Jetboy was one of those wonderful bands of the late eighties that had that real edge that set them apart from the whole Sunset Strip scene . With a huge loose sound that was part Blues, part Glam, part Punk and sporting an ex-Hanoi Rocks member on bass they put out one of the best albums of 1988 in ‘Feel the Shake’ and followed it up with ‘Damned Nation’ a couple of years later before Grunge claimed them,disbanding in 1992. A a new EP, ‘Off Your Rocker‘ came out in 2010 but this year they return with a new full length that has all the style and attitude of their debut ‘Born To Fly.’ We caught up with founder member and guitarist Billy Rowe to find out all about it.
Mark: Hi Billy thank you so much for talking to the Rockpit today, how are you?
Billy: I’m good, where are you?
Mark: We’re based out of Perth Western Australia, though we have far more readers in your part of the world, you’d like Perth, think California without the people!
Billy: That’s where I want to go so bad and play! The birthplace of Rose Tattoo and Angel City (The Angels), oh man great bands.
Mark: And both bands still around and playing.
Billy: Oh I knew Rose Tattoo were still out there but didn’t know Angel City (were)? The Brewster Brothers maybe?
Mark: Yeah they’re playing of course and they now have Dave Gleeson from The Screaming Jets fronting them.
Billy: Oh of course the Screaming Jets I had that first record, that was a great record.
Mark: And talking of great first records yours is right up there with my favourite from the latter part of the eighties – ‘Feel the Shake’ was a great album and the follow up too ‘Damned Nation’ was rather cool.
Billy: Thank you.
Mark: The great news for fans like me after that teaser a few years back when you put out the EP ‘Off Your Rocker’ you’re back now with a full-length album ‘Born to Fly’. I’ve been listening all week and can’t stop – you must be pretty happy with how that came out?
Billy: Yeah thank you, we’re all very happy with how it came out. We had no expectations when we did it, everything just came out of the blue and it all rolled super-smooth and we’re quite amazed that we’re even here sitting talking about this (laughs).
Mark: Take us all the way back, Jetboy were around for quite a while before ‘Feel the Shake’ was released playing for five years or so in the San Francisco scene just before Rock got big again and labels were trying to sign everyone. What was it like at that time being in a Rock band? What was the San Francisco scene like?
Billy: Well the band formed in ’83 but we didn’t really start playing until ’84. So you’re talking about a time that was still fresh out of the 70’s so the Punk Rock and the Rock thing was really big and then there was the 80’s which for me was people like Prince and Billy Idol and Duran Duran and other pop bands like Kajagoogoo (laughs) The 80’s had a big movement I think, so all that was going on back then when I was in my first band, we were still searching, we’d just discovered The Hanoi Rocks and a band previous to that – Japan, but our core bands were Aerosmith and Kiss and Cheap Trick and The Stones and The Clash and Generation X, so everything was just a big mish-mash of stuff back then. So the scene was really full of all of that. We came from San Francisco and you had the Broadway Strips, the Mabuhay Gardens and the On-Broadway, the On-Broadway was real Punk Rock driven so was the Mabuhay, but with Jetboy we were able to play one side to the other because on the other there was The Stone which was like the Rock club. So even though we were more Punk and Glam driven we were able to float – one month we might play with W.A.S.P. and the next might be with the Toy Dolls and it worked, and that’s kind of how it was for us in the early days. And that was cool, and kind of what separated the band from the get-go, and which still kinda separates the band from the genre we came from. We had a lot of Punk Rock in us from the early days, and a kinda looseness to us, a ‘train-wreck’ kinda thing when we were on stage you know! But then when the records came out we knuckled down and we kinda honed our craft and got more Blues-driven and basic, not in a bad way, but a sort of AC/DC-driven way with and Aerosmith riffy-type vibe. So the band kind of morphed into that and we kinda found our place and that’s really what we still do on ‘Born to Fly.’ When we got in the studio to do the new record we just said “We’re just gonna do what we do” and that’s what we did.
Mark: You did, and it’s great that you name-checked a lot of the bands that I really loved and I think that they do come across in that mix and add a bit of flavour to the sound. I love Hanoi and I loved those first two Japan albums when they were a Glam band before they hit that Pop streak. But speaking of Hanoi Rocks you then came to play with Sami (Yaffa) on that first album who you said in the past really helped you along musically?
Billy: Yeah I think so. When Sam joined the band he’d already done five albums and worked with Bob Ezrin, a big producer who’d done Alice Cooper and Kiss and loads more .So when he joined the band he had a lot more under his belt and he was a phenomenal bass-player, one of the greatest Rock and Roll bass players I think, and so adding him into the band just challenged the rest of us to keep up with that, you know. It was very natural but when he joined the bad things just went to another level and it taught us a lot at the same time. And we were all huge fans of Hanoi Rocks, so for us it was like “Wow” is this really happening? And to this day we’re still good friends and he’s doing awesome with Michael Monroe and has a TV show.
Mark: He’s a lovely guy too, last time we spoke was a few years back now when he was playing with The New York Dolls. You signed to MCA after a flirtation with Elektra, it must have been a frustrating time for you – the album was in the can and you could have been part of that first burst with bands like Guns N Roses, but the release was delayed as you changed labels?
Billy: Right, and its great hearing people like you saying that. A lot of people don’t know that history of where we were then – it was Guns N Roses, Jetboy, Poison, Faster (Pussycat), L.A. Guns – we were there before a lot of the others that past us. It was frustrating you know we’d just finished a record with Elektra and got dropped and MCA picked us up, then it was about nine months before the album came out and by the time it came out it was well over a year old and all the time we were seeing these other bands getting snatched up and records coming out. And we had to sit back and watch that, waiting for all the red tape to get cut before we could get the record out. I don’t know, maybe all that brought us to where we are now with ‘Born to Fly’ (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Billy: So no regrets, you know.
Mark: It’s horrible as a fan to realise how much that went on was down to label inaction, bad decisions and bad handling. Over the years you piece together all these stories, because back in the day all you knew was the little there was in the music press and that was all you knew, but when you realise what went on behind the scenes sometimes it’s shocking. MCA had some great bands Bang Tango, Spread Eagle, Hardline, loads of others but for me they never seemed to market them as much as they did their Pop acts?
Billy: It is what it is, you know. At the end of the day it’s all timing. I can give you my own list of great bands from the eighties that didn’t quite make it and we’d both be thinking “Why didn’t that happen?” and Hanoi Rocks were one of them. We all know the tragic story of Razzle but even before that why didn’t it happen? They were stars in every sense!
Mark: Very good point.
Billy: Or Rose Tattoo, or Angel City they might have been huge in Australia but why weren’t they huge here! They should have been, but in America they didn’t make a dent. Why?!
Mark: One of the things you must be enjoying at the moment, and the only time I ever saw you was at ‘Rock the Bayou’ a few years back now, is playing those Festival stages these days, that must be pretty cool?
Billy: That’s right. The big thing for us right now is the Monsters of Rock Cruise. Lots of my friends have done it from bands of our era but we’ve never been and whether we’ve been passed on in the past or it wasn’t the right time I don’t know but it’s that timing thing again, and now seems to be the right time – the record is going to be out January 25th and then the month after we’re going on the boat so it’s kinda perfect you know?
Mark: I love the Cruise even if at first the whole concept sounds weird – Rock bands on a cruise liner!?? But it is done so well and everyone on the boat just wants to immerse themselves in great music from breakfast until the early hours. The clincher for me not growing up in the US is not seeing the bigger bands that we’ve all seen, but seeing the bands like Jetboy who really never ventured outside of the US until recently of course.
Billy: It’s great. We can’t wait.
Mark: One of the things I’d love to know is where it all started for you? What got you into music in the first place? Was there a defining moment, a blinding flash of light when you just knew? Or was it more gradual?
Billy: Me personally it goes back to when you’re a kid and you worship Ace Frehley and Joe Perry and Angus Young and all these guys just to pick up a guitar even if you don’t know how to play it is just the coolest thing in the world! (laughs) Just the fact it was an electric guitar was the ‘Wow’! I always connected with guitar, I’m not one of those flashy lead guitar guys though I always gravitated to the real rhythm, riff driven stuff – Rock and Roll, Blues and to this day I still love it. So it was the love of all of those bands that got me started but Kiss was my gateway to all music! Then to Aerosmith and Cheap Trick and so on. Kiss started things off for a lot of kids.
Mark: As soon as I heard ‘Beating the Odds’ coming out of the speakers I knew ‘Born To Fly’ was going to be a great album, but when you get to The Cruise and maybe those shortened sets how much of the new album are you going to get to play? I know some bands that will go out there and play just the old songs that they think the fans want and some bands will go too far the other way and concentrate on the new material. What’s the plan?
Billy: We’ll pay a good handful of it, we really want to play a lot of it – we’ve played about three shows since we recorded the record and we have four songs in the set. But we want to get a lot of it down just to have it, but of course a lot of people want to hear the old stuff as well so we’ll see what goes down well.
Mark: So what are you playing at the moment? Surely ‘Beating the Odds’ and ‘Born to Fly’ are in there?
Billy: Yeah, were doing ‘Beating the Odds’; ‘Born to Fly’; we’re doing ‘Old Dog New Tricks’; ‘Party Time!’ we’ve done; ‘Brokenhearted Daydream’ but there’s definitely a bunch of other ones like ‘Inspiration From Desperation ‘ and ‘A Little Bit Easy’ we want to start playing live.
Mark: Some great songs there. How did you approach the writing of this album, was it a case of getting together and jamming it out, did you all bring in your own ideas and riffs and work on them? How did it all come together?
Billy: It was a combination of how we used to write in the old days versus and using technology to cope with working with people living in different places Mick (Mickey Finn) lives in Hawaii, Fern (Fernie Rodd) and I in San Francisco, but we were able to get together. I did some recording on my own just for my own pleasure but we were able to put together all the songs and demo them at my place and then Mick would come out and do the vocals. We demoed every part of this record to the backing vocals and the harmonies. So the writing process was almost the same but we were able to deliver Mick complete songs musically, all arranged and even with the drum parts written and he would write away and maybe we cut a verse here and get to the chorus sooner here, but other than that every song that demoed only had a few changes here and there.
Mark: Were they all new songs written just for the album?
Billy: All new.
Mark: So nothing you’d had laying around and always wanted to use at some point?
Billy: No, we contemplated that but as we were writing, things were starting to flow and we started counting what we had and it was all new.
Mark: So what are you hoping to do on the back of the album, I see a few big dates, a few other shows. Are we likely to see you take the album overseas?
Billy: I hope so at the end of last year we actually went over to England and played some shows. But at this point it’s a case of getting the record out and letting it tell us where we’re going to play – but if we can get on a tour that makes sense that would be great, but I think all of us would love to get overseas – England, Europe, Australia, Japan. That would be kind of the ultimate for us right now. But first the U.S. and then we’ll see what develops.
Mark: We’d love to see you over here.
Billy: We’d love to come and see you!
Mark: It’s been great to talk to you today I think we’ve just got time for our traditional last two questions. The first is: “If you could have been a ‘Fly on the Wall’ to witness the creation of any great album, right there in the studio watching the magic happen- what’s the album for you?” What would you like to have seen being made?
Billy: Oh boy! I can give you an easy dozen! (laughs) I would start with “Highway To Hell” then maybe “Heaven Tonight”; “Toys in the Attic” or “Rocks”; There’s so many “Dream Police”; “Some Girls.”
Mark: One of my Favourite by The Stones.
Billy: A great record. Then there’d be some Zeppelin in there ‘Physical Graffiti.’
Mark: This is getting weird – you just named my favourite Zep, Cheap Trick, Aerosmith and Stones albums!
Billy: That’s cool! You must have great taste (laughs)
Mark: Either that or we’ve both got bad taste!
Billy: (laughs)
Mark: And the easiest question of all to close: “What is the meaning of life?”
Billy: (laughing) What is the meaning of life! Oh God, I think that was answered by Monty Python right! (laughs) What is the meaning of life, I think there really is no meaning – it just is what it is! (laughs)
Mark: ‘Born to Fly’ so far my album of the year, I know it’s only January, but it might hang in there all year!
Billy: (laughs) Very cool, that is all I wanted to hear, not that we expected anything but this is exciting, the reaction so far has been great.
Mark: As a fan the best thing in the world is a band that you loved as a kid coming back and hitting you with an album that takes you right back. And you’ve not missed a beat.
Billy: That’s what we all want as fans and it’s a tall order that’s for sure.
Mark: Thank you so much for talking to The Rockpit today, it’s been great. Have a great Year!
Billy: Alright man, thank you.
