a new
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introduction by Chips Enough of Enough's Enough in an interview with Rick Fox of Wasp.
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Stephen Blush is an author, journalist, and filmmaker who's best known for
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his two thousand and six book American Hardcore and the movie of the same name.
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He's the founder of Seconds magazine and has written articles from many magazines including
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Weis, Spin, Kerrang, and The Village Voice. A playlist of the
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bands that can be found in the book can be found on the show notes
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page. Hi, Steven, Welcome to the Book Down Rock Podcast. Oh,
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it's great to be here. How are you, Eric? I'm doing
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good. Looking forward to this one because I am a huge of eighties hair
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metal, so I couldn't wait to get into this one. Let's talk about
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the original book, which came out back in six and why you decided to
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do an expanded edition. Now, yeah, well, there's a few different
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reasons. You know, you do second editions because they do well right said,
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that's been pretty well. We were kind of the kings of like I
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like to say, we were like the kings of like the secretaries and the
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medical the girls, the nurses and you know, everybody who everybody who loves
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and loved the era. But we also felt like it was we had a
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lost opportunity with the art direction. It was a instead of the way the
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book is centered now, it was sideways, and it just it was I
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never felt right about it, and the publisher never felt right about it.
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I don't know how we ended up with that in the first place, but
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many years ago by the book still sells and it needed to be re examined
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and and and relooked at. So it's a combination of you know, a
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lot of pages are intact, but there's also lots of stuff that we added.
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So I think it's really in the spirit of the second edition. Hey,
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talk about what's added to this. Now we've got a new introduction.
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Yeah, we have an introduction by Chips Enough from Enough's Enough, and we
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have afterwards. I guess you would call it with Rick Fox, who was
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this amazing character who played in you know, he comes out of the original
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Max's Kansas City, New York, dolls real glitter rock scene in New York
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and then goes to La and is a founding member of Wasp and comes up
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with the name Wasp. And he then was in that the Ultimate It's Sunset
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Strip band Steeler with Ingvay Molmstein and Ron Keel and interesting Ron Keel and Momsey.
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Yeah, Steeler was a name I wasn't familiar with. Yeah, so
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that's just one of those bands that they just didn't have the record, didn't
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really they had an independent record. But that's and then they and then of
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course that the ego that is Ingveay Moumestein just kind of just left after about
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twelve shows or something like that. So personality, yes, exactly, you
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know, so and then he has you know, and he he his his
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story goes on. He worked with Ronnie Rick Fox, worked with Ronney James
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Dio. He had a band called Sin which the singer Frank Ce Starr went
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on to be in a band called The Four Horsemen that Rick Rubin produced.
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So he just has been there for every twist and turn, and I just
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loved how him in there because he he was, you know, he was
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like a big haired god of the strip back in the day. Interesting,
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you're interested in this genre, this era of music. I think is interesting
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because I read an article where you talk about your friends being pretty surprised to
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see you write a book about eighties hair metal, because your first book,
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two thousand and one's American Hardcore, covered the birth and evolution of hardcore punk.
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That was turned into a successful documentary. But what inspired you to write
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the original book back in twenty sixteen. What turned you on to this era?
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Well, you know, I always liked that music. I always liked
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hair metal. I mean I was came out of a very austere, severe
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subculture that really had no girls. You know, there wasn't really you know,
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it was a very you had to be a very you know, a
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very strict kind of character to kind of navigate that world. And when I
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moved to New York from Washington, d c Uh, it was just everything
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was the same, you know, punk, new waves, hair metal.
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You know, everybody just hung out, you know, everybody, everybody just
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knew everything. So it was a it didn't seem like it never really I
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you know, people grew up in other cities, they saw this schism,
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and I'm affected by it, but it never really affected me, you know,
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when I was coming up. So I just you know, every one
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of those bands, I like, you know, I mean in that book,
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I mean they've they've all got two or three good songs. I mean,
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you know, you have to judge a band by their their greatest Hits
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record, and you know, the Poison Greatest Hits is way better than the
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Winger Greatest Hits. Poison. Yeah, I was gonna, yeah, I
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was gonna argue for Poison. I mean, you could put anybody go get
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that best, you know, I'm sure you can hear it on you know,
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for free, you know, anywhere. But like the Greatest Hits album
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is like thirteen fourteen songs deep. They are solid songs, solid songs,
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absolutely, And I love that album that they did Native Tongue with Wichie Cot
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was so good with that band. Yeah. Yeah, when I first single,
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so here's what what what? What was amazing to me though, was
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that this was like we could talk about the music and but and we both
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get it. And there's you know, obviously tons of people who get it,
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but for some reason the artists didn't really get it. You know,
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that there was a social change that happened in the early nineties, and I
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felt, you know, they felt like they had to change or something,
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and I felt betrayed a little bit by those bands, to be honest with
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you. So if you talk about like the same bands that were changing their
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sound to sound like that, like like I felt like, you know,
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I mean, maybe Cinderella or somebody like that kind of kept it a little
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bit, but I just felt like everybody was like, all of a sudden,
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like in a like a leather jacket and you know, and trying to
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out tough tough others, and they are not what they were based on that,
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right, There's no way it would have worked. Warrant tried. That
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was Ultra Ultra what was the name of that album. It was like the
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ninety Ultraphobic or Ultra something. But yeah, and there were bands that were
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trying to keep up with that era, even Kiss with Carnival of Souls,
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right, and then they also Kiss also had this awesome album And I just
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know about it because the guy who I made the American Hardcore film with,
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Paul Rackman, made the videos for the Kiss Revenge album. Great album.
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Yes, well, that's what I guess that could argue against what I guess
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we're saying. But it's still maintained the kiss sound. I think it actually
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brought it more a back. Yes, yes, but they but they couldn't
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keep doing that either, you know what I'm saying. So you know,
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you have to really be you know, it comes down to that thing about
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you know, are you hoddest about your art? You know? And that's
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a really deep philosophical question and I don't really have I can't say that these
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guys stuck up for their art, you know, in all suck. But
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for me as an observer, it's just an incredible story of you know,
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a great story, as you know, and a book is beginning, middle
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and end right your story and your rise and fall. You know, it's
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all there. It's like it's very the mark The markers are very are very
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specific. I always felt for the bands that came at the tail end because
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there wasn't much time that they could have in the spotlight. Like Extreme came
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along at a time and they really broke right towards the end, right towards
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you know, like eighty eighty nine with Pornografiti and there were bands like that
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that I think Trickster was one that came out like nineteen ninety yeah, right,
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well right before Nirvana and pro Jaminal so they they kind of get the
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raw end of the deal. But at least or they can look at it
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as the glass half full and say, hey, at least we had our
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shot. And now they could probably play gigs nowadays and play the hits that
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they had at the time. But yeah, it just what Nirvana did was
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something like we've never seen before. It was like it just yeah. I
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mean there's these times as if you go back into your music history, you
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know, there's like you know when Elvis came out, when the Beatles came
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out, you know when when punk and disco, heavy metal happened. These
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are all markers you know around. But you know, this was a it's
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it's really a tremendous story. I mean, because these guys were so big
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and so deluded by the lifestyle that a lot of them lost themselves, you
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could tell, right, I've spoken to a lot of these guys since it
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was an interesting story. What I think is really important about the book and
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specifics of the book is that all the interviewing, all the book, all
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the interviews, the quotes, the lyrics, the art it's all from the
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era. It's all what they said and did in the era. It's not
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them reflecting on their past, because frankly, a lot of these guys are
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a little freaked out by their past, you know. They and they don't
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want to get to talk to the wife and kids about what they were doing
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in nineteen eighty You did what? Yeah, that was a long time ago.
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That was a lot. No, that's like a great story in itself.
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I mean, that's a you know, but I'm not making fun of
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these people. Really, they they were living the dream when we were in
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I was in high school, and I was like, you just wanted to
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live that lifestyle. But it's interesting to find the origins of hair metal.
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There is a bit of New York dows in there. There's some Kiss early
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kiss, right with Zeppelin and Van Halen. But you know the importance of
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a late seventies band called Angel. Can you talk about their influence and the
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other factors that influenced the hair metal bands of the eighties. Sure well,
12:18
Angel was the first band that credited their hairdresser. I mean that should pretty
12:22
much tell you at all. But the specifics of Angel is of a very
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credible band. They came. They were on past. They were managed by
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Bill o'coin and toured with Kiss and One. Kiss was like the band in
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Black and Evil and these guys were wearing white with the chiffons and the hair
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and they Punky Meadows was the leader of that band. They were from Baltimore.
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I was from the DC area and in those you know, at that
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time, they were a big deal. That was that was like a band
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like those were really they were wearing white and makeup and stuff, but they
13:07
were tough, you know, they were that was a tough and tough band.
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So I think that really kind of tells you, you know, they're
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kind of the setup for for this scene because you know, none of these
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guys, I mean like people used to say, like these hair bands were,
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you know, not tough guys, but they it's not like they weren't
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tough guys. They just weren't tough guys compared to like, I don't know,
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Danzig or something, right, you know, you know, it wasn't
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like like you would want to start with with Nicky six, you know,
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you know, these are like, oh fit Neil, all those guys.
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I wouldn't pick a fight with any of them right, right, So so
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I think that they they got caught up in this industry thing and it all
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comes down to well it I it's it starts with Stairway to Heaven and it
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starts with dream On. But it's the power ballad, and the power ballad
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controlled everything with this with this particular genre because that's how they were. Those
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bands got it on the radio, right, so you know, Agnostic Front
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was not ready for radio, you know, but and they were around at
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the same time. But you never heard of, you know, bands that
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came out of the Bad Brains or whatever. You heard about bands that came
14:33
out of Van Halen, right, and Van Halen really being the be all
14:39
and end all for that scene in terms of the music structure, which is
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really a the structure of Montrose, which was Sammy Hagar's first band. Ted
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Templeman produced it You Got It and Ted Templeman and Rodnie Montrose really being the
14:58
role model for Eddie van h Now when you mentioned the band Angel, is
15:01
this the same Angel that wanted to record You Really Got Me and release it
15:07
like they overheard Eddie talking about it. Yeah, Okay, that's a that's
15:11
a wild story. Like Eddie was just talking to the bass player and saying,
15:13
yeah, we got our first single ready to go out. You really
15:16
got me. I think the bass player was like really, And so he
15:20
went back to his band and said, hey, we got to record and
15:22
get it out before they do type of thing. And Ted Templeman was like
15:26
he I think Eddie told Ted and Ted was like, what did you do?
15:28
We got to get that out now. Yeah, that that's a wild
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story. That is a wild story. But then the other the other thing
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is quite Riot was very important, right because they had the very first number
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one album, very first metal band that was. That was eighty three into
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eighties, right, right, that's a really really important time. It's a
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landmark moment because you had Ozzy Osbourne, who's kind of doing his thing too,
15:52
but he's still the guy for Black Sabbath, you know, and you
15:56
know he's still and he's there wasn't really and they had and you know,
16:02
you had that whole power with Randy Rhodes, which kind of like made them
16:08
they were part of like a seventies continuum, I guess, is what I'm
16:11
trying to say. Right, it was still kind of the seventies. So
16:14
in the eighties came. There weren't really many songs. I remember there was
16:18
that song, and there was turn Up the Radio by Autograph and Twisted Sister
16:25
had one or two songs because they were getting big, not only in the
16:27
East Coast but also in England, which was a big deal. So yeah,
16:36
Quiet Riots are really important part of it. There are also a definitive
16:41
Sunset Strip band. Right, they're kind of like when they started talking about
16:45
bands on the Strip, you're really talking about bands like Quiet Riot. Yeah,
16:48
come on and Feel the Noise was a song that they didn't like.
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They didn't what it was Slade that originally did it, and boy are they
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glad they released that, and then Stay Hungry from Twist's Sister and again both
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those bands a lot of showmanship. Of course d Snyder with the outfit,
17:04
the look and the makeup and all that stuff. I mean, that was
17:07
all part of the package. And it's interesting because those two bands, by
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the time you get to the end of the eighties, those two bands are
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gone. I mean they're no longer considered cool. But yet they set they
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set the bar, like they set the standard for what was to come after
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that. But van Halen is really probably right up there in terms of influence,
17:26
and David Lee Roth was like the front man that everybody wanted to bait,
17:30
right and this book and the things with Dave him being interviewed, he
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approached as an art form, which I always loved. So he would give
17:40
the greatest quotes. You have quotes from him in this book. There's one
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I got here says the early eighties, come on, you had some disposable
17:48
income and you didn't need to wear a condom. That right there get you
17:51
through a holiday weekend in style. I was an absolute reflection of that.
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Yeah. I can't think of anybody who's more quotable from that era. I
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said, like an art form? Was he the most quotable guy? You
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think? Or who? The names? I mean, there's the two guys
18:06
who are the ultimate pros who I always point to or him and Jean Sibbons,
18:10
Geene Simmons. Yeah, and Paul was pretty good too. Paul had
18:12
a laugh nothing. I didn't mean to detract them, yeah, just the
18:18
overarching impact of Jeen Sibbons, but those but that went a long way to
18:25
promote a band too. Man, you got to get to get out there
18:27
and promote. That's why David was so important for Van Halen too, because
18:30
it was shy David. Guys were like those guys understood show business. You
18:37
know, they come out of show business families at least uh Dave did.
18:42
And you know they just knew how to hamp you know, do that Broadway
18:48
ish kind of thing, and you know it was cool. I mean,
18:53
those those those were those guys are the kind of guys. And I know
18:57
this from interviewing both them a number of times. It's like you turn on
19:03
the tape and you turn turn it off forty five minutes later and you're not
19:07
going to get a word in. What. Yeah, you have hard time
19:08
keeping up with Dave? Right? How many questions do you get in?
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Yes? A few tops too. And you know he's one of those guys
19:15
where like, you know, bust of the stuff goes over your head while
19:18
you're listening to it, you know, and then when you go back and
19:22
hear it, it's like, Wow, Well do you think he rehearses those
19:26
things in his head when he's on downtime or is this just his his brain?
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He's just he's got that brain, his brain, Because I don't think
19:32
he's because he would have been much more efficient in the business if it wasn't
19:37
just his head going off all the time, right, because I've seen interviews
19:41
with him where he's he's fielding questions that weren't the standard questions and boom,
19:45
but he just responds. He's like on it, he has an answer for
19:48
everything. Now. He represented a you know, I mean it was showbiz,
19:55
right, that's I guess. I never really of hair metal as showbiz,
20:03
but it certainly is. It certainly is. I mean it's you're and
20:07
I mean that in the best way, you know, because there is nothing
20:11
wrong with showbiz. We all we're all so inundated with it. You can't
20:14
just pick and choose and decide when you like it. You know. Yeah,
20:18
he was. He was the guy back in the VHS days. I
20:21
would record Dave interviews every bit as much as I would record a song that
20:26
was new on MTV. It's like, I can't wait to watch Dave talk
20:30
his rap. You know, you know what you're what you're talking right here?
20:33
I mean, this is why I wrote this book. I mean,
20:37
this is fine. This is like a cool time in history. It's enough
20:41
time. Now you ask me why about The second edition is also another twenty
20:47
years is a long time, you know, you know, and I really
20:49
have you know, I've been able to really think everything through as well.
20:55
And I it's about enough time. It's about enough time that because what happens
21:00
historically with a lot of things is you when it's just over, nobody cares.
21:07
When it's when when it just ended, nobody cares. But you need
21:10
the breathing time to reflect on it. And you know, these guys come
21:15
up. They they're pretty cool, you know. There's Yeah, a lot
21:19
of my punk rock friends were surprised that I showed such enthusiasm for such a
21:26
subject. I don't think they were surprised that I did it, because they
21:29
know my I have a very wide interest in music. But I think my
21:36
obsession with the Vinnie Vincent Invasion and Nitro and you know some of the most
21:42
extreme like weird almost weird bads, I think that kind of blew their mind.
21:51
Yeah yeah, yeah, Well the best lyric or the lyric that sums
21:56
up that that whole era, the best I think is poison some but a
22:00
good time. And it's if wanting the good life is such a crime,
22:03
lord, then put me away, right, Yeah, And that was what
22:06
that era was about there are bands you highlight in the book who weren't as
22:11
big as Bonjo of your Motleykuur def Leppard. Is there a band or a
22:14
few bands that come to mind where you think, man, those guys should
22:17
have been bigger. Like I think there's this one band that's in there called
22:23
x y Z Yep. They're from southern California and they were kind of like
22:29
bad Company meets like hair met like modern metal. I thought they were an
22:34
amazing band. It was a band called bad Lands with Ray Gillen. Yes,
22:38
that had also on guitar guitar. Yeah, right, so that was
22:45
a really good band. That's good that that records almost like you know,
22:49
bon Joby had this really cool era. I'm you know, I grew up
22:53
in New Jersey, like the town next to Sayerville, New Jersey, where
23:00
John is from right there. Yeah. Yeah, so I used to like,
23:03
I kind of you know, I played Pop Warner football with Richie Sambora
23:07
get out. Yeah, so I kind of knew those back. Was he
23:11
a good football player? Yeah, he was good. That's so cool man.
23:15
Wow. Yeah, So I was, you know, from that area.
23:18
So but they had this one really cool era which is the soundtrack for
23:23
a movie that they a western. You know what I'm talking about, right
23:27
right? Oh wait, are we talking about Young Guns? We talk about
23:30
that Young Guns. John brought in Jeff Beck to do the soundtrack to Young
23:34
Guns, right right, So that's kind of like a cool that's kind of
23:37
like what a bad Lands kind of reminded. H Yeah, that had Miracle
23:41
and the big hit, the big hit was Blas of Glory Glory, but
23:48
yeah, Jeff Beck was on that. But but to me, bon Jovi
23:53
and I know Slippery and Wet how huge that was in eighty six, but
23:57
New Jersey to me, is is it like that's my favorite joe Yum,
24:03
especially the songs that weren't on the radio. That's side too, is yeah
24:07
that you just said that those two albums though, Slippery Wall in New Jersey
24:12
huge, so and all put in How about this one, I'll put in
24:17
a word for seventy eight one hundred degrees Fahrenheit Yes, which which is their
24:21
second album, YEP, which isn't like their best album and they probably almost
24:26
went out of business. You know, a lot of bands had those wobbly
24:29
wonky second albums and but it had in and out of Love and Silent Night
24:36
Right and Silent Night Yeah out there. Yeah, So they were always really
24:38
good. They always had like a really like John's like a really smart guy
24:44
and he's always like observing, you know, and he's always paying attention.
24:48
So and his band reflects that. I mean, he didn't change that.
24:55
It's very interesting because he didn't have to change too much to yet still completely
25:00
leave whatever negative stereotypes there could have been from the eighties go. It's not
25:06
like he changed that much, you know. It's like have a Nice Day
25:11
or something like that that he put out like a few years later, it's
25:14
still kind of still like she's a little runaway or something. You like.
25:19
Do you remember Bound, Yeah, yeah, that was early two thousands.
25:25
But they're interesting because well, actually they have a documentary out now. John
25:27
Manjovi just put out The History of bon Jovi. So he's out promoting that
25:32
and he's talking about how he lost his voice. He's trying to get it
25:37
back. He's able to sing here and there. He recorded an album,
25:41
but on tour he's he's like it's up to God. At this point,
25:45
he gets up every morning and he does vocal lessons, but he lost it,
25:48
and I think it had to do with his getting COVID. But but
25:52
do you think because he he did, I think he tried to distance himself
25:56
from from that. He did a rock label, you know, they cut
26:00
his hair shore and then did Keep the Faith, which is, you know,
26:03
it's a great album. But then it was interesting because like during the
26:06
nineties they were holding on with ballads. It seemed like that was the only
26:11
old ways and stuff like that. But then it was It's My Life in
26:18
late nineties that brought him back to But that was that was a brilliant move
26:22
because you still had Richie's talk box in there. So it was like a
26:26
connection of old school bon Jovi with a new sound. But then those guys,
26:30
I mean when they go if he goes back on tour again, I
26:33
mean they they'll sell out Giants Stadium. Yeah, they're they're one of the
26:37
biggest bands in the world. I mean, and they're not that you know,
26:44
they're not an aloof bad you know, they're not like you would think
26:48
they would be. You know, it's like you couldn't get like ten feet
26:52
from thirty feet from you two. And I'm not even putting them down,
26:57
but that's like an approach kind of stuff approachably. Yeah, like John is
27:02
the kind of guy you could probably run into. And yeah, like I
27:04
ran into him and I ran into Richie both in the past like a dozen
27:11
years, let's say, and it was very normal. That's cool, you
27:17
know, Richie. You know, I don't know how much, uh,
27:22
John remembered me or just said he remembered me, but I used to I
27:26
used to review them for Kerrang and all those kind of magazines, so I
27:30
think he did remember me a little bit. You know, Richie ten minutes
27:33
to talk, you know, so listen to mean he's a megastar, you
27:37
know, and that's just cool. That just tells you how down to earth
27:40
he is. But Richie's really cool because I just saw on social media he
27:44
posted it was somebody who was a woman who was a huge bon Jovi fan.
27:48
She was like the number one bon Jovi fan, loved the band everything
27:52
you did. And she passed away, and Richie rest in peace, I
27:56
mean, giving her love on social media. You know. Just again that
28:00
just speaks to how they feel about the fans and normal they're really like,
28:06
you know, I mean, Jersey is very normal, you know, kind
28:08
of a normal place, you know, they're very Jersey, you know,
28:12
they really, even though they moved other places and stuff, they are that
28:18
rich Is Richie underrated as a guitarist, Yes, very player because because of
28:23
the band he was in, and you know that's why he's not in the
28:26
band. Really, if he asked me, it was because he did.
28:30
He wasn't treated like Jeff Beck. Yeah, he's not Jeff Beck, but
28:36
he's he's a good guitar. I mean, I've seen him warm up before
28:40
shows. It's pretty impressive, bluesy guitars. She's got some solid solo work.
28:44
Yeah, so he kind of had to take a back seat. And
28:48
I think John has said they asked him if he's talked to Richie because there
28:51
was this talk that Richie was going to come back. Maybe phill X is
28:53
the guitarist now. But then I think John said, I haven't talked to
28:56
him in a while, so hey, maybe it'll happen. The book rock
29:00
Podcasts. We'll be back after this. If you were to compare Slippery and
29:07
New Jersey to def Leppard's Pyromania and Hysteria, if you had to choose which
29:12
which two for in your own meetings, I mean, look, there's nothing
29:18
I mean, Pyromania is just is a classic, classic album. But you're
29:25
talking to somebody from Jersey, so it's kind of like, oh, that's
29:27
right. What am I saying? It's a kind of a hard one for
29:30
Like, I don't even love I don't love Bruce Springsteen, but I don't
29:36
I will always stand up for him. It's just a central Jersey thing.
29:40
I can't really explain it. Yeah, do you feel is there is there
29:44
the best of the best in terms of this era in the eighties as far
29:48
as an album to me, Hysteria, I think you have to put right.
29:52
I mean that was massive. Well, there's there's a lot of stuff.
29:56
We've talked about a lot of this stuff, you know. I think
29:59
back on the the Richie Cottson Poison album. I mean, that's an incredible
30:06
record by any stretch. That's like a seven classic seventies rock record, I
30:11
know, And it just came and went. And I think because number one
30:12
people wanted CC Deville and number two I think times were changing, right,
30:18
But you're right, it is a solid album. Yeah, No, I
30:21
think that's a really brilliant album. And you know, it's it's such a
30:25
heart. It's such a hard question. I mean, do you put Guns
30:27
and Roses in there? Oh appetite, Yeah, that's I mean the appetite,
30:32
that whole era of Guns and Roses. I mean that is the acoustic
30:34
album that they lies. I mean that that whole era is or even like
30:40
the There's you know they put up the two albums that once use your Illusion
30:47
one and two. Right, if that was one album, that would be
30:49
like a top one hundred album of all the time. Yeah. Well,
30:53
there's a bunch of old songs that they sneak on to those records that we're
30:59
supposed to be on the first album, and there's a whole bunch of them.
31:02
I mean there's probably like that. You know, that's a hard one.
31:04
You know. I think a really underrated band is La Guns. Oh
31:08
yes, yeah, I think, uh Phil is a great singer. I
31:15
think Tracy Guns is you know, obviously underrated. You know. I think
31:23
I think of Warren D. Martini as an underrated guitar player from RATT.
31:30
I think that's a really that was a band when they were on and not
31:33
like socially and chemically deluded, but like actually playing music. They were unstoppable.
31:41
I mean Robin Crosby, Bobby Blotzer, Stephen Pierc Warren d Martini and
31:51
uh did you say Crucier? Yeah? Yeah, oh they were by the
31:56
mid eighties, they were like the biggest band around and really good because they
31:59
were kind of like the they kept the old school Aerosmith thig alive they did.
32:05
Yeah, there was a comparison Sarasmith the album We were just mentioning Appetite
32:10
for Destruction. A lot of people will say it's like a bridge between the
32:14
hair metal era and grunge because they weren't hair metal like Axel had the hoofed
32:20
up hair in the video over Welcome to the Jungle, but that didn't last
32:22
long. And skid Row is another one too, where you know they weren't
32:27
a glad band. Yeah, yes, skid Row is a great Yeah.
32:30
I can't believe I didn't mention them again in Jersey, right, you know,
32:32
they got their gig, they got their start opening for John bon Jobi,
32:39
right right, the guy who got them started, and they found they
32:44
were lucky. They struck gold when they found the singer from Toronto, Sebastian
32:50
Bach, because that came through like a photographer or something that was like a
32:55
totally random kind of thing, but it made the band because they were kind
33:00
of not signable before that. I love the little trivia stuff, like his
33:07
brother played in the NHL who was a goaltender? Is that right, yes,
33:12
Sebastian by brother. I mentioned a band, the Blue Murder earlier.
33:16
Do you remember we had John Sykes from White Side. Yes, really good
33:22
band, really good band. Stephen Blush is the author of American Hair Metal
33:25
Can't Get Enough Right. Here's a Tommy Lee quote regarding how easy it was
33:30
for these guys to get women. He said, quote, I remember it
33:32
being so natural for there to be fifty girls in any city naked backstage.
33:37
No one would think twice about any of it. And then Rat had the
33:42
condom vending machine. You talk about that on the tour bus. In the
33:45
book, Warrant traveled with a groupie computer. It was like it was like
33:52
a you know, it like a big computer. Back to then there's another
33:57
band. Jennie Lane was a solid songwriter, very sad story that that alcohol,
34:04
it's just you know, that was his demon. But Cherry Pie,
34:08
the album with Uncle Tom's Cabin and Blind Faith is on there. I mean,
34:14
yeah, it's it's too bad because you know once. Once the nineties
34:16
came around, they become like a punchline. But well, I think he's
34:21
the one in the book who makes the comment that I went over to Columbia
34:25
and Alison Chade's posters over. No, that was a weird era because that's
34:32
the time that I was around. I was around a lot of the grunge
34:36
bands because they had been hardcore a lot of those guys, so I kind
34:39
of you know, that's that's kind of like And there was this time where
34:45
if you were like Sound Garden or Alison Chains or Pearl Jam or Faith No
34:52
More, you had to take these tours with like you know, Poison or
34:59
Extreme or you know, whoever it was. You had to tour with those
35:01
bands. You have to open for those bands. Yeah, it was.
35:05
It was odd pairing like Alice in Chains opened for Van Halen in ninety one.
35:08
But a lot of people forget too. Like Alice in Chains I think
35:12
was a band who when they first started out, they were kind of sort
35:15
of glam the way they drive because it was hard to make the break right.
35:20
You live a certain life, you like rock and roll, and then
35:22
all of a sudden you see how the businesses and you see how the big
35:24
cities are changing. You know, you want to be ahead of that,
35:30
but you can't be too ahead of it because you'll come across as fake,
35:36
you know. So it's like it's a really hard thing to straddle, like
35:43
authenticity. You have to be authentic whatever you do. Like I never felt
35:49
like Poison was not authentic, right, That's who they were. But these
35:54
bands became inauthentic when they changed. I'm not saying that Poison change because they
35:59
didn't. You know. In fact, I would say that Brett Michael did
36:05
a very mature thing, which was kind of like that country that going more
36:10
Nashville, let's say, because that's what you do when you get older,
36:15
You mature and you take your tools and you move into something else that's okay.
36:22
You know, he does well on his own. He's got his own
36:25
festival that he puts out once a year, does the Poison thing. He's
36:30
smart, and it's like and there's like a lot there are millions of people
36:37
who love these bands still, you know, and it's starting to become more
36:42
of an international market. Maybe that's what I'm noticing. You know, like
36:50
like Germany, like you could bring every one of these bands there for play
36:53
the stadiums. Yeah, yeah, how about kissing the eighties and seeing band
37:00
to talk about because I'm a huge fan of eighties Kiss, but I get
37:04
it they were following trends rather than setting them in the seventies. But what's
37:07
your opinion of Kiss during that decade? I loved, First of all,
37:09
I love Vidy Vincent, right, I think Vidy Vincent. You know he
37:13
wrote Lick It Up. A few other songs I'm not thinking of. Well,
37:16
yeah, he's on Creatures of the Night, which was aces on the
37:21
cover, but it's on the cover. And then he wrote songs off of
37:23
Revenge. They brought him back for They brought him back and he sued him
37:25
again. He sued them again. I mean, like so crazy. I
37:30
mean, this guy's like, you're in Kiss. You know, it's really
37:35
hard to get thrown out of that band. It's like they were making He
37:38
had definitely taken the band up a notch. So okay, So you go
37:45
from Kiss of the seventies, which is like one of the biggest franchises ever,
37:52
and then I just wrote this book called When Rock Met Disco, which
37:57
is about how bands went disco around nineteen eight, Like Rod Stewart. You
38:02
know, do you think I'm sexy? Uh? Stones, miss miss you.
38:07
And the big one in this discussion is I Was Made for Loving You,
38:12
which in nineteen seventy nine. They go from stadiums to tanking like they're
38:19
literally like playing like theaters half empty arenas, yeah yeah, half empty arenas,
38:23
yeah yeah. And it's so there's actually there's this amazing book. I
38:30
wish I could come know the title or the author's name. But it was
38:35
a book I read about twenty years ago, was by Kisses Accountant. If
38:39
you could ever get your hands on that one, and it's it's unbelievable because
38:44
he has no empathy for the subject at all. He's just talking numbers.
38:49
So I think I know about this one. Hold you gotta find it.
38:52
I don't. I don't know what the name of it is, and I
38:55
don't know who the who the author was, And I apologize for that.
39:00
I think I could maybe fund I just typed quickly by kiss Accounting. Yeah
39:07
yeah, I mean it is like so unbelievable how fast it went down.
39:14
Oh wait, minute, is it here? Here? It is a kiss
39:15
and Sell The making of a superhero. That's a oh, that's a really
39:20
well known book in the Kiss world. Yeah yeah, I mean with music
39:24
from the Elder just bombs. And then they they put out a best of
39:30
that had some new songs on there with their car a little hard Harder,
39:35
but they went ignored. And then comes The Creatures of the Night, which
39:39
is just a fantastic album, but because but then it was weird because like
39:45
you just said, the Elder was like this, like a head scratcher will
39:49
put it that way. Yeah, you know. But then there's like Crazy
39:53
Nights, Like what album is that? Yeah, well, I was gonna
39:55
ask you about Crazy Nights because that's that's an album most Kiss fans don't like.
40:00
And I love I Love Crazy Knights that came out in eighty seven.
40:02
That's got turn on the Night, reasonab live and and then the title track
40:07
kind of sort of because they call it crazy Crazy Nights, that's the song.
40:10
But but yeah, that there was a a friend of mine, author
40:15
Greg Cratero, wh wrote a book on Kiss in the eighties, was talking
40:16
about how if that album came out just like one year before, it would
40:22
have done much better. But I think by the time that came out,
40:24
Welcome Welcome to the Jungle was out, so appetite was out, so things
40:27
were kind of starting to shift towards more of that, like skid row guns
40:30
and roses, like gritty lock and roll thing, and so it did.
40:36
It did amazing numbers in Europe Crazy Nights, but here that's so not so
40:40
you could follow the nus kiss Jean and Paul are so smart about like understanding
40:49
culture that you follow every one of those records you just mentioned, and you
40:53
could follow every current of music, the subcurrent, I guess you would call
40:58
it as it goes through. It's fascinating to follow, isn't it. Yeah,
41:01
because Crazy Nights is basically a hair metal record. Yeah. Yeah.
41:06
Ron Nevison came in and he did all those heart songs, and they thought
41:09
that was gonna be a big one, the big one. But also they
41:12
were smart enough to take the makeup off in eighty three. That got got
41:15
him enough attention and drew attention to the Lick It Up album and then they
41:19
and then from that point on it was like Paul really led the way.
41:22
He was the ideal thing. It was like the front man. Yeah,
41:25
and he was writing the songs or at least one hit single off of each
41:30
album right up until that reunion. Yeah, David Roth, we talked about
41:36
his inspiration. You know how many front man he inspired. But Eddie,
41:39
Eddie van Halen inspired so many of the guitarist from the eighties. Vito Brado,
41:43
we haven't talked about from white lyon. You know what was and it
41:45
still is my favorite of the Eddie disciples. Who are the best guitarists from
41:49
that era? You did mention I was still saying guys like Warren d Martin
41:54
Martini, how about guys like well j Lee on his own that that that's
42:01
a really good era of Ozzy Osbourne. I can't remember the drummer name dark
42:07
who's the drummer who played on the nineteen eighty sixth album, nineteen eighty seven
42:14
album, and then'll look it up. I'm gonna look it up here.
42:17
Yeah, that's what we're like. Ozzie's like on a throne. Oh yeah,
42:22
I mean that's really good stuff. He's on Bark at the Moon,
42:25
Jaki Lee and went after that. Yeah, I gotta find the discography here,
42:31
see, because I'm wondering. I think Zach Wilde is on that one
42:34
you're referring to, though, that's the one with Miracle man, oh yeah,
42:37
great babies. Yeah, but the tour was definitely but Jake was on
42:45
Shot in the Dark, Shot in the Dark. That's what I'm thinking,
42:47
Bark at the Moon. He was, He was on those Shot in the
42:51
Dark. What's the name of that album? Boy, I'm trying to quickly
42:53
find. Oh, here we go, Here we go, Let's see.
42:57
No Rest for the Wicked came out in eighty eight. But the Ultimate Sin
43:00
from eighty six is the one Sean the Dark, The Ultimate Sin Lightning Strikes
43:05
was on there. Yeah, that was a great tour. Then that was
43:07
the tour that they were opening for that The opening band was a young band
43:12
from San Francisco called Metallica. Yes, you're right. Killer of Giants was
43:16
one of my favorites. Yeah, Killer Giants really so, I mean Red
43:22
Beach is another one from Winger. Yeah, Red Beach amazing and you know,
43:25
you just you just said Zach Wilde. I don't know if he's part
43:29
of this conversation, but you know, Jersey guy, but also like incredible,
43:37
just a minute about Vito Brata maybe, yeah, man, it was
43:40
you know, they're different. Uh. Staten Island, which is like the
43:44
outer reaches of New York City, which is kind of like it's like a
43:47
world unto itself. It's like it's like Saturday Night Fever. I mean really
43:52
that's what they are. So these guys were just like Saturday Night Fever,
43:54
but with like long hair, you know. Veto I don't think wanted to
44:00
tour. I think he just wanted to stay in Staten Island. But what
44:05
a guitar player. I mean he was, he was. He was a
44:07
little stiff sometimes like live. I just I don't think he was ever really
44:14
comfortable with it. You know, you have to have kind of like a
44:16
real panache I think is the word for to be a lead guitarist. You
44:22
know, you really have to, like I have to want it. Like
44:27
well stepped away and never came back. I mean once once the Grungejerry came,
44:31
he was like I'm done. Never came back. Yeah. So,
44:35
like I knew the guys from Typo Negative and they're from the same kind of
44:37
stuff, and it's like they just stopped playing. They're just like they have
44:40
day jobs. You're like, why would you, like, why would you
44:45
do music when you have a day job? You know, this makes you
44:47
a really regular guy. In my view, right, But yeah, you
44:52
know, I guess that's not what people want to hear of their stars.
44:55
No. Well, Mike Tramp, the singer of White Lined, he never
44:59
stopped me making music, does his soul work, plays clubs. He's just
45:02
that, that's who he is. But Feto, I think his father got
45:07
ill. I think maybe he was taking care of his dad. And yeah,
45:12
I did a few interviews here and there with Eddie Trunk and people begging
45:15
and plead and please come back, you know. But he was a really
45:19
important piece of all this too. Sure, you know, he's again Jersey
45:22
guy, but uh, he was in the trenches for all these bands,
45:30
you know, and that wasn't always a popular thing to do, you know.
45:34
You know, it's it's hit. It's cool to some people, but
45:37
not cool to others, right, you know, So I don't care.
45:39
I think it's all cool, you know. Hey, that's that's my view
45:43
on music. Yeah, you like it. It's good. Really, Yeah.
45:47
We we didn't mention White Snake either. Man Vivian Campbell, Sykes Stevie
45:53
Vai was on Roth's skyscraa smile skyscraper, but then he's on Slip of the
45:58
Tongue. White Snake the book done. Rock Podcasts will be back after this.
46:05
Now we want to talk about the sex, drugs and rock and rolls.
46:07
There's a lot of partying back in those days. And one of the
46:09
quotes that really got my attention. There's so many great quotes in this book,
46:14
by the way, but one of them that got my attention was from
46:15
Sebastian Bach and he said, quote, puking is the second best release to
46:20
orgasm. I dig it when I puke, It's totally righteous. It's so
46:23
great. It's like a total release of heaviness. It's like an orgasm coming
46:28
out of your mouth. It's sexual. I mean that speaks to the mindset
46:31
of right. Regarding alcohol and plenty of drugs, including cocaine, Don Dawkins
46:37
said he didn't know one band in LA that wasn't doing coke. But how
46:44
much of that sex right the way? I kind of just interrupt, Yeah,
46:46
yeah, I'll answer your question. But yeah, another great guitar player
46:50
is Georgia Lynch. Oh geez, yeah, Doc get from him and him
46:54
and Don have always had trouble getting along. But but you know, no
47:00
doubt man, he was wasn't still his great guitars but how much of that
47:04
sex, drugs and rock and roll thing was was real and how much of
47:07
it was just playing it up for image? You mentioned it was real,
47:13
it was sincere, yeah, because that was just what you were supposed to
47:16
do. And I didn't really get that part either. This is why I'm
47:20
kind of like holded up. Okay at my old age, there were certain
47:24
of these things that people took that I just never really got. And you
47:30
know, the coke thing is like this huge thing. It's like this thing
47:37
where you it's all about ego, like you're all about yourself. It's like
47:40
this hypomania kind of thing. You know, like it just totally consumed with
47:45
yourself. And it just fit that lifestyle so perfectly because that's what everybody was
47:53
anyway, right, and it just hyped it up to different levels. And
47:58
you know these guys, you know, let's face it. You know,
48:00
when they're dressed like that in their hometown, they either do or they don't
48:05
meet the girl. But when they're dressed on stage like that, you know
48:09
they're stars. There's a member in nineteen ninety six the MTV Video Awards when
48:15
Dave came up there with Van Halen and everybody was so excited. Oh my
48:19
god, David Lee's back, and then it all fell apart, and Eddie
48:23
later said at that time he needed a hip surgery. So Eddie's telling the
48:28
press, I'm not sure what's happening. We don't know. I need to
48:30
get my hip worked on. Bla blah blah blah blah, and Eddie said,
48:35
Dave pulled him aside and he goes, hey, man, tonight's about
48:37
me, man, not your fucking hip. There you go, It's it's
48:43
all about me. Edie used to call it an LSD lead singer disease.
48:46
You know, it's like it's all about me, But that was It's it's
48:51
that's the whole thing. It's like, I think where people get tripped up
48:55
with this music is that you try to adalyze what that is and it's just
49:01
and what you're describing just is it's just like a you know, it's just
49:06
like this thing that you know people did, or people do, or people
49:10
buy into. It's just it's it's pretty universal. I mean, I don't
49:15
see any great surprise in any of this, I think, which you know,
49:20
it's like this is what they wanted to do. Sex, drugs,
49:22
rock and roll, you know, the whole this is what they you know,
49:27
they the life like the T shirts were in the seventies, sex and
49:30
drugs and rock and roll. But but you know, not everybody lived it.
49:35
People are starting to live it. But these guys like you know,
49:37
took it as like cook Line and Sinker, you know, as their lives
49:43
and it I can't think about who it actually helped because those are there's some
49:49
you know, you can make an intellectual argument for psychedelics, let's say,
49:54
or or cannabis or but you know, these other things like they just there's
50:00
no happy ending, there's no like you. It's not helping your body in
50:06
any way. It's not helping your mind, it's not you know nothing.
50:08
So and the amount of money spent on that is like a book in itself.
50:16
What did these bands do when they got two hundred fifty thousand dollars?
50:20
They spend one hundred grand of it on poke or something, right, just
50:23
living like there's no tomorrow. By the way, I forgot to mention Randy
50:28
Castillos, the drummer on Ozzie's Yeah, is that the one you're referring to.
50:31
I was thinking that he was a really great drummer. Yeah. I
50:35
think when Sammy joined Van Halen it was like good timing because the power ballads
50:39
was becoming huge by the time he joined in eighty six, and Dave wasn't
50:44
a power ballad guy, but one of the best power ballads of that era
50:49
in your opinion. Imagine every rose has a thorned well. Home Sweet Home,
50:53
yeah, I mean you got to put all those in there, right,
50:57
I mean Home Sweet Home I think was like the first the first one,
51:01
well, you mentioned Zeppelin Stairway to Heaven. That set it up,
51:05
but it wasn't until I don't think Home Sweet Home until about that song,
51:10
if I if I remember correctly, that so song Theater Pain. It's a
51:15
really bombastic album that has that as a closing song or a closing side.
51:20
But that's when the record record took notice of that though, like Oh Here
51:23
we Go, and then Sebastian would later talk about how they all had the
51:29
game plan like lead off, the lead single is gonna be the hard rocker,
51:31
second single is the ballad, third single might be like a mid tempo
51:36
you know, but one the third or the fourth song is what I wanted
51:38
to hear, right. I always thought that was the killer song. I
51:43
mean, of course the first song. Yes, you're correct, it was
51:46
always like the not the second one, but it was like the third one
51:50
that was always like the one that would catch you. I always found Jennie
51:52
Lane wrote some great ballads Heaven and I Saw Red. I mean those were
51:59
just money makers, they were. He was really good. You know.
52:02
It was really sad, Like I wrote his his obituary for uh uh Spin
52:08
magazine, and all his old friends I couldn't get them to talk like they
52:14
were all just like, you know, it was just so too much bad
52:17
blood. There was a lot of bridges burned. Yeah, very sad.
52:22
Yeah, it was very sad, very sad. Books. His wife,
52:25
Yeah, it was like she threw him out of the house at that time,
52:30
so she was feeling awful, you know. Yeah, boy he was.
52:34
He was a he was a talent, and he just I don't think
52:37
he ever got past that whole thing when that he talked about cherry Pie,
52:42
that song. It was like they just asked him to write a song like
52:45
loving an Elevator from Aerosmith. He's like, oh okay, and then like
52:49
he writes it that night, comes back next day, gives it to them,
52:52
and the album is to be called Uncle Tom's Cabin, but now it's
52:54
called Cherry Pie. The lead singles Cherry Pie, the covers changed, you
52:58
know all that, And I think that really bummed him out because I think
53:01
he wanted to be taken serious seriously as a as a musician, as an
53:06
artist. But there's a whole other thing where I didn't even go into it
53:09
in the book. It's just like so dark and fed up. It's like,
53:15
well, there are two stories. There's one that it's more than a
53:19
rumor. You could look it up, but Janie Lane was abused by somebody
53:23
in the business. Bobby Brown, his ex wife, said she wrote that
53:29
in her book. She's gone public with it, so it's out there.
53:30
I mean, it's it's not it. And there's also the thing about Ray
53:35
Gillen, who sang in bad Lands, had HIV and gave it knowingly to
53:42
a bunch of women. And that's that's why that band is not recognized the
53:47
way they should be because it's kind of like nobody wants to touch that.
53:52
They didn't. Really there's a I have a friend who's a DJ on Ozzie's
53:57
Boneyard, and I was telling him this story, and you refuse to believe
54:00
me, and I'm like, dude, I wouldn't be telling you this story
54:02
if I you know, this is some dark stuff, right. So but
54:09
apparently he uh he the record company start stopped selling it because that way there'd
54:16
be no judgment against them, because as soon as they accepted money for it,
54:21
it was like I'm going to get sued for Yeah, but these guys
54:25
were you know it was it wasn't like so innocent. That's I guess what
54:30
I'm getting the Vince Neil story from ye. I mean he killed somebody and
54:37
and basically nothing happened to his career, right, So cool pieces of trivia
54:40
from the book. You feature a bunch of the biggest bands, and it's
54:45
cooled you list the band's birthplace, the band members, essential haircuts, and
54:50
fascinating facts. And I had no idea that Warrant were named after Rack guitarist
54:53
Warren D. Martini. It was that's cool. Yeah, there was probably
54:59
a some like late night drug figures of them, but they Warren Warrant.
55:05
Yeah, that is cool. And then you finished the book with an interview
55:08
with Rick Fox, who you say is quote the greatest name in heavy metal
55:12
you never heard of How come many have not heard of him? Like,
55:16
I don't know, I've I've I've dealt delved into the subject before. I
55:22
wrote a book called Lost Rockers, and it's about great musicians who fell through
55:25
the cracks of history, like why don't you know them? Why don't you
55:29
know that Jake Holmes wrote Dazed and Confused, Or that Robert Fleischman was the
55:34
original singer of Journey who wrote Wheel in the Sky, or that Gloria Jones
55:39
who did Tainted The original version of Tainted Love was in uh he Rex with
55:45
her husband Mark Bollen. You know, it's like, you know, why
55:49
don't we know the So this just is another He's just another person in that
55:52
kind of list of that why don't you make it? It's so so now
56:00
you get Now we're talking about like the psychology of why you don't make it?
56:04
And I've I've had this conversation a lot of talking to my wife about
56:07
it because she's not in the business. And you know, you just have
56:12
to have like a lot of ego you got you got to like really push
56:16
if you if you're like, oh it's cool, you know, no problem,
56:21
it's cool. It doesn't matter if you worked with the Stones or the
56:22
Beatles or Andy Warhol or the Velvet Underground or whatever. These people are amazing
56:29
things these people had done, you know, it's just it didn't happen.
56:34
And if you follow music realistically, it's like there's only like one band from
56:39
every genre who gets recognized. I mean you could take the I was really
56:45
into the whole punk, hardcore, uh, new and new wave undergrounds of
56:52
the late seventies and early eighties, and I mean you could basically the only
56:57
band that basically exists as a name from new waves, you two, right,
57:02
like like it's almost like all the other Like, you know, does
57:07
anybody know who Julian Cope was? You know, had the band the tear
57:10
Drop explodes, who was like rivals with YouTube? You know that's cool.
57:15
I was just I just interviewed the guy from the Wild Swans. Oh yeah,
57:19
okay, there you go. He was mentioning that that band. Yeah
57:23
yeah, it's so that really, like, you know, these are some
57:27
pretty important bands like to certain people. Like I mean, you know,
57:31
some bands are good at, like, you know, recognizing who influenced them.
57:36
You know, so people know who kind of know who killing joke in
57:39
the Misfits were because of Metallica. You know, basically, any people know
57:45
heavy metal, they know Metallica, right, they don't know or they know
57:50
A C d C. They don't know Mega Death, they don't know Slayer,
57:54
they don't know. You know, they can't name those songs like they
57:59
could or you know, maybe I'm not using the right examples there, but
58:02
but the nobody comes near. There's like one band that's just huge. There's
58:07
there's the Foo Fighters, and there's nobody else. You know what I'm saying.
58:09
It's just and that's just kind of how it it's become like conversation points.
58:15
It was one of two, is it is? It? Is it
58:17
well timing, opportunity meets talent. It's going to be the timing. But
58:22
also if you have one hit single, maybe that's just the mainstream media will
58:27
pick up on that band more so than the others and they kind of take
58:30
off from there. Yeah, people get anointed. Guns and Roses were anointed.
58:37
You know, Pearl Jam were anointed. Like I was around when big,
58:42
people said this band is going to be big, and that's you know
58:46
how a lot of the time usually there's under the table. You know,
58:51
those kinds of things like, well, and also the labels, right,
58:52
the labels would focus their attention, their money and our guy all on that
58:58
one or two or three maybe bands, right, and then the others that
59:01
are on the roster are lott down on the bottom, and they just kind
59:05
of forget about them, right, Like, how many bands could you rattle
59:07
off from the nineties really other than Nirvana? I mean, I mean maybe
59:14
you and I could, but whatever, you know, Silverchair and those bands.
59:17
You're running out of names already, way I thought Presidents of the United
59:21
States of America, right, Oh, you know, there's not you know,
59:25
they're well look look at the movie from nineteen eighty eight, The Decline
59:30
of Western Civilization, Part two, and all of those bands that were in
59:34
there, these young kids that are there, they're just this is all.
59:37
This is it for me. I don't know. Somebody asked them, what
59:39
do you what do you do if this doesn't happen. They're like, no,
59:42
it will happen, you know, And it was like a nobody,
59:45
nobody even recognizes who it is, so he never made it. So eventually,
59:47
yeah, they gotta they gotta find the nineties. A lot of those
59:51
guys had to find had to find work. Some of them would do like
59:53
real estate work, and some of them are Alice Cooper. Uh here in
59:58
Connecticut Alice Cooper, the was doing real estate Neil Smith I remember, yes,
1:00:04
I yeah, they were doing some state by the way. Yeah,
1:00:08
they're doing some local show and in Fairfield County. And he called into the
1:00:12
radio station I was working on. He's just, uh yeah, I mean
1:00:15
it's that's the reality. You gotta you know that. And then the sad
1:00:19
rally too is you got bands like a Great White Like I saw Jack Russell
1:00:22
up on stage recently and he was struggling, but he needs, you know,
1:00:25
he's he needs to make the money. So yeah, last question for
1:00:29
you is we've seen obviously some huge tours Motley Cruze, def Leppard with Poison
1:00:32
and Joan Jet, huge numbers. Guns and Roses still a huge touring act.
1:00:37
So where do you see this Arab music now in terms of modern culture?
1:00:40
Like, uh, is it just for people in their forties, fifties
1:00:44
and sixties or are we seeing the younger audience show up? They think there's
1:00:47
a there's a a sizeable smaller audience, but it's still essentially the larger older
1:00:53
audience. And that's my question about the future rock and roll like it does
1:01:00
and seem like a very like kids right now don't seem very rock and roll,
1:01:04
you know, they don't really seem to have like a spirit of revolution,
1:01:07
of rebellion, of of like wanting to say things that are controversial or
1:01:14
do things that are edgy like that's that's not you know, there's like a
1:01:19
new conformity that's going on, you know, in our society, you know.
1:01:24
And it's just a matter of how much you remember of the past.
1:01:30
And I don't think people were judging from what I see. I don't think
1:01:32
people know much about history at all. But you like you like to think
1:01:38
that rock and roll is eternal. I guess I have to keep hoping that
1:01:45
it is, but I there is it. But every time this has been
1:01:52
going on for forty to fifty years, every the older people all say,
1:01:57
you know, this music is over with or the younger people say, you
1:02:00
know, that's old people's music. And that's just like a natural current.
1:02:07
So maybe we're just going through those currents as well. Yeah, I hope,
1:02:09
yeah, I hope I'm wrong and you're wrong about that. But it's
1:02:12
it's kind of bumming me out, because we really need a band or an
1:02:15
artist that's that's total rock and roll, like for the for the young generation
1:02:22
too, to grasp onto and and that will then be like that's like planting
1:02:28
the seeds for a whole other generation. But boy, once these bands are
1:02:31
like Guns and Roses and Crew and de Flapp And what do you do when
1:02:35
these bands are gone? I mean, you don't replace Motorhead they've been going
1:02:39
for five ten years or the Remote, Yeah, don't replace that. So
1:02:43
it's like what happens from here now? Is it? Just like here in
1:02:45
Connecticut, the big Venue, the summer venue used to always have rock shows.
1:02:50
Now it's all country and hip hop. It's like this is this is
1:02:53
bumming me out. Hey. But you know when Eddie Van Allen died,
1:02:58
it was like a whole show of my youth was just removed. And sixty
1:03:06
five, yeah, that's not that old these days. Yeah, so that's
1:03:09
why. But the books like these, like the one you wrote, helps,
1:03:13
I mean it just it definitely, you know, keeps keeps the music
1:03:17
alive. And it is out now. American inhair metal can't get enough and
1:03:22
you can find it where books are sold and it's it's put together so beautifully.
1:03:25
Feral House is the publisher. The photos are amazing, beautiful color photos,
1:03:30
the way it's laid out, I mean, you got to be pleased
1:03:32
with this. Yeah. I've been with Feral House, you know, since
1:03:37
American Hardcore, you know, so I yeah, I believe in them and
1:03:44
they did an amazing job here. Yes. Yeah, So where can people
1:03:46
find you online? If they want to reach out to you, Steven?
1:03:49
Do you want to reach out to me Stephen Blush dot com, Steven with
1:03:52
a V B l U s H. And you could always reach me through
1:03:58
Farreal House and and you know, support your local independent records, record and
1:04:04
bookstore. But if you can't, you know, the easiest and fastest,
1:04:10
not best for me, but easiest and fastest is of course Amazon, which
1:04:14
is on the president. Yeah, thanks so much, Steven. This is
1:04:16
great. Well, thank you for having me, Eric, I really appreciate
1:04:18
it. That's it. It's in the books.