Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / New England To Alcatrazz: Gary Shea's Journey Through Music's Wild West Era [Episode 299]

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New England To Alcatrazz: Gary Shea's Journey Through Music's Wild West Era [Episode 299] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On this episode of Bookked Down Rock. He's worked with
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Vey mom Seen, Paul Stanley, Stevie VII, Todd Rundgren, among
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: many others. Gary Shay, he's the bassist and co founder
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: of the band's New England and Alcatraz. He's here to
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: tell us all the stories from his amazing career that
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: are in his brand new book, No Base, No Party.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: That's next.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: We're totally rock and roll. I mean, I'll leave you.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: You're reading little Hands this.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: It's time to rock and roll, roll out. I totally booked.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Book Down Rock. I'm Eric Sanitch, first
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: time guest of the podcast. It is Gary Shay. Gary's
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the bassis and co founder of the band's New England
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and Alcatraz. He has a brand new book out now
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: titled No Bass, No Party.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Gary.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being here.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Great to hear you. Great to be in Connecticut.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: What a small world. Just a quick story to set
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: this up, because this must have been maybe six seven
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: years ago. You were on the Kiss podcast Three Sides
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: of the Coin talking about when you toured with Kiss
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: in the band New England, and you said, I'm from Connecticut.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Oh cool, So I go and I google your name
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: and there on your website Southington, Connecticut. Oh my god,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: that is where I lay. Your apartment is literally a
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  Speaker 1: five minute walk from where I am right now, So
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to send you a picture of it when
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  Speaker 1: I get a chance.
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  Speaker 2: The family lived there for about fifteen years.
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  Speaker 1: Probably amazing. When was the last time you were in
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  Speaker 1: town here?
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  Speaker 2: About six years ago?
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: So not too long ago. Okay, you still have family here.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: No, that's why I'm not coming back to you too often.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Gotcha? Well, congratulations on the book. One review of the
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: book is from JD. Shipton. He writes, quote, Gary Sha
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: has lived the wild West days of the music industry
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  Speaker 1: on both sides of the Atlantic, and it's still here
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  Speaker 1: to tell the story. Originally from the East Coast, and
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: at one point you lived here in this town, but
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: you did move on. So let's start with how long
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  Speaker 1: you lived here on the East Coast and then what
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: led you out to eventually Boston.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I graduated high school in Connecticut, Southington, I went
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: to Manito Community College for a few minutes in Waterbury,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: and I eventually migrated to Boston to go to school there.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: And I spent a good twelve fourteen years in Boston.
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  Speaker 2: But I also moved to London during that time for
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: a couple of years in the early seventies, and came
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: back to Boston, and then I went to Los Angeles
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: and came back to Boston again when we reformed New
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: England and lived there for another period of time. So
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: I kind of came to one a few times from
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Boston and then lived in Los Angeles for a long
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: time as well, about fifteen years.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: There a lot of music in your house growing up.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Talk about that when you decided you wanted to play bass,
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  Speaker 1: which according to the book was actually when you were
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: living here in Southington.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was kind of a fluke. It was over
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  Speaker 2: in Meriden. There was a place called Carl's Electronics right
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  Speaker 2: down on Colony Street, you know, mom and pop kind
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  Speaker 2: of electronics star. Back then, there was no radio check
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: and we were testing the tubes in our amplifiers. And
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I just bought a brand new Fender Stratocaster guitar from
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: my life saving exists. Beautiful guitar and it's the most
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: sought after guitar now for a lot of guitar players.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: The early mid sixties, for stratocasters. Anyway, I bought a
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: brand new one had about a year and I'm in
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  Speaker 2: this store testing tubes, and up on the wall were
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  Speaker 2: a number of used instruments for sale, and one was
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  Speaker 2: a bass and I picked it up and brought it down.
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  Speaker 2: It was he was huge, This is great. It's like
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  Speaker 2: an aircraft carr. I'm pretty tall, and I thought this
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  Speaker 2: is kind of cool. I mean the strings of the
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: you know, size of a pencil, and I thought this
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  Speaker 2: is really cool. We plugged it in and the shook
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  Speaker 2: the store. I said, oh, yeah, am man on this,
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  Speaker 2: and I bought it. I had some extra money that
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  Speaker 2: I could do that with, and I bought it, and
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  Speaker 2: I bought myself in nineteen sixty five. Friendly position based
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  Speaker 2: the same that James Jameson used on all the Motown
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  Speaker 2: songs and a lot of other bass players and the
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  Speaker 2: recording business through the sixties to this day.
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  Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, I thought it's cool. Actually you were listening
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  Speaker 1: to the basslines and the songs that you really loved.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, because the bass of what you can't move and
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  Speaker 2: groove to. And that's what the meaning of no bass,
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  Speaker 2: no party, take the bass out.
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  Speaker 1: What do you got exactly?
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: So the bass is a heartbeat. People don't play bassic
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  Speaker 2: links to drums and the melody and band together. It's
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: the bridge, even though you're usually in the background, not
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: the not the most boisterous kind of guy in the band.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: They are the glue of the band, not the bass.
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  Speaker 2: There's no funk no matter what kind of music. With
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: a country doom doom doom, boom boom, boom boom, that's
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  Speaker 2: the bass. And it goes to any style as jazz
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: or classical.
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  Speaker 1: Who are some of the bassis that you love? Like,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: who are some of you? I would imagine John and Twistle.
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  Speaker 2: And yeah, John Sherman who came out right at that
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  Speaker 2: time in the mid sixties, nineteen sixty five, I think
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  Speaker 2: I had I had the My Generation album with My
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  Speaker 2: Generation on her little bass, so I thought, this is
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  Speaker 2: this is awesome. No one's doing this. The Beatles don't
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  Speaker 2: do this, the Rolling Stones can't do this. This is great,
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  Speaker 2: this is really cool. And it became an avid Hoho
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  Speaker 2: fan and King's fan and the Yardbirds and all those
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: English bands like that. They were doing kind of bending
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: the boundaries of the songwriting using sitars and other kinds
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: of things. Effects the story. Guitars where back in the
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: sixties and you listened to a Bobby right Jell record,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: you weren't hearing that, you know, even the Rockville Rocket
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Gen Pitney from Connecticut. Yeah, but these bands were, you know,
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  Speaker 2: stretching the lit limits. And then of course Jimmy Hanks
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  Speaker 2: came out and a lot of other people. So that
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  Speaker 2: was the music that I saw, and that's the reason
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: I went to London at one point was trying to
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: find a group like the Moody Blues or Procolhre. Them
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: had a orchestrated kind of symphonic rock sound. They used
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: the strings in a big sound as opposed to playing
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: the blues or a country band.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: When you were in London, you met some big names
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  Speaker 1: like Robert Fripp of King Crimson, Luther Grusvener of Spooky
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Tooth right.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Spooky to is one of my all time
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: favorite bands. And I couldn't believe I met Luther the
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: first I was there. I met a guy in the
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  Speaker 2: street and he said he knew Luther looking for a
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: bass player and want to check it out. I said sure,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: and I went to a party for a band called
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: That Night for the band called the pig fairies, and
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: I didn't realize that they were. They were anarchists and
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: revolutionaries and who was at their party with DMC five
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  Speaker 2: So out guys, And that was the first one I
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  Speaker 2: was there and took off from there. I met a
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  Speaker 2: lot of a lot of name guys that just had
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: they live in the same I lucked out by chance,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: had no contact, just got on airplane and went.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, man, that's nineteen sixty nine, I think right.
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  Speaker 2: It was nineteen ninety seventy two.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Actually, oh, it was seventy two, okay, and.
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  Speaker 2: Went to London. At that point left Boston. I'd been
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: in Boston for years, playing in Boston bands.
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  Speaker 1: And that's right, you moved to Boston in sixty nine.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. They kept breaking up and I said, I'm going
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: to go to London steal what I can do over there.
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  Speaker 2: And I met Michael Corby the first day I was there,
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  Speaker 2: and he started a band called The Babies, which had
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: been very successful, and through him, I met Robert Fripp
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  Speaker 2: and Luther Groves there and a number of people. Found
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: myself One day in a rolling Stone rehearsal place down
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  Speaker 2: on the docks. They go and dust your place, Bunkie
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: you know, don't go there at nighttime kind of place
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: and push the buzz and the door open to go inside.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: And so it was like being in Mars and the
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: twenty seventh century someplace. Everyone's white chrome and gleaming and
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: brand new and a million dollars facility. And I was like,
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: this is the home of the rolling sounds and whoa.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: My friend said, Connecticut will never believe this.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Where in London was that located?
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Unkil Gate? Basically Kensington Ken.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: You're right, quote two ways to see a horror show.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: You can go to the movies or join a band.
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: And you're referring to the business side of music. You
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: were in a band, going backwards a bit from before
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: you moved to Boston and in London, you were in
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: a band, the Insane while in high school, and that
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: band started to pick up a following. But your first
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: lesson came while being managed by Gary. Let's see if
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: we can get this right, Gary PRESI si pres Bill
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Ski And he had a nickname, was.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: It Steve, oh Steve? Well, he he was he was
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: an older friend of one of the guys in the band,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: and he took out a loans we could buy a
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: PA system for a thousand dollars, which we did, and
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: then there was some payments missing and we accused him
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: of stealing from us, and he got so angry. He
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: mixed up stealing with thief and he said, you call
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: me to Steve. Well, we're dancing around him making fun
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: of him. Steve, Steve, Steve. That was that was, That
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: was our first time we parted our ways with a manager.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: That was the first lesson that you gotta be careful.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he tricked out Plymouth road Runner had not been working.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: All of a sudden it was working, and the bank
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: calls and said, we're missing two payments for our PA,
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: which he was in charge of. Sore a burst of
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: money for the PA, and he really couldn't tell us.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: So we put two and two together and said this
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: is not good. So that's that's what that chapter was about. Now.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: That took place at La Compounds.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Wow, the Couples of Bristol. Yeah, yeah, right up the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: road again from where I'm at here, going back to London.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: The time that you were there, things were going really
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: well for you, but then the bomb dropped. You feel
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: like things are moving along just great, and then all
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: of a sudden you hear from the Home Office of Immigration.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they tracked me down. I was an illegal alien.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: I had been kind of missing an action. I only
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: got I at thirty day passed. When I first got there,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: I was lying about going to school there where something made.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Everything was fictitious. Nick I gave a visa for one
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: month thanks. So I disappeared about a year and a
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: half and they caught up with me, and that ensuited
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: me having really to leave the country come back to Boston,
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: which I did. And the band I was playing in
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: I had a German drumm named and he had the
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: same problem. He went back to Germany and join an
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: unknown band called the Scorpios. Yeah, and I was playing
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: with he and so Peter French from the band Cactus
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: and Tomcrewster.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Oh wow Cactus, oh Man. Yeah right, I'm a huge
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Van Allen fan. So I know Cactus well because uh
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Partchman's Farm was the one that influenced the boogie beat.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: You know, Eddie and Alex Tim Boger. Wow, they were great.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: And so I was in with those guys, and I
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: met a lot of people, a lot of music type people,
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: professional people were you know, do making records. So I
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: was right in Near Island studios. I could hear Leslie
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: West and Mountain Risen through the walls. They are so
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: loud street.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's cool. Booked on rock podcasts. We'll be back
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: after this, the Corton.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: We'll go up on macqu after our short intimation.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Then you returned to Boston. Eventually the band New England
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: forums John fann And on guitars and lead vocals, Jimmy
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Waldo on keyboards, yourself, Gary shay On and Heirsch Gardner
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: on drums, initially called Fannin, but then your manager Kurt
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Nerlinger suggested the name New England. Is that right? The story?
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, pretty much. I heard about the guys. The
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: band was originally a band called Fat Back from North
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Carolina and had I moved to a to Coventry at
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: one point of the Boston band really for about six
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: months and a friend of mine went to a club
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: called the Shehaboo will Mann and heard this great band
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: from North Carolina called fat Back, and I thought they
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: said they were like kind of like yes, kind of
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: like ELP, big keyboards, big drums, big bass, but no
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: guitar player and lead singer and they're called Fatback. I
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: found whatever. So about three years later I'm be in
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Boston coming back from England talking to a friend. She said,
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: I know a band looking for a bass player. It
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: turned to be this band Fatback. They had morphed into
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: a number of names, added a bunch of guys and
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: they were replaced in the last original North Carolinian guy
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: on bass, which is where I came in there and
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: I beat out sixteen guys, got the gig and that
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: band played on the name of Target for for about
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: a year and we played all the every college in
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: bar between Boston and Montreal, and then to the guys
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: had offered to make a record. Somebody else broke the
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: band up. I moved to la and after that that
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: record came and went. We formed a band and we
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: did demos in Philadelphia for two years. Were rehearsed about
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: playing any place and just pay the rent what it means,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: and eventually we got the We had six presidents come
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: see us out in the woods in Massachusetts of record
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: companies and offers these multi billion dollar deals instead of
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: the next big thing, and sounds good to us.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, things things really picked up pace that. That's when
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Kurk enters the picture everything starts to really pick up.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: He was the regional guy for the Elector Asylum Records
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: for one of the Electric Silent because he helped the
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: cars get a record deal. He knew the guys in Queen.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: He'd given our demo tape, sent a tape through him
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: to Brian Mayeth Queen to produce us, and Brian liked
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: the music a lot. He said if he had time,
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: he'd love to do it. Turned out he didn't at
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: the time, but he drove across London and put the
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: tape in Mike stones Box, who was their engineer. He's
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: the guy behind layering all his voices for Bohemian raps
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: you and all the Queen Adams. He produced the jazz
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: album for Queen and so we eventually met Michael in
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: New York City and hooked up with he and Paul Stanley.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: But Kurt the record guy wanted to be our manager
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: and we said, well, I really haven't any experience doing that,
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: so I gotta gets the message Square Garden. He played
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: the tape for a friend of his who's also warned
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Wacher Guy in a kiss gig in Province RhE Island,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: and this fellow, Rick Labor said, who are these guys?
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: He said, this is a great band out in the
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: woods and they're really really good. He said, can he
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: do this live? He said, they're better live, they're heavy live.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: So he came and liked it. Went down on New York.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Bill Coloin and Manschkiss came like two weeks later, when
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Chi limousines outside. We played for them, and we played
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: for a succession of six record company presidents. Clive Davis
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: came to our house, Claik Davis. He sat right in
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: front of me, right in front of my amplifier and
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: loved it. Said he wanted son Usa. Arissa said, he
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: just signed the Kinks, but they had no heavy band
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: like us, and they want us really bad. And the
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: same thing came from all the other labels, from Ariso,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: from the lecture, from Epic, and we wound up going
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: to a new company called Infinity. It was being financed
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: by MCGA channel a lot of money and no other bands,
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: so we thought that was the way to go, that
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: I had to make his famous because they've got nobody else,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: which they were off and running, but they ran out
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: of money and broke up and that killed our second
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: and third record and banned three or four years later.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Broke up because of that. That was the reason we
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: broke up, was the label folded, Not that we were
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: fighting or weren't making music.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: We're doing great, yeah, again the business side of.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: The Like I said, it's like it's like a decad cards.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: It's got to be fifty two things online, right, and
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: if one thing goes out, the truck breaks down, or
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: somebody gets sick, the whole thing goes down. Band breaks up.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: There so many stories of bands breaking up for the
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: myriad of reasons, you know, record deals, bad contracts, anything
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: you think of. That's why I said, it's kind of
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: a horror show. You think you're doing great in the
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: phone ring, it's like you're not doing so great. So
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: a lot of obstacles to overcome playing in a band
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: like that and making it keep rolling forward and continuing
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: and going up, and somehow we manage to get through
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: all out. My friends and I we're here today still
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: playing music.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what's going to ask you. Did you ever
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: were there ever periods where you said this just isn't
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: this isn't going to happen, I give up? Or did
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: you just this is what I'm doing, this is who
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I am.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: I've got a model. Never take no for an answer.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: I think they can work backwards. And you have to
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: think you're the best band in the world. If you
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: have any kind of doubt that, how are you to
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: sell it to the crowd. You have to believe that
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: you're the best band in the world. You have the
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: disband or that band, and you're up against you know,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: run Through with Journey and a c DC and kiss
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: and foghead sticks and Knesel cheap trick Lewis I called
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: bazillion bandstin Lizzie. So you get up with those guys,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: so you better be when the time comes, get a
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: chance to do it.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: So different nowadays, I wonder. I mean, there are bands
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: that don't even have a major label behind them, but
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: they develop a following just because of the way things
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: are so different now. To distribute your music.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Right right back then, there was no videos. You had
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: to play live, and you had to be good live,
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: and you had to be able to play live as
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: well as make records and play make records. You had
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: to be a good player. There was no there was
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: no overdubbing, and no no uh, you know, doctoring up
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: the music note by note to you get it right.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: You had to sing it right the first time you could.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: You could splice tape together. Back then, you couldn't do
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: what they do now, auto and everything. They could take
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: anybody and sing a song and the AI guys can
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: make it sound.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Great exactly, which is why the Bohemian Rhapsody story is
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: just mind blowing because they're using tape. That table almost
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: got destroyed because they kept right recording over and.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Over, wore out, had a singing those parts correct with
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: him Bank.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: That happened booked on rock Podcast. We'll be back after this, come.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Out, Come out wherever you are.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Did Paul stan only get involved through Bill a Coin?
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah? We Uh, we're looking for a producer, Like I said,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: we approached Brian May and we were thinking of Gus
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Dungeon and all these heavy producers, like a dream that
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: we'd have this some heavy guy like that. And Bill
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Corn suggested, I have you thought about maybe Paul Stanley
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: and Mike Stones the engineer. And Paul had never produced anybody,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: but he'd done at that time the ten Kiss Records.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Probably he knew what he was doing. The recording studio
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: for sure. So we decided to go with that because
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: we had, like I said, kind of produced ourselves. We're
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: ready to go, and they came to see us. All
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: the songs were nothing really got changed. We took those
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: sixteen track demos from Philadelphia, went to Los Angeles and
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: New York and converted to twenty four track and did
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: the vocals over. But the arrangements and the music itself
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: kind of stayed the same. So no one came in
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: and chopped things up and had to fire the drummer
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: for three days and get some hotshot drummer to play
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: the thing. That didn't happen. We played the parts the
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: way we always played the parts, and it went very smoothly.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: And Paul was a great coach, you know, got the
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: best performance on everybody and that was great. You can
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: do it better. And that's how that happened.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Do you think I'm sure you heard the story that
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: he was in the running to produce Guns and Roses
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Appetite for Destruction, but they just weren't on the same page.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: They didn't. They chose to go with somebody else. But
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: what do you think he would have done if he
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: produced that album?
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: It's the same thing would do with us. To sit
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: there and get the best of everybody. That's all it is.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: You is it kind of a producers, kind of a coach.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Some producers are musicians and can change things. And some
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: producers can't play anything, but they can hear it. Like
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Clive Davis. You can hear that this our so that
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: is going to do this or has a capability of
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: doing something and suggested change instead of doing the chorus
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: two times, do it three times. He can make those
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: kinds suggestions. So as there's that color of hiring a
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: producer what you need. In New England, we hired eventually
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Todd Rundgren. We were all fans of Todds from his
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: band Naz in the sixties. I always loved his stuff
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: and we went up doing the record and it was
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: just good to have somebody another member of fifth Memory
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: of the band with a different voice. And he played
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: guitar on a couple of songs and sang some songs
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: with some lyrics with us and we had a great time.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: And I's that kind of producer. Somebody can play anything.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: He can play the drums of keyboards, the bass you
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: want to play, he can play it. So we were
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: on our toes and we did a great record to
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: the whole record. The whole record was done in eighty hours,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: all the first takes, and we grew up the week
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: before and recorded in two weeks time. It was mixed
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: and we're out of there. That's how much we played
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: and rehearsed in those four years prior to that.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Don't Ever Want to Lose You was a top forty single.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the top thirty in Billboard. It was on every
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: station the summer of seventy nine.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Did you know when it was recorded, when it was done,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: after you wrote it like this is this is going
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: to be a hit?
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: We knew it was a good song. We hope it
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: will be a hit, you know. And sure enough it
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: got play and started climbing charts, and we were just
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: this is great. We're being Colorado here on two different
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: stations at the same time. Be in a car going
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: to a record store and play at one station, it's
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: on a turned on next station, it's on that station too.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what a trip that is? Huh, whole that whole experience,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: like you say, it's just the whirlwind of it, all right.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: You got a car and dance around the car like
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Chinese fired Drew. That's a good feeling. And you work,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: you work all that time for that. You know, one
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: second of bliss, you're on cloud nine.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: How long had that song been around?
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Oh about maybe a year before before we auditioned for everybody,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: It actually was still in work. So he's had no
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: had no guitar solo. It was written with down fa
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: solo and that's one thing Paul said's gotta have a guitar.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: So it's a great rock, so it's gotta have a
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: screaming guitar solo.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: You did a lot of dates with Kiss right about it?
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Thirty dates?
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Like that?
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Oh was that experience? Any good stories? We got any
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: good Ace Frehley stories?
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah. Ace. One day we're in I think I
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: think about it than in Providence and the four limousines
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: pull in. We've done our sound check and they're missing.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Ace's car is nowhere to be seen. Where's Ace. Everybody's
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: flipping out jeans, walking around his wristwatch going where's Ace.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: His car pulls in and he calls everybody Curly A
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: is a great guy, and he almost said trump for
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: his car. He's got this this six foot span remote
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: control airplanes going hey, curly, look at this. He bull
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: up this big remote control playing Hi wanted the flight
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: indoors of Urena talk them out of it. No, you
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: can't do it. It kills somebody.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Do you guys chat about being from because he lived
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: in Connecticut for a long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: up in No Wilton, I think is where he had
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: a place there right for a while.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: The New York part of Connecticut.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that experience. You talked a little bit about
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: it when you met with Bill O Cooin in New York?
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: What was that experience?
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Like? That was great? I mean he was really he's
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: really a low key, casual guy, very non assuming, a
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: little bit tench, but not really attention he was. He
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: was a pretty mellow guy. And we played and he
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: loved it. My amp caught fire. We were playing the
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: first two songs and we took a break and I
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: looked at the amp and vibement and said, you're gonna work.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: And it worked.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: We played this rest of the music and he advised
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: to come to New York City and see their operation.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: The next day we came to rehearsals, thuring the amp
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: on it blue that's great. But I worked that day
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: and he said, I'd like to manage you guys, and
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: do you want to come to New York. So we
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: did down to Manhattan. Bill was placed and saw the
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Kiss off their office or all operation on. It was
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: pretty impressive. Hard to say no to that. Impressed to
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: making the kiss at the amusement park thing the movie
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: they made, Oh.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Kiss meets Phantom of the Park. Yeah, yes, out in
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: La Classic. While you were rehearsing working on songs in
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: New England, a US Marshall showed up and gave you
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: in the band of Subpoena. So going back to the
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: business side of music again, right, you're being sued tell
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: us about this. Your quote of the book is the
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: snake had come out of the grass and showed his
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: true colors.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: That's our boy, Kurt. So so we went down to
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: New York and brought Kurt your Ownjurie with us, and
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: we told him you could can't be the manager, but
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: you could be the road manager or some kind of
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: liaison the guys in New York or lahevery one. But
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: it's not going to be in Boston. And you're not
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: the guy because you don't you don't have any experience
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: of booking. We've all booked dances and college gigs and stuff.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: We need something can help us. And so we went
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: down together to New York at a great time. He
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: came back and he was going back down again a
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: week or two later on his own to cut a
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: deal with them. And he came by with a little
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: letter with a letter of intent saying that he was
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: managing us and we'd into a more formal agreement down
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: the road, and he wanted to have that as ammunition
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: with this big business meeting in Manhattan, and we looked
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: at it. We're all like twenty seven years old. Twenty
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: that's a contract, that's a legal bundy. We signed this goodbye,
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: and he said, I'll rip it up when I get back.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: I just need some kind of ammunition. We said, well,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: you've been our friend and we think you're okay. We'll
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: take a chance. You come back and make sure you
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: rip that up. Come to your house and it's going
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: to be ugly. And he came back and didn't like
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: the deal they offer him and decided to keep that
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: piece of paper. And then one day we're rehearsing and
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: the Marshall came, gave each one of us a subpoena
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: for a million dollars a piece to go to federal
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: court New York City, Boston. Not not traffic crk, but
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: Federal Court Manhattan. Big time. Now we got a hire,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: big time entertainment lawyer New York to resents. That's going
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: to cost us ten to thirteen grand, twenty grand. And
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: the idiot sued Bill A Corn as well for a
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: million and MCA Infinity records. And I thought, here's where
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: we get dropped like a hot potato. They're going to
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: run from us, and they Bill said, no, we're all
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: going to fight for you guys. We got our lawyers,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: were going to go after him. They did. We went
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: to court, we won, gave a little bit of money,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: and never saw him again. But that almost train wrecked
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: the whole thing we've done for all those three or
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: four years of rehearsing every day and the snow in
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: the summer, this little house in the woods almost wrecked
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: the whole thing. Were trusting somebody you thought was your friend.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: That's the hard part. If he was a stranger, that's
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: one thing. He made a bad call. But he was
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: hanging out with listening he was our buddy, part of
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: the team. You know. I used to build a team.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: The bigger you get, get more more people working for you,
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: and it's hard to keep everything under surveillance. Was doing what,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: when and where all for your best interest.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, after something like that happens, it's got to be
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: hard to put your trust their faith in anyone.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Like I said, his friends had had quit their
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: promo jobs and managed the band Boston became millionaires. So
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: he thought he was on the same track as that,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: And that's what that was. That's what his eye was on,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: was becoming a millionaire with the next big thing from Massachusetts.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: And were the next big thing from Massachusetts. Is the
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: way he called it New England. I said, come on,
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: come get us. If anybody around here can take that name,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: it's us. I grew up in Connecticut, Johns from Boston,
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Tom Schultz from Ohio, the guys in the cars from Ohio.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: We are from here, and New England's a great name.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: We're going to use it. And it's a memorable name.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: So many bands have names you can't remember where they were.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: So many stupid names out there for rock bands, and
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: same throughing Alcatraz, you can you know that name? Alcatraz,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: this his rings? You know people, I've heard of it,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: but we've heard of the prison, We've heard of New England,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: but you haven't heard our band. But the name still sticks.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: You remember the name, and.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: That album did really well. The launching party in late
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: seventy eight, you say it was like the Academy Awards.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: The single I mentioned reaches number forty.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Also Hello Hello, Yeah, that was the second single. It's
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: about to come out and we were at that point.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: We just got on Don CRUSH's Rock Concert, which is
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: a big thing back then because the only thing on
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: TV back then was American Band Stand on Saturdays, and
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: then there was Wolfman Jack Midnight Special, and then it
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: was Don Crushon's show. And we had a video because
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: of Kiss, and back then in the late seventies, not
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: many bands had videos, whether if you weren't Elton John
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: or Queen or Kiss, because there cost a lot of money.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: It wasn't a thing everyone did at that time. So
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: we had the video and we played on Don Krusher's
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Rock Concert one night and we all got out. We
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: were doing our second record in a recording studio. Came
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: in the office about fourteen of us watching the TV
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: here become Don Crisher. This next bad New England. My
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: friend Billy Carling, please look New England. We're all screaming
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: and throwing stuff, you know, throw us up the TV.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: And about four days later they got the phone calls.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Our companies collapsed and that took that fun away.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Booked on podcasts. We'll be back after this. I think
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: you'd be glad later if you weren't here now. You
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: toured with Kiss, Dynasty toured seventy nine. I'm a huge
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Kiss fan. But they have their critics. And you said
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: there were artists who had problems with New England only
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: because of your association with Kiss, right like thin Lizzie
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Bloyscher called April Wine, John Cougar, Mellencamp. What was their
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: issue and what kind of things did they do?
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Stupid stuff, just rude things that don't need to be done.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Lewis are culled every night that the stage got smaller
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: and smaller, and the grand piano in my back and
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: I literally had one foot between me and a big
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: drop off into the stage pit in the front of
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: the stage, so you can push it back like nine inches. No,
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: we're not going to do that, but that kind of stuff,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: or they say that your time is up. You know,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: you get like say they got like thirty five minutes,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: We got three risk watches. Say we got thirty five minutes,
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: and you plan your songs to do that and then
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: have a little space. We've run off stage, come back
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: to the encore. You're still under the timeline. These guys
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: turn the house flights on, say that's it, You've done,
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: it's over, and you're going, hey, hey, hey, we didn't
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: get to play. Don't want lose you schmucks. So like
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: in that happened to us with Finn, Lindsey and John
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: went went back out in the dark and said you
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: want to hear morn Car and we played half the
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: song in a dark until they turn the house lights
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: back up again. Wow.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: So I'm assuming they took themselves seriously as musicians and
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: didn't take Kiss seriously.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: That was their issue, right Well, Fin Lizzy was different
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: because they did their thing and they want us to
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: go on first. We were supposed to be a special guests.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: There was a band called Code Blue from Las, a
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: new wave of band thin neck ties, and they were
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: saying it's not going good for us. We'd rather go
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: first and get it over and they said, U, let's
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: go first. And we said, why do you want us
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: to go first, and they said, because the set change
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: would be quicker. We've got a lot of gear. We
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: set and soul to our crew. I steps in the
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: truck in twelve minutes. All the stuff disappears in twelve minutes.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: Were timed it. Guys practiced loading the truck while we're
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: rehearsing the music inside that we have a great crew.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: And we went to Texas and and I was doing
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: interview with the guy from Dallas Times with the band
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: rang up the hall. You guys are on playing. They said,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: somebody's sick. Nobody's sick, and they canceled us off totally
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: the second time. So we we went to a party
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: for a rock magazine that night. All three bands are
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: invited too, and eventually Thin Lizzie showed up and the
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: guy from Dallas Times with Lissie came up with a microphone.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: He goes, why was doing and bumped Phil and on.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: I said, well, two reasons and I jumped up, going
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: A and B and he said okay. He said, here's
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: the deal. Our band's breaking up. Then Liza's breaking up
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: right now, nobody knows but to start lying tour. We're
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: breaking up, and we saw your equipment truck open, saw
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: your gey like pink float. We freaked out. We didn't
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: know who you guys were. And he goes take us
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: left handed combent. We screwed with you. Guys, went to
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: the bar and we became friends forever.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Oh that's cool, Yeah, they said.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: He his left handed comment, we screwed you guys admitted it,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: said okay, and we came back a month later and
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: cleared the Dallas Agre instead of the Tennis record and
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: beat out Cheap Tricks at Tennis record at that point
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty eighty one. Wow. Cool.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So the other artists just they didn't like Kissed.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Especially in Blue Weicycles. They're a New York band, so
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: they're that whole New York band thing. No, they're all
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: brutal on.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Each right, just the competitiveness of it. Yeah, all right,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: So that first album was under MCA. You signed with Electra.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: You write quote all Electra, let the storm clouds begin. Yeah,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: what happened with Electra?
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: The god us Electra? Well, the guys that that in
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: literally sauce. They love the band. And when the record
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: company failed and said now what and MCA rang us
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: up said that they had acquired forty four bands. That
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Ronald Luxembourg, the president, had signed forty four bands in
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: a year and a half. When he said he worked
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: like four bands or eight bands, maybe work closely with
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: the artist. That was all blownly. He signed forty four
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: bands across the country and MCA said, out of forty
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: four bands, we're going to keep four, you guys Inspiral
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Gyra and that's it. Maybody else can go home. So
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: that was cool. So we went to La to meet
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: with MCA about that whole transition, and they promised us
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: the world and great artwork and great distribution and the
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: stores and promotion and tourist support. And that night went
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: to dinner with Electure Records. They were out there waiting
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: at the front door of and we came out of
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: the meeting said let's go to dinner. We'll not talk
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: to you. So we went there, listened to Electure make
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: their pitch, and we decided to go to Lecture. We
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: decided to break OFFCA. We felt they were a huge
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: company and they're putting out twenty albums a week, and
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: the top ten only has ten slots we play on
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: the radio, and if you're not Bob Dylan to Rolling Stones,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: that's number two, number three, number four. For a new
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: band to be in there, it's tough. So we thought
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: a better shot with a smaller company, like a lecture
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: and there, you know, had Queen the Doors, had the Cars.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: We thought, great, and they're swoping down. They're gonna do
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: this and do it for us, And when the time
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: came didn't do anything for us. Some of the guys
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: had left the company. It was just not happening, and
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: we were in the middle of right then down there
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: at that point in time, the clash and Elvis coss
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: still and the whole thing hit with the Pretenders. The
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: whole thing came down big time with the whole new
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: wave thing, and the radio started playing all those guys
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: as well. Now we got all these other bands added
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: to the playlist, you know, one through forty or something,
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: and you know, rock is dead, bands like there who
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: were Dinosaurs and them Stones are dead. One was dead.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: All these new bands that can't play music or the
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: great thing right now and we'll see about that years
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: to come how that works out for that might be
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: making money. But as far as musicianship goes, and then
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: some of those bands, some were great, I mean god
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: like Ellis Gosta is a great musician. So it's just
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: there were more people, more competition, and that hurt us.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: And we also had a song called Explorers. We had
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: like a six minute long song, big Opus, two keyboard players,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: no guitar, kind of a showcase thingy. And we also
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: had a song called Conversation. It was like a like
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: Nikolais song, Cruel to be kind real acoustic, kind of
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: slower song. Conversation. It's all we need simple songs. That's
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: the single. And like I said, oh no, we knew
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: that the Big Opus, so we're gonna put that out.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: So he put it out, and they said we were
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: dinosaurs and rock was dead and we're we're like Kansas
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: and Sticks and those. We're not playing that stuff anymore.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: You guys are you're a you're older. You know what happened?
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: Oh that was I was thirty two.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Or something, the ancient age of thirty two. Well that
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: was in those days. That was the case of like
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the stones were considered old in the mid seventies, right,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: they're still going right here.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: The French audition for us in London. I was twenty one,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: he was twenty seven. He's kind of old, you know, right,
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: six years difference the big deal when you're twenty one.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: So so we went with Electra second record, that's so great,
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: the side to work with Todd running for the third one.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Same thing happened. They just fell down. He didn't do
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: it any for us, and we picked another song, which
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: was a follow up to Donavan Illusion. Todd plays guitar,
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: army guitar part to John's guitar part. It's great. We
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: got time playing out our song cools this and we
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: had another song that John had he said was even
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: stay with Me or something and Tiger's ad. Right, Sue,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: it's got a song called stay with Me. Let's make
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: us something different. It's like be my Dirty Dream or
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: something off the cut remarked, that's great, it's great. We'll
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: call it DDT Dirty Dream Tonight. So we did the song.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: It's like, you know, you to kind of go out
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: like be My Dream Tonight, just a fun songs, a
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: rock and roll kind of songhich would a departure for us.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: It's more like a Chuck Berry kind of rock and
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: roll through simpler rock and roll thing. And we sent
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: a demo to LA and the Electric came back and said,
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: the people in the officer dancing on the desks, this
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: is a hit. This is a hit song, big time.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: You guys nailed it. This is fantastic, this is going
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: to be the hit. We're going, what about this other song?
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: You know conversation? No, no, this is it. And so
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: when they put it out, every female program directory and
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: his director said we were male chauven his pigs and
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: refused to play the record. The record stiff and Electure
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: dropped us off the label. Now I got no record deal.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Thank you for Electric.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Wow man. Then there was the short lived project with
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Vinnie Vincent, who would join Kiss in nineteen eighty three.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: This was Warrior.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so now we got no no record company. But
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: we're out there applying colleges and doing great working on
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: the fourth album. And then John a guitar our societies
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: go to quit the band. So now we got to
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: find that guitar player that can sing and write songs.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: It's hard to find. We had a bunch of guys
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: in the wings. We're gonna come audition for us, which
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: was Vinnie Cassano who became Vinnie Vincent and.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Kiss, another Connecticut guy by the way, Bridgeport, Connecticut.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, nyo.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: So anyway, he comes to Boston and we and Gean
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: told us that he was great. He was running with
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: them in La and the studio, but he was too short.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: He couldn't be in Kiss we could have. That's fine.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: We got the phone and call him. He comes to
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Boston and he has sent us a demo tape and
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: it was really good music which was like foreigner but
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: a little heavy. Even this is great, but we want
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: to kind of basically like playing. So he our stuff
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: and sounded pretty good. And then we flipped him up
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: and we had learned his songs before he got there
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: and played him for me. I can't believe it because
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: I can't find guys. I keep guys in La at all.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: This is amazing. What are we gonna do? So let's
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: sleep on. It was late at night, let's let's think
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: about this. So next day we saide we're going to
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: go to La sat a whole new band, dropped the
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: whole empire of New England off the cliff and started
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: a whole fresh thing in the West Coast in LA
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: with Vinnie's guitar player mostly his songs to get going,
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: and we did that, just flew to LA within a week.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: We're out of Massachusetts. Never went back again and gone.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: I lived there for fifteen years, locked my apartment on
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: Bacon Street and not here. And now we're in La
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: rehearsing and did death for about the less than two months,
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: maybe six weeks, seven weeks, and that's when Vinnie was
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: off to joint kiss for sure. They just changed their
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: mind and said he could be in the band. They
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: changed the name of Vinnie Vincent. So now Jimmy Walden
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Iron La And now what are we gonna do now?
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Like thirty two years old?
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: What could have been with that band?
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: That would have been something special.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: It's been cool, you know, we had stuff going on there.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: Band sound of great. Great for him.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Doesn't sound like you had a difficult time with Vinnie,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: because Vinnie's had that reputation.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: But was he he was he was working back then.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: He's one of those guys that can't make up his mind.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: You work on a song, next day it's gonna be
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: all scrapped and do it again. Keep you writing the chapters.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Those are great paragraphs. I'm alone. He's going to rewrite
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: the sentence put him some more comments to stop, but
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: he wrote it was great, keep it there, go to
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: the next chapter. But he couldn't do that. But then
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: he got progressively crazy as the the whole thing well
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: into into the star world, and he just went crazy
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: and started. You know, I got himself kicked out the
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: bands when he did.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Can you see that, like fame and money, that could
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: do that to somebody pretty easily? Huh yeh.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: Start believing that stuff, telling you great, You're you're the god,
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: You're the next things and sliced bread and yeah, you
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: got money, and everyone tells you. And then everyone tells
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: you're great because they want to work for you, they
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: want a job or whatever. They tell you great. I'm
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: not going to tell you your shoes untied and only
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: get fired.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: How would you remain grounded through those years when things
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: were going really great, when things weren't going great, you.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Just don't listen to it. Yeah, I knew it could
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: end in on one phone call. It happened a three
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: times already, one phone call. The whole thing that was
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: down like a deck of cards, and it's just don't
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: believe that this is happening, you know. And you know,
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: we made some money, We did great, got great gigs, great,
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: But I think the best thing we got great respect
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: off the other bands that we were a good band.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: They were part of the club that was rewarding. That's
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: so much the monetary part of it. But when you
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: do get in that, you get separated from like your
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: friends and your family and in this other world now
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: and it's different, you know, And the money makes you
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: greedy and you start doing things that may may not
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: be a boat board to keep it going. And the
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: actors and the acting will do the same thing. In
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: la I lived in Hollywood Hills for a few years
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: and be a beautiful house. It's rented by some up
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: and coming movie stars. Got to hit show going on,
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: the show goes down after thirteen weeks, he's out of here,
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: somebody else moves in, got another new TV show, a
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: new actor living there, got the Lamborghini and all that stuff,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: and the hot this day, had the hot boyfriend, hot girlfriend,
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: and go all the parties and beareverot Hills and they disappear.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: So you go up and you get down fast, and
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: you're going up, it's easy. Going down, there's a lot
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: faster journey.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: But also maybe it's because you're an East Coast you
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: come from a more humble beginnings too. I think that
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: helped a lot.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: Well, you meet the same people on the way down
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: that you're met on the way up. So I mean,
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: you want to burn bridges and be nasty, you can
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: do that, but it's not going to do you well
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: if something goes wrong, and I'm not gonna have any
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: friends that because of that. So don't burn bridges, don't
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: don't be nasty to people. Where was pretty a comedy
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: any band for us, we were always the comedy and
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: doing it within reason too. You never miss any any
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: any bands like that.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: What about temptations, drugs, alcohol, things like that.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: That's all there to those cycles of that, and some
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: do better than others. Some can just say I'm gonna
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: walk away from that and just that's just you know,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: it's not good, which most of us did. We Wait,
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: the guy hasn't kissed. They just to vegetarian at that point.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: I don't think Paul's even should to coca A cold
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: at that point, it's cold Turkey and the whole thing said,
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: they saw what was going on. They said, no, we're
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: gonna keep doing this. We're going down the wrong road.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: If we keep up the ace of chorus decide he
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: is gonna keep going.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Peter, Yeah, that was the thing.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: His health is not that great because of that. Still
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: there and and that's what can happen, you know.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Book on Rock Podcast. We'll be back after this.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: Look we go back. All.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, thanks so much for checking out the Booked
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: on Rock podcast. If you've just found the podcast, welcome.
• 43:09
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• 43:12
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• 43:14
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• 43:17
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• 43:28
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• 43:37
  Speaker 1: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: to the show. You always move forward and opportunity arises again.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: How does the band Alcatraz come together.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Will I had a Jim and I stay in La.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Thought nothing to go back to Boston Forum with Stay
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: in La and play hardball. Maybe wan also to get
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: a gig with some famous band and do well. Maybe
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: going to have been in the same band together, It
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: would be kind of cool. I put an ad in
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: a local paper and my friend Michael Monach from Stephwolf,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: who I'd played with in London, he said he's going
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: to get all these all these crank phone calls with
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: these people. And I said, yeah, but answer one question,
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: is they add free? And he said yeah. So I
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: put it on the paper just said rock bass, prayer
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: X name seeks recording studio thing or touring. And I
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: got about fifty phone calls of people just kind of
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: starting out. And I had a friend of a friend
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: of a friend of a friend of a friend who's
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: someb be a Capitol Records and now we're going to
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: play the Troubadour an open mic night or something, so
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: kind of beyond that stuff. But one night the phone
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: rang his English voice yelling at me saying did he
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: manage Graham Bona from Rainbow and Barry Mark Barlow from
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Joe thrill, toll and zeal from Nazareth to the base prayers.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Are you in the basel screaming at this guy? He's
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: screaming at me. I was about to go out the
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: door to go someplace, and I said, ye, I'm the
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: bass player. I could do that. And I said, you
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: probably never heard of us, but I played in a
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: band in New England. He goes, you were province weal
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: at Elo eating all the shrimp at backstage. I said,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: that was me. I like that much shrimp. But I
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: was at that Eelo show and he was a road
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: manager for Electric Gloachstra, so he knew who Jim and
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: I were from New England and New England was that
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: the reason we got our record deal, not so much
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: Graham's contact to Rainbow, was the fact that New England
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: done so well for MCA, and a guy who worked
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: from c A, an executive, told our manager Annie that
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: we should check out this label Orange County called Rockshire,
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: a subsidiary of MC and we did. We got a
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: record deal just on us in the band, no demo,
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: and one weekend we got the news that Barry got
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: offered to play on Robert Plant's first album, what's up
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: and plans for a solo record, bringing saying no so
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: he's out of here and Zala's on tour Rookie Brooks
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: somewhere in Africa. So we had to find a guitar
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: playing a drummer over the weekend in Los Angeles. Goes down,
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: just to go down, it goes out the windows.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: No pressure there.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: So the first night we got auditioned Lawrence Jabbar, who
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: played guitar from Paul McCartney. Wow, slouching that guitar, you know,
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: quiet guy, short hair. We thought he was just some
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: guy from the last band and you gotta get out
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: of because Lawrence's Jabbar is coming, man, He's coming. It
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: was a small neph Oh no, no, sure enough. We
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: played that. We had our stuff set up and we
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: were doing a Russ Ballard song called s o S
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: that Graham had done on solo record and Cozy Polla
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: played the drums on you and the first thing he
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: said and we were done is can you please turn down?
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: It was like wrong, wrong, and the manager, of course,
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: is running around two in the morning, go that's it.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Wings in New England, Rainbow I can sell us, sure
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: you can't. But he's not the right guy. We'd be
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: killing each other before the first gig. You know, I
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: can't do that. And he went to the next day
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: to a neighbor, young guy at a record store, and said,
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: who's the hot guy. He said, Ingvey from the Swede.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: He's playing a span called Steeler, so Andy rang him.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: He said he audition for Grand Bonnet and ing they
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: couldn't believe. He thought us to crank phone call. He loved.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: All the Swedish guys love deep purple. They know all
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: that stuff backwards and sideways, and they worshiped Richie Blackmore
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: and Graham was part of that family. And Ingay didn't
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: believe it at first, and he came down at night
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: and played for us, and he nailed all that stuff.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: He could play any any deep purple song or rainbow song.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: I could shake a stick at it. And he became
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: the guitar player. Took us a longer time to find drummers.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: We're auditioned about ten drummers over a couple of months time,
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: and he got Jan who had been in Alice Cooper's band,
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: and so did our first record that became Alcatraz and
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: I named the bean Alcatraz one day sitting around talking
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: about band names, the same thing about memorable names. I
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: think they wanted to name it Dungeons and Dragons to
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: go the heavy metal medieval thing we're going. It's like
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty three. It was a little whip on the
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: map and I said, I don't want to do that,
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: that thing, and I said it'd be cool. After being
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: in New England, we're always stuck in the record store
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: between New Riots of a Purple Sage and Olive You
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: do and John. Nobody goes to the N section, they
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: O section of the record, so they go to a
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: toy go to Z whatever. I said, the cool name,
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: I starts with a like Abba erol Smith acts and
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: out of my mouth came over with Alcatraz out of nowhere,
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: and everyone jumped up. Genius, brilliant, genius brand. I nailed it,
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: so so we decided to put the extra Z on
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: there for copyright reasons with the state of California, which
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: owns Alcatraz, and okay, you know, grief of them were
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: selling t shirts say Alcatraz and I'll get arrested. Didn't
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: want that the extra Z on there, and that's how
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: it became. There was a band. It was a mutual
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: advantage to myself, Grandpa and Jimmy. There was no side
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: guys to hear this flack. Now, we just went through
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: a major trademark lawsuit just last monk. We do it
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: the last two years. It finalized about six weeks ago.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: We now own the name. Grandma doesn't, and a lot
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: of fans right in and say, oh, it's his band.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: Without him, it's nobody, and you guys are nothing. And
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: so my only want to retort to that is the
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: side guys don't sign record contracts, and my name's on
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: all those record contracts. So there's that. It's hard when
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: bands lose people and people go away, you know, like
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: Ace fans they don't want to see Vinnie Vincent, they
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: don't want to see other guys. I want to see Ace,
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: you know. And look at Sammy Hagar and the whole
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: Van Halen thing. That's a big mess. They got two
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: camps warring and who's better, who's better? So we got
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: in Alcatraz. We have that because now we have a
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: different singer than we can. Grant Graham quit the group
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: out of the Clear Blue, which he's great at doing
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: stuff like that. He's a very difficult guy to work
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: with because he's one of those guys's lives in a
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: bubble somewhere in the dream world, you know, paid not
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: do anything for it. Yeah, you gotta gotta work.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: No Pearl from Rock and Roll came out in eighty three,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: now a classic. If you had to choose between that
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: one of the New England debut, I mean, they're both
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: great albums. What's more from a personal standpoint, Yeah.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: I'm really proud fifty to fifty that they're both two
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: different styles and it's great to be say. I'm the
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: bass player on both those records. You know, I'm like
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: the New England stuff for people to play music. I
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: play everything my fingers on the Alcatraz music. I play
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: with a pick. A lot of bass players can't do both,
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: won't do both. There's a waring thing about that with
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: bass person of music. Pick every most songster and the
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: radio playing with a pick in the studio. All the
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: Beach Boy Records, Beagle Records, Yes Records, its pick, elp,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: Pink Floyd. It's a pick that's up one a lot
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: of times, pick and sometimes fingers. So you learn how
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: to do both of them. You know, if you're in
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: his studio, might be asked to ways, So that's part
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: of the repertors. People do that. So I'm proud that
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: I did two records that are kind of different from
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: me jo. It's not the same thing like going from
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: Ronnie Deal to Ozzie osbo It wouldn't be a big
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: major thing musically, same kind of style. But if he
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: went from Ozzy Osbore and enjoined Abba, that's different.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: That means that means you're adaptable and you've got a
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: water palette of information you can choose to to play
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: that kind of music.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: So did you work with a guitarist who works with
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: David Lee Roth Stevie Vai? So let's talk about that
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: his arrival. This is because was there falling out with Vey.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, the manager speaking about drugs, swore he had
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: managed it Robert Palm and basity rose at one point
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: and the whole thing went up his nose and lost
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: his family there got back together again. He's tore it
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: and do it again. Sure enough, if we get going
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: it again and bring an Evay with him and telling
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: me he is the best things on slash spread. Don't
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: worry about the other guys, you know, and like in Japan,
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: they were saying Alca Fez featuring Vey and Graham saw
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: that hit the roof and so that that became a problem,
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: and Evey just started getting more out of hand, but
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: just jumping around all over the place. Just play the
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: song just you just saw those and go crazy. But
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: we running around like a crazy person. And he just
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: got a hard to deal with. Was this is not good.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: And Graham reacted rather than taking the reins and saying
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: is what we're going to do, You're going to do
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: this or you're out of here, he just went into
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: the into a shell and just hated Evay and everything's bad,
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: Everything's bad, and come out of the house. Then I
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: got a problem. We said, well, it's obviously we've got
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: to change guitar players. Whether he's going to be famous
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: or not, it doesn't matter. The group is more important
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: than a single guy doing that. There's other guitar players
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: on the earth besides besides him. So we put the
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: word out and Jimmy found Steve I through David Rosenball
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: played for Rainbow and I think played for Billy Joel
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: for what and he mentioned Steve I from Frank Zappis
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: band and we did some auditions in Burbank. One day
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: told Vy on a Sunday there was nothing going on
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: in the interviews or anything to stay home girlfriend girlfriends
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: about fifteen from you know, he stayed home meantime we're
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: in Burbank. We got all the stuff set up, the
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: whole back line, whole thing, and we auditioned Kristen Pella
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: Terry who's like Connecticut guy, and he played everything like
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Ingvey perfect. That's kind of cool, and Steve played differently.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: It was kind of quirky, but interesting is this That's
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: kind of interesting? So it kind of pays. This Rainbow
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: clone band called Alcatraz We want to be your own band.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: I like the idea that the music could change a
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: little bit and be more venturous. And the second record
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: was I love the second record, and we had problems
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: with Capital Records at that point, but the music was great.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: I thought a lot of people liked Inva European styles
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: opposed to Steve's style, which is American kind of sound.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: They're both amazing players, and they've both been playing together
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: on the G three circuit for the last thirty years
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: or something. Yeah, they're in Albania. Tight hand Joe Satch're
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: on on tour together, and they're on the road right
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: now because we speak. We're trying to get invY on somewhere.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: We sent Alcatraz Records and his managers. His wife, she
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: wanted a million dollars to play on one song. It's like,
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: come on, oh my god, Jesus David that he would
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: get it. A million dollars on stupid song. Take it
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: half an hour ago into your studio house on pro
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: tools we have today, recording to your computer, send a
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: file to some wherever it has to go. Toy be
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: over with.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: It's similar to Vinnie Vincent, like that they're their own
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: worst enemy.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I think they. He just was just thick,
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: you know. He's yell and exciting and like his favorite
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: guitar players was il tell me Ola who knew? I said,
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: you should tell people that that's really interesting. Oh no,
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: no mon, it's always Richie Blackmore, who the wrough whatever?
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: But you should tell them, I'll tell me. And who's
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: his favorite band? No one ever gets this answer. His
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: favorite band was Kansas. Really. He heired the producer Jeff
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: Glickman to do a couple of thing. They records back
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: in the late eighties early nineties. He liked Kansas so much.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: He should tell the people interviews you like Kansas. He
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: always start Rachie Blackmore was was mysterious and everything, and
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: Graham said that Richard was as shy. He liked to interviews.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: He liked being in a corner. He's afraid of people,
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: and they took to us being he had to be
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: mean and nasty and say bad things to people that
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: don't do that. That's not the way to go. So
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: he's had that cloud around and we still have. It's
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: a birthday yesterday day before now. I say it's on
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: Facebook hate or do hate, no hate, do hate fifty
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: to fifty And it could be a lot better in
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: his favorite if he didn't come off like that. But
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: it's system doing it. It's a great guy's funny guy,
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: really talented guy. You can play any kind you can
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: play the blues, yeah, anything you want to play the guitar.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: Booked on Rock Podcasts. We'll be back after this.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: There will be an intermission.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: Find the bookdown Rock website at bookednrock dot com. There
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: you can find all the back episodes of the show,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: The latest episode in video and audio links to all
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: of the platforms where you can listen to the podcast,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: plus all the social media platforms were on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: and x. Also check out the Booked on Rock blog,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: find your local independent bookstore, find out all the latest
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: hot rock book releases, and before you go, check out
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: the Booked on Rock online store. Pick up some booked
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: on rock merch. It's all at Booked on Rock. Stevievai
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: on the other side of that is a guy who
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: seems like super easy to work with, super humble and.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he didn't had done seven albums with Frank
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: Zappa before he met us, right, did the record, went
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: to Japan together and played it. We did a tour
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: in Southwest Live that was great, and then he got
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: the offer from davely Roth to replace at evan handle
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: of all people. Yeah, so we had Annie Vincent going
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: to kiss Steve going to davely Roth Ingvey.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's got Frank Myers's name. He was friends with
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Duezel Zappa when they were kids, like twelve, thirteen, fourteen
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: years old, and he told me a story that stevie
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: V came over the house one day and they went
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: for a ride somewhere and Stevie put in a cassette.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: He goes, he gotts check this out and it was
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: like Yankee Rose and you know the stuff on you.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, I'm working with David Roth now. And
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Frank was like what. He's like, yeah, I don't tell
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: anybody yet, but it's coming out too right. Yeah, he's
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: telling that story Steve.
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: When we met Steve, he had a trio with Stu Ham,
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: Chris Fraser. Chris Frae is in Foreigner at the moment
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: and Stuart Ham plays with Joe Satriani has a song
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: called the Attitude Song. It was just bizarre, a little crazy,
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: crazy thing of changing time signatures because they could. And
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: that was the first floppy disc the Guitar Player magazine
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: ever put out the way back in the world of
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: floppy discs. They said, for our first issue with floppy discs,
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: who can we get air clapped in? Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page,
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: Alan Holdsworth, he said, let's get Steve I from Alcatraz.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: This say is cool. We're off to a good start
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: here like that. You know, we're going to maintain. But
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: then we lost Steve and it got harder. We got
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: Danny Johnson from Ric Daring's band, Run Stuart's Bend, and
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: the third album was more of a pop record. And
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: again the times were changing. It was late eighties. MTV
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: was all over the place and Duran Durant and whole
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: romantic thing was in full swing and everything was out there.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: Work against now Boy George and all kinds of crazy
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: stuff on MTV. Thousands of bands out of the woodwork,
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: and they're all good, a lot of great bands. You know,
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: I like a lot of those bands. You know, that's
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: the competition. Sure, the production was so so. And the
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: main problem I wrote about in the book as far
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: as the music business goes, is that Graham wouldn't play
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: ball with the A. R. Department of the Capitol Records
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: State had just done Hart and that record. They didn't
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: write a songs. They were given most of the songs
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: by outside songwriters, and they said, you guys could use
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: a couple of songs, take advantage of it. You know,
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: kids don't care who wrote the song. If they liked
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: the song and liked the song, noll be cares who
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: wrote it. But the people that write songs want to
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: put their their name on it to get royalties if
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: it's a hit. If it's not a hit, what's happened?
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: And Capel came asked us to do some of that,
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: and Graham flatly said, no way, not in this world,
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: not going to happen, walked out of the room, said
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: bad things about Capitol Records and interviews.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: Do you remember who it was like a asmand Child
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: or who was it that they were gonna bring in.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: Like Brian Adams, those guys you kiss had Desmond Child? Right,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: I was Made for Love? I love that song. Yeah,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: I love that SONGA they played I was made It's
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: a great it's kiss playing in their foreigner's playing. It's
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: a good song.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: Look what Desmond Child did for bon Jovi, right right, exactly,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: yeah right, those songs living on a prayer and those.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: Outside musicians a whole bit. So it's about the songs,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: you know, an They wasn't a song person. He was
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: more flashy guitar. So it's a guitar solo and we're
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: coming from a song world, right, And we only had
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: a lot of songs. All our songs are different. You
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: can go through all four New England albums and you're
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: not gonna find one song sounds like the other song,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: it's like the other song. One's got an acoustic in
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: g and one doesn't. Once got piano, it wasn't that piano,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: different keys. Some bands all ten tracks, so on the
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: same band from one track to the tenth song, did
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: second trick? Did you fortune? Same thing all the way
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: through the record. That's not great song running particularly, but
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: New England had had that going on genre some really
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: great songs.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: When you see bands like you two or these bands
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: that have had the same lineup from day one, that
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: must amaze you, right, knowing how many things have to happen,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: and they also be on the same page and they
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: all you have to not have that one guy who's
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: a pain in the ass, who's throwing a wrench into everything.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: A great example. They they never played in other bands.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: They were a high school band that grew up together
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: and they got ridiculously famous. They still haven't played anybody else, like.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: Ezy Top before sadly Dusty Pass. But you know those
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: three guys, I mean, it's.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: Well, who's the zz Tops new bass player? Elwood? Yeah, Elwood, Yeah,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: he was our guitar tech with Steve Vaie. Oh seriously,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: we took him to Japan. He was a guitar tech
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: from Boston and uh, he was our guy fixed my basic,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: put bridges on the bass and stuff back then. And
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: he's been working for a seas. He talked about twenty
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: years as their guitar tech and when Dusty Hill passed away,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: he said, get Elwood. Don't audition anybody else. He's been
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: with the band for twenty years. He knows the songs backwards.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: He's a good guitar player and the bass player. And
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: they did. They just got el would come on to
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: play bass.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: And does he also do the vocals for any things?
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: Things a bit, yeah, And he was our guitar tech
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: back in nineteen eighty four.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: He does a small world, right, rock and roll can
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: be a small world. Yeah.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: It's a big network and everyone knows somebody else. And
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: you know, I can drop names all day a long. Guys.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: I've met bands like Angel and stuff and these guys
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: and those guys and a lot of bands out there.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: And that's the word of mouth, especially back then, was
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: how he got a gig. Funny story. We were in
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: with the third Alcatraz album looking for guitar player. I'm
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: thinking and I remember the guitar player that I played
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: with in Boston long time ago from Washington, d C.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: Who's friends and the guys from Angel because they're all
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: from DC guys and Aaron Boston. This guy named Hal
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: he's a great guitar player, bondhair and play all that
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: which she blackmore stuff flawlessly. He's a super duper great
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: league guitar player. And I had back then my phone book.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: I had his mother's phone number, which is the guy.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: Get the mom's number to keep track everybody, you'll lose them.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: I called the number in Virginia someplaces and I said,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: he it's me, and what's hell doing? Oh he's in England.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: He good? Can I have his phone number? And she goes, well,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: he's playing in the band. And I said, really, do
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: you know the name some older ladyshman in the band
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: And she goes, yeah, dire Streets. He is Hellenis And
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: so he was in dire Straights. I went to a
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: record store look at the record, going damn, there he
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: is short hair. He had long black hair, and there
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: he was, and we're still friend. He gives me. I
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: gave some numbers of some friends of mine in London
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: and he gives me credit. He said, I wouldn't the Direstraates,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: Gary if you give me those phone numbers. So oh,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: my being in the direstrates and all my great fortune
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: to you for help me out when.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: I was nobody and all that awesome. And there is
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: some good news with Alcatraze right there is a new label,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: a new album due out.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're on Brave Word Records now. New album's going
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: to come out next twenty twenty six as a tour
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: in Scannadia starting in November through Christmas, a bunch of
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: dates in Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Germany. The lucuatiz My book
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: has been doing great on on Amazon. I've encourage anybody
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: that gets to read the book to please leave me
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: or review.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well I'll do the same, no base, no party.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: It's out now and you can find it wherever books
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: are sold Amazon, all the usual places, and look forward
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: at your local bookstore. And you can always find your
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: nearest independent bookstore through the website book on rock dot com.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: And it's an easy reads. It's like it's not a
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: six hundred pages of fine print like the Bible or something.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: It's bigger prints, so old people like me.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: It's a super fun read.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: It's more of a tabletop book, so the print is
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: larger for a reason they did that format. Not that
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: I know anything about books, but this is my first
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: book and I got lucky with that.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: How long did it take you to write it?
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: By the way, about six months?
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: I started writing just page one. An incident that happens.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: I thought, I make like sketches, if here's a little
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: one thing happened this month, and the famous later this
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: other thing happened. Read a whole chronological thing every day
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: what I did. And I have like fifty chapters, each
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: with a different name. The publisher kind of crammed him
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: into a twenty four chapter formast. It kind of gets
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: kind of weird here in this storyline that says chapter fourteen,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: but the story is still gone, right, But that's small things.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: What do I know about book publishing and books? We love?
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: In Alberta has been really good to me doing virtual
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: tours for I mean book tourists, virtual book tourism, things
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: And now you got a little bit of time before
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: the Alcatraz thing gets back up and running. To promote
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: the book.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in a lot of trial on myself. My wife
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: and I love to travel, so we're going to Portugal
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: and September fut a month.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: And you live in Florida now, yeah, I.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: Live on Amelia Island, which is the very northeast corner
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: of Florida Georgia border in Atlantic.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad we were able to do this. Like
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: I said, it's it's just a small world story.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: I just cannot believe still that you grew up about
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: five minute walk from where I It's just it is.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, riding my bike down a bunch of kids, chase men,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: we're going to kill you.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: Well, the high school you went to is now in
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: elementary school.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the whole thing is so depressive and less. I
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: went back to Center Streets one way and the Pipelin
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: restaurant's gone, it's gone painted.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: I know, man, it's it is a very very different.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: It was a pretty common street. Glass I remember girlfriend,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: I asked a lot of her father. Where I live.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: Liberty Street, Liberty Street, Yeah, a schedule back then. Yeah,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: some people on welfare across the street from us.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: And yeah, now you where you lived is next door
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: to my dentist, So next time I have my dentist appointment,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say, say to the people in the office,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: you know, I know somebody who's to live there.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: I work in cash and Carry's famous three years. Yeah,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: that was the that was the guy. All the macaroni
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: and groes want the car.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: That's cool. Well, Gary s thanks so much again, No base,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: no party. That's the name of the book. Go out
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: and get it. It's a great book. It's a fun read,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: and we look forward to the future of Alcatraz.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: We're excited about this. Fans, I'm sure are super excited.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: Long time fans, you know.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: Like I said, I've got I think I've hammered all
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: my friends on my book, trying to find some new people.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: I find some new people to pick up a copy.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: It's well worth it, and again you can get it
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: wherever books are Sould. Thanks so much, Gary, thank you.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: Eric's been great talking to you. M M. That's it.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: It's in the books.