| What
advice would you offer bands today?
Play anywhere you can for
experience and exposure. Make it a goal to get an established
manager; someone who has already gotten someone else where you
want to go. Use each rejection as the start of a dialogue; ask
what would make you more attractive in whatever situation you
are seeking. Be nice! If you want to make a friend in the
business, listen more than you talk. Ignore people who say you
can’t do it. That’s what they told every single one of
your heroes. Someone’s gonna make it…..why not you?
Who are some of your
influences?
Jimmie
Vaughan Hound
Dog Taylor Danny
Gatton Fats
Domino The
Heartbreakers (Johnny Thunder’s band, not Tom Petty’s)
Brewer
Phillips Chuck
Berry Charlie
Parker Dexter
Gordon early Miles
Davis Barry
Harris Bud
Powell Chet
Baker The
Ramones The
Sex Pistols NRBQ
Barrance Whitfield and the
Savages Kid
Dynamite Speeddealer
Simon
and the Bar Sinisters And…….the pop music of my
youth
With Philadelphia being such a
mecca of glam in the late 1980’s, how did you keep yourself
ahead of the game without being swallowed by the fad or better
yet, succumb to it?
I don’t know if it was a “mecca
of glam.” If you mean pop metal, like Cinderella and Heaven’s
Edge….I hated that shit. Absolutely hated it. Still don’t
get it! If you mean pretty-boy pop like the Hooters, I was
pretty much a part of that. It seemed like a good idea at the
time to take blues music and do something contemporary with
it. At the time “contemporary” meant hair spray and tight
black jeans and shiny pop music. We wanted to be famous and we
weren’t gonna get there playing straight blues music. So, we
gave ‘em some of what they wanted and some of what we
wanted. That’s show-biz! Selling out only sucks if you don’t
get paid enough. We did alright.
You’ve worked with so many
big names in the music industry. Were you ever star struck?
Hanging out with Robert
Plant was pretty freaky. He was real nice. I was psyched
to meet Chrissy Hynde. Thorogood was awesome. The Ramones.
Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols. Lux Interior of the Cramps.
Definitely the most star
struck I ever was occurred at a CBS convention in Boca Raton,
Florida. A lot of acts on the label were there- LL Cool J,
Alice Cooper, New Kids on the Block- Jimmie Vaughan and Kim
Wilson from the Fabulous Thunderbirds, my heroes, were there,
and I was talking to them when we got called into the dining
room for dinner. We got in line together. I thought, “Oh
shit…I’m gonna sit next to these guys!” We went in and I
sat down RIGHT BETWEEN THEM! I couldn’t believe it. I was
ecstatic! About thirty seconds later, our manager came over
and said, “You can’t sit there.” Some record company
douchebag wanted to sit with them. Son of a bitch!
How did you land a local music
gig at 94.1 WYSP?
It pays to be nice. Karen
Buck, Marketing Director at WYSP, worked there when she was
just a kid and we (TCYR) were getting airplay. She’s always
been a friend. When the job opened up, she called me, and I
said “OK!”
How would you compare the
local scene today to twenty years ago?
Bands are getting good
younger. Recording is a lot easier, cheaper, and better.
Which local bands do you think
really have a shot at the BIG
TIME?
I don’t care about the big
time. I don’t need some record company to tell me who rocks
and who doesn’t; they tend to get it wrong at least as often
as they get it right, so who are they to set the standard?
Usually the bands I like have little or no commercial
potential!
How will you like to be
remembered?
He took a licking and kept on
ticking! |
