Back in the very first days of the Rockpit I remember listening to a bunch of albums I’d just bought on a trip to the US. One of the very best was ‘Strip Rock Roll’ by Asphalt Valentine. Sadly after that great debut there was nothing before an EP ‘Into The Red’ surfaced 5 years later in 2013 and now they’re back with maybe their best release to date ‘Twisted Road.’ We caught up with Joe Flynt to find out why so long away and how a Faces cover made it onto the new record.
Mark: Hey Joe!
Joe: Hey what’s going on?
Mark: Just listening to some great Asphalt Valentine, what a great album. I remember buying ‘Strip Rock Roll’ when it came out when I was over in the States and I loved it, but I have to be honest I love ‘Twisted Road’ even more.
Joe: That’s awesome, and it’s great that you’ve known about us for that long. We formed in2005-2006 and ‘Strip Rock’ was our first release, but I agree we think that ‘Twisted Road’ is by far our best material, we couldn’t be happier with the record.
Mark: It’s a hard time to release a record at the moment with the way the world is?
Joe: Oh absolutely, and there’s no way to plan for that especially when you start doing a record it takes a while. I think we were recording for all of 2019, and we were so energised going into 2020, we really had great expectations of the record doing good and us being able to get back out and tour and really push it. But unfortunately things just didn’t go that way, but you can’t plan for that so we just got to do the best that we can – which is put out as much content to promote it as we can, and hopefully when things open back up, we’ll be able to get back out there because I don’t think with this one how old it is or how long it’s been out, as new fans discover it it’s still going to be a great record no matter when they discover it.
Mark: I think you’re right it has one of those timeless sounds and I can’t put a finger on a style per se, it’s just good music. And you also won me over with that cover of the Faces, and I have to say I’m a huge fan of the Faces – how did you discover the band, were you a fan as a kid?
Joe: Well for me not so much as a kid. I’d always known who Rod Stewart was but more as a solo artist. But in this band we have a wide range of tastes and our rhythm guitarist Bret, who’s been with us from pretty much the beginning, his musical tastes are really that more 70’s style Rock and Roll, so Faces for him was a big band. That song came about as we were contacted by this company from L.A. who were doing a movie and they wanted a band to do some cover songs and they gave us a list and that was one on there, and that never went anywhere. So we’d done all these cover songs and that one really stood out, and we’d always loved the Faces too and we just felt it had to go on the record.
Mark: It’s a great cover and amongst so many great originals. One question I have to ask, as I can’t put a label on this album is how would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard Asphalt Valentine before?
Joe: Well Mark, you got us there because that is the hardest thing for us, we do have a hard time describing ourselves because we do have so many influences that we put into our songs. There’s some old school Aerosmith, like you said the Faces, I love Metallica, I love old school Punk Rock like Social Distortion. We even love Pop, Michael Jackson and Pink, and Iron Maiden and all that stuff. So it’s really when we’re writing a song we’re not really preparing to go in a certain direction but when it all starts coming together everyone takes their influences and adds a little flavour to it, and we kind of stir the pot, and that’s how it comes out.
Mark: I think I said in the review that you’re a band that would fit on pretty much any bill and no one would walk away disappointed. There’s such great variety – there’s even stuff you can dance to on there – ‘Something More’ I love. But after living with the album for a few weeks now, ‘Shamefully’ I really can’t shake that song, and also ’Rain’ right at the end, two wonderful tracks amongst many others.
Joe: Awesome! ‘Something More’ that was the last song I wrote for the record. We still needed ten songs and we were listening to all the songs and I said I just need something a little bit heavier and faster so that’s how that one came to be. And ‘Shamefully’ we’ve had that song for probably about ten years, but it wasn’t ‘that’ song – we had some of the riffs here and there, we had different lyrics and different melodies and we knew there were some great parts to that song, and so I took it back and I dissected it a little bit and made it a bit faster paced, then Bret came and made a really groovy riff for the verse and that one really came together well. And ‘Rain’ that one was a lot of fun for me because lyrically I don’t write a lot of story-type songs where it’s not about me or experiences. But I just wanted to write a song that was about a Western – it’s an old showdown, a 12 o’clock high type of thing. And it’s fast and fun and has a really good hook to it.
Mark: And there’s some straight ahead rockers on there too that will please a lot of people – I love ‘Dixie Rose’ for example.
Joe: Thank you. That ones’ about my wife, she’s a Southern belle, we just celebrated our ten year anniversary and I just wanted a really cool song that had a good groove to it. So that one’s about my sweetheart.
Mark: We recently got live music back a few weeks ago here in the West of Australia, the West here is pretty much like California but without the people. We closed our State borders and the result is we have live music back. So a pretty good return, but I had gone 66 days without a live show which is the longest in my entire adult life.
Joe: (laughs) yeah it’s crazy. It is starting to open up here again in the States. We have some friends who do covers sets and they’ve been able to do a few shows, it’s limited, you can’t do full capacity. Unfortunately we had dates on the books for August that we just got told were cancelled last week, so we’re struggling. But we have other bands on the label who are doing some stuff in the Midwest United States. So there is some stuff opening up, there is music out there and we’re ready to get back out there because playing upon a live stage and meeting the people is really what we love to do.
Mark: I think the Midwest seems to be having a better time of it. I spoke to Ron Keel yesterday and he said that where he is up in South Dakota things are pretty good.
Joe: Exactly and Ron’s on our label as well and able to get out there so I’m a little jealous (laughs) but very happy for him and the band being able to get out there.
Mark: I have to be honest here my only problem with Asphalt Valentine is I just wish you’d made more albums, everything you have released is great, and I suppose that’s better than some bands who put out releases they maybe shouldn’t! Why the break in recordings?
Joe: (laughs) I completely agree as I said we started in 2005, 2006 – the first release came in 2009and we did a lot of touring in 2010 and 2011, but then our drummer left and we kind of parted ways with the label, not that anything bad happened, just that we wanted to go in a different direction and I think the label was kind of shut down a little bit. So we decided to do the EP ‘Into the Red’ on our own. It really does cost a lot to release a record properly and also to travel and play the shows and the margins are very thin. So you gotta really be dedicated to it and when things aren’t happening as much as you’d like them to it’s easy to kind of take a step back and I won’t get into everything but we did have a lot of line-up changes especially in the guitar department. And when new guitarists come in and new drummers come in you gotta re-show them everything. And band members move away, so really the excuse is on us – we should have been more dedicated, but we are now, and that’s the important thing. We just did this record we put it together and we’re all super-excited. We just did a video for ‘Twisted Road’ which we released a couple of weeks ago and we’re gonna go back and do another video for ‘Saving’ in a couple of weeks and then the plan is to do a third video maybe for ‘Rain’ and then if that goes well maybe another for ‘Ooh La La’ – so we really want to push this record. And with all this covid I’ve had the opportunity to just sit here in the studio and write a lot of music so we definitely plan on not having that hiatus again. I want to be back in the studio recording again this time next year.
Mark: Well that just made my day, I can’t wait to hear it. Now to close, our traditional questions we ask everyone the first time.
Joe: OK.
Mark: The first is – If you could have been a fly on the wall for the creation of any great album just to see how the magic happened, what would you have liked to have seen being put together?
Joe: Well… Man, that’s really tough. I think for me it would be going back to the older days when you were working with tape and seeing how all of that came together. Our producer who does our records now, he’s been doing this since the 80’s. He’s worked with Bon Jovi, he’s worked with Bruce Dickinson and I think he told me when he was first interning he interned on a Queen record. And when he tells me that kind of stuff – how he had to put tape on the reel and when they turned it on it went flying everywhere those are really great and funny stories, so I think I’d like to go back to that time and see all the debauchery and see how they got through that and still managed to make such great records. It’s so real, as opposed to now where it’s more like plug it in and push some buttons.
Mark: I think you’re right there’s a lot more magic about it and a lot more invention as well.
Joe: Yeah.
Mark: You strike me as a band that would fit right in in the 70’s where things were more eclectic and exciting, maybe the most eclectic decade ever where people would just do anything and didn’t feel constrained by expectations or labels. By the sound of ‘Twisted Road’ you sound like a band who wouldn’t be afraid to do that.
Joe: Oh thank you so much, and there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think we’re kind of coming out at the wrong time, but it is what it is. For us it’s all about staying true to what we want to do. We’re not on the top by any means but we’re definitely trying to get our name out there, and that’s thanks to people like you helping us get that name out. For us we’re always going to make records because that’s just what we love to do. Most bands now that have been together for 15, 16, 17 years and are really on our level have already broken up because it’s just not going the way they want. We have a great group of guys, we all get along, we’re brothers, we feel that we just write really good music – so for us – we’re just going to keep going.
Mark: And the last question, which is probably the easiest question you’ll get asked all day is ‘what is the meaning of life?’
Joe: Well the meaning of life to me is honestly to strive to be as happy as you can be doing what you do. Getting up every day to do something that’s worthwhile that puts the biggest smile on your face. So for me it’s definitely my family, I love waking up and seeing my kid every day, and my wife and then I have the band to go and play with every week. And I couldn’t think of anything more, and I do them as I said because they make me happy and I think you’ve kind of got to look at life like that.
Mark: It is as simple as that. I think people over complicate things. It’s been great to speak to you today, so far it has to be my album of the year and we’re halfway there now.
Joe: Wow, thank you very much, that’s great to hear.
Mark: And there has been some great music out already this year so it’s holding up well.
Joe: Awesome thank you so much Mark it was great to talk to you.
