As soon as I heard Jo and Paul’s latest album ‘Everybody Rains on My Parade’ I knew I had to talk to them, but after publishing the first review of the record they beat me to it with Paul getting in touch to thank me for the review. I put it to him that it would be great to set up a first interview too and here we are. ‘Everybody Rains on My Parade’ is one of those records that has more than a little magic about it, and it’s an album that isn’t afraid to mix it up. Whilst there’s a strong Bluesy base the closest description I can level at it is ‘Americana’ – but a far-reaching Americana that also takes in Jazz and Latin influences, maybe even ‘Calicana’?
It’s always interesting to talk to people for the first time whose previous music you have connected with over the years so when Jo appears on the screen (he’s early, Paul is fashionably late) the first thing I notice is his Faces T-Shirt. When I was researching for the interview I couldn’t find any interviews with Jo anywhere and as it turns out that is because he doesn’t do interviews, I’m honoured. This is going to be great!
Mark: Hey Jo!
Jo: Hey Mark, how you doing?
Mark: Not too bad mate, it’s 1 PM out in the wonderful West Coast of the US and a brisk 4 AM here in the West of Australia!
Jo: (laughs) You’re crazy! Sorry man!
Mark: No worries at all Jo, I’ve got used to time zones over the years.
Jo: Good man, I’ve just been really busy with the single coming out today. We only just found that out as we’ve been so busy with everything – life you know! (laughs)
Mark: I was actually looking when I was doing a bit of research today to try and find a few interviews that you’d done in the past, I drew a blank.
Jo: I don’t really do interviews. (laughs) With the Dogs (The Dogs D’Amour) it was always really I didn’t really need to do anything, it was a great gig for me I just had to kick back and do nothing. (laughs) I let all the other psychos do all the work, you know!
Mark: They were great days, I lost count of how many times I saw The Dogs over the years, so many tours and shows every year from, I think 1987 when I first saw the band to 1990 when you called it a day. You didn’t come back in ’93 when the band reformed, I always wondered about that?
Jo: I was gonna come back, we were planning on coming back. Me and Tyla were living here and we were all getting ready to go back – we were doing the thing, talking to the label everything. And I was saying “If we’re gonna do it we’re gonna do it this way” and Tyla and I were in accordance about it. And then Tyla, got the jitters, he just needed to leave. He and his girlfriend were breaking up at the time and he just needed to go the England and be a Rock Star again, you know. I wanted to… because we hadn’t done anything for a while, so I was thinking “OK we need to rebuild the audience” there was all that kind of thinking going on. And out there there was a different genre of music – you know Oasis and that kind of thing, all those kind of bands. So the Rock thing wasn’t really happening it was more that (Britpop) style of thing. So I wanted to build the fanbase back up, you know, playing small clubs and just build from there.
Mark: Sounds like a plan.
Jo: Yeah. And Tyla was all into it at the beginning and then all of a sudden, and you know we were faxing (that ancient form of communication) back and forth to the label, and they just started saying no to our ideas. So I thought what’s the point going back to the same old shit. Because we always had a problem with them. So that was it really, that’s the story. I just decided to stay. But there were other things I guess, we were turning into a bit of a cliché and I always think that Rock and Roll is about change, you know? I don’t like repeating things just because everyone else does, or doing things because others are doing it. That’s not what the Dogs were about at the beginning.
Mark: I know what you mean as you progressed you weren’t afraid to throw a bit of Country in there, mix things up.
Jo: Exactly, and that was not a cool thing to do for those kind of people, the people we were playing for they didn’t know about ‘Country’ so why not introduce them? I never used that much distortion really, I think people just thought I was a hick! (laughs) They just enjoyed the music and that’s all that matters to some. I think The Dogs was a bit more of a vibe, you know, it was a whole family, and everybody jumped onto that family, everyone really loved something about it. It was like a club that you walked into and you were welcomed.
Mark: Absolutely. Growing up in the UK it was our scene, I loved the vibe, the friends you met at shows, but best of all the soundtrack was timeless. I love how music echoes, you listen to a band say like ‘Faces’ and you know that sound is going to echo again and again because when you discover a band like that it stays with you and people pick up that sound and add their own spin to it. That’s Rock and Roll, borrowed and added to and tweaked and patched. It’s wonderful. As Steve Marriott said “There’s two types of music – good and bad” and the Sonic Boom record has that timeless quality to it that makes it pretty special. But I wanted to hold off talking about that till Paul gets here.
Jo: He’s on his way I just heard from him, he’ll be here soon.
Mark: So let’s fill in a little of the back story. When did you guys first meet?
Jo: Oh God it was a long time ago! I want to say 1990? He asked me to do a session, you know. He liked my guitar playing and I met him and we went in the studio and I did a few songs with him. One of the songs ended up being ‘Slipping Away’ which was one of the songs on the first Sonic Boom record. I didn’t really know much about Paul, I’d never really been into L.A. Guns or anything like that you know (laughs). But I thought he was a really laid back guy, and we started slowly developing a friendship, And it’s so easy to write with Paul too. So basically I did that session with him and then after that we just kept in touch, you know, jamming Leadbelly songs and Blues stuff, you know.
Mark: Like Paul I always loved your guitar sound and style, your slide guitar is something I never get tired of. Where did that come from? You mentioned Leadbelly and I’m thinking Lightning Hopkins and people like that – does it all go back to the Blues for you?
Jo: From the beginning it’s all about the roots for me. I started off when I was a kid listening to The Sweet, the Beatles and the whole Glam Rock thing that was happening in ’74 – ’75. And then when I got into the Faces, you know, I had to start digging deep to find out what was what. Because the Faces and The Stones they were the kind of bands that liked to tell you where it came from. They were the historians. The Beatles they didn’t really know the facts or the history of where it came from but The Stones and the Faces they did their groundwork. They knew. So I’d listen to songs and start asking questions “Why did they use a banjo on that song” or why did they put that Reggae song on ‘Black and Blue’ – I’d be wondering ‘What’s that?, that’s amazing!’ and asking myself where it came from. So I started digging into where it all came from.
Mark: I think that’s so important and I always fear we’ll lose that knowledge. And you’re right there’s so many bands out there who don’t know or don’t care. For me that voyage of discovery has always been a really important part of music and so much fun.
Jo: Yeah and for me it still is. I always go back to the roots. You kind of get a little lost sometimes and you start moving forward then you get lost and then I go back to the roots and it kickstarts me again.
Mark: Nice Faces T-Shirt you’re wearing by the way (Jo has a Faces – Coast to Coast: Overture and Beginners T-shirt on.
Jo: (laughs) I always liked that cover, you know. Some of the songs in there had a horn section at some stage.
Mark: I love that freedom, the sense that they could or would do anything. If you play for your audience and the genre you’ve been pigeon-holed in you’re sort of playing yourself into a corner and you play it safe. It still might sound very good but it’s stifling. The thing I loved most about your new album, was that I didn’t know what to expect next. I just felt like you were free to do anything and not afraid to do it. There’s Jazz in there, all kinds of stuff in there.
Jo: I know we were going to talk about this with Paul but I can talk about it or give you my sense of it. Like I said its so easy for me and Paul to write and we can put together a song very quickly, you know. On the first CD we just put everything on it, we didn’t care – we wanted to give the audience as much as possible. But as the songs were progressing and everything we became more selective. And with the CD age it’s become exhausting listening to song after song and I think the art of making an ‘album’ was lost. There has to be a story in a track, a side A, side B. And then I started digging into the art of making albums, you know what makes a good album, stuff like that, the history of it. And as I was doing that I realised that all my favourite albums were double albums – you know what I mean – you know like ‘The White Album’, or ‘Exile on Main Street’ or ‘Blonde on Blonde’. All of them were double albums and all of them were so eclectic, so many different veins. They’ve still got ‘the sound’ but they’ve got all these ‘avenues’ of musical history.
Paul Enters the chat…
Jo: Hey Paul!
Mark: Here he is! Good to see you.
Paul: Good to see you too, had a little problem logging in!
Mark: We have just been purposely trying not to get onto the album but we just arrived there. We’ve talked about where you guys met and how easy it is to write together.
Mark: The album is one that really took me by surprise, I don’t think I’ve stopped playing it since I heard it, people need to know about it! There’s a lot of magic in there. I can feel the chemistry and I’m guessing it’s fun too?
Paul: It’s definitely fun, but I think more than being funs it’s also deeply satisfying. When Jo and I met it just kind of clicked, we were both going through a lot of the same thing: band break-ups which is kind of heart-breaking in itself but also relationships breaking up and struggles with, you know, just life in general. And also a real disillusionment with the music industry because we’d both been crapped all over, you know with lawsuits and stolen credits and everything like that, and that kind of soured us with the industry in general. But we still had a real passion for music so I think Jo and I kind of became hermits together just writing. And it was really satisfying to kind of come up with stuff and put our ideas together and make something that was really heart-felt even if we didn’t ever find time to record it or go out and tour and play in a band. Just the song-writing process itself was a real outlet for everything we were going through.
Mark: So much has happened too between that first album and today, not just the things you mentioned but the tiny matter of a pandemic too which has knocked everyone off their feet.
Jo: We were actually ready to release the record before the pandemic – we were all set to go and then the pandemic happened, so it’s been one thing after another (laughs)
Paul: Even before the pandemic, we’ve been working on this album really since we met. Jo pointed out the other day that one of the songs was from when we first met 30 years ago, so it was a process. A gathering up of everything we’ve ever done over the years and deciding what other songs we should record to complete the whole process. And in between, you know, we’ve never been Rock Stars or famous, you know we’ve always struggled financially and everything, so we’ve led a whole life; raised families, had kids we’ve done everything. And we kind of put all of that together with break-ups and other struggles – it’s all in there somewhere.
Mark: It’s real life, very relatable, not ‘wine, women and song and fast cars!’ I was saying to Jo before that one of the things I like most about it is that it seems to be unconstrained. I mean I didn’t expect to hear 1980’s Sleaze Rock on there…
Jo: Not if I’m in the building! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Paul: Jo kinda made a point when we threw out our writing processes that I’d done the Rock thing I don’t care about it anymore. Let’s do something else! So we kind of deliberately steered away from the straight ahead 80’s Rock that we’re kinda known for because both of us have already done it so why would we do it again? Let’s expand ourselves and do something new!
Mark: Exactly and I’m so glad you did. There are a lot of artists perhaps best known for their exploits in the 80’s making some great music now, but this I think is a different level and something that deserves to be heard – are you going to be able to get this out onto the road even if just locally?
Jo: Well I think it all depends really, like we said we’re not Rock Stars and we’re not really making a living out of it, we have to look after our families. But we’d love to if there’s a big enough demand for it which is why we want to put this stuff out. Is it good enough? Will people like it enough? It’s one thing your fan base saying they love it and they’ll buy it, but you know people don’t buy it really, they love saying it, but making a living out of music is really hard. My daughter’s got to go to college, Paul’s got to take care of his son. I don’t plan on this album going to number one or anything like that, we just want to teach people…
Paul: But we would like it to! (Laughs)
Jo: I know, but I’m not a dreamer. I really don’t think it’s gonna change anything. People are young they need something a little more disturbing! To kind of kick them up the arse. And this is not going to do that. It will teach you if you’re interested in the history of improvised Rock, it’s almost like Jazz in that way. You can play the three chords but every time you play those three chords you play it differently. And that’s what a lot of kids don’t know about. We can teach that, I think that’s the gift that we have.
Mark: I think you’re right there’s such a lot in there and I don’t think we’d be looking at the same album if you guys didn’t know your stuff. I know we talked before Jo about the appreciation The Stones and the Faces had for that and talking of The Stones I could just see you guys opening up for them with an album like this.
Jo: Yeah, but you know Mick likes his money (laughs) They’ve always got like the biggest band in Austin and they take them out and do great things for them. Or little bands that nobody has heard of but from Austin. Charlie used to get a lot of bands in for The Stones which was interesting, I think he got The White Stripes – Charlie got them on that tour.
Mark: A great guy and sadly missed.
Paul: Ringo and Charlie were my heroes growing up, it’s their fault I got into Rock and Roll.
Mark: I know you started off as a drummer.
Paul: That was my first love, I loved the drums still do.
Mark: Did you play on the album?
Paul: I did a lot of the tracks yes, I wish I’d done all of them in retrospect.
Mark: Let’s talk about some of the songs now, that’s the bit I’ve been waiting for. I’ll just single out a few that really jumped out at me. And I love it when words fail you about a song you love, you listen and you love it. Let’s talk about ‘Jesus Drives a Schoolbus’.
Jo: Paul started that song a while ago and he came up with those beautiful chords.
Paul: We approach songs differently. I hear people talk abut how they approach a song and a lot of people have one method – like they start with the chords or they start with the lyrics. We’ve never had one way we’ve approached a song – we’ll approach a song from any direction. And this particular one started with a chord. It was a chord I didn’t even know what kind of a chord it was at the time, later on I found it was a fully diminished 7th? Minor 7th? I don’t know, but I found this chord and I liked it. And then Jo pointed out that it was the same chord if you moved it up three frets, and then move it up another three frets. It’s always the same chord but the inversions keep changing. And I just really liked this chord and really liked playing around with it. And then I found a progression that went with it. And then Jo and I worked on it together and Jo added all the magic and we came up with the song ‘Jesus Drives a Schoolbus’.
Mark: I really like that Gospel part at the end.
Paul: Which fits the lyrics too.
Mark: Absolutely. And then at the other end of the sonic scale we have the Stonsey, Bluesy ‘Dead in the Water’ which I love, it might even be my favourite.
Paul: Of all the songs that we put on this record ‘Dead in the Water’ is the one that is the newest. Jo sent that one to me just on the I-phone and I just listened to it and wrote some lyrics to it. It became my favourite song right away. I insisted that it had to go on the record because we didn’t have that many rockers and that one I really liked. And hopefully Jo grew to like it too, I love the riff, love the chords, I love everything about that song.
Mark: One of the things we spoke about before you came on Paul was influences and I’d love to ask you both this question. There is a certain point in the lives of people who make music when they realise how important music is going to be to them, for some it’s a flash of realisation but for others its something more gradual. What was it for you guys? When did you realise it was going to be so important?
Jo: Well I think, you know, music, it’s a very special thing, you know. It saves people. Way back when I was a kid and getting depressed with teenage stuff and not knowing who I was going to hang out with, or you’d get into a scene and not know anybody there. Or falling in love and falling out of love, you know, a song is the one thing that glues it all together, It does help, it’s like taking a drug. It’s a magical thing, a completely man-made thing, and it’s the most rewarding thing that we’ve got. So to me that is why I pursued it. Even in my old band The Dogs I never thought we’d make it big, I don’t care about money, I was happy enough just to play this damn thing. And me and Paul do the same thing in terms of writing, we don’t have to do anything we don’t want to, it’s kind of dreaming music, if you start thinking like a producer, or guessing how a record company might think, you’re losing the whole point of it. It’s got to have the roots that you started with and I think me and Paul have had that since we were kids. But we make sure our friendship is not just about music, it’s about our families and everything else that comes with it.
Mark: Nice words, what about you Paul?
Paul: Well I’ve always been drawn to music just period. Anything! It doesn’t matter what genre, anything that’s musical I’m just drawn to it. I think when I was like 4 or 5 years old I was at home watching the Ed Sullivan show with my family and I heard The Beatles and I was blown away. And my Dad had brought home a bunch of single records, just a variety of stuff, and I would just go through and listen to all of them. I didn’t know who they were, and I found a couple of Beatles singles – ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ which is the one I heard on the Ed Sullivan show And I would just play that over and over again and drive everybody crazy with it! And there was one that had ‘If I Fell’ which I loved, and when my Dad knew I loved the Beatles he would bring tapes and stuff – we had the old ‘reel to reel’ player and I would just sit there and listen to it. Sometimes I’d rewind to the songs that I liked. Then as I got older I discovered The Stones, and then of course if you like The Stones and you like The Beatles then you start looking into what influenced them. So then you go back to Little Richard and Chuck Berry and even before that – Robert Johnson, Leadbelly, all the old Blues. Then when I was about 13 I learned to play drums. Dad would take me to the Jazz Festival down in Old Sacramento and I’d sit in with all the old Dixieland Bands. My first bands when I first started playing drums were like Bluegrass, Country and Rock bands. So I learnt all that stuff and then I started to get bored with all the straightforward so I joined a Jazz-Latin band. But really everything interested me. When I went away to College they had this thing – a Gamelan (a South East Asian collection of mainly percussive instruments) it’s like an orchestra that’s tuned to itself! It’s based on the overtone scale, so its not even anything that you can transcribe or anything. A Gamelan orchestra is in tune with itself and you can’t mix it with any other orchestra. I just like every kind or music and I think for the most part Jo and I are mostly influenced by Americana music – you know anything that’s like Latin, Folk, Rock and Roll, Country and we try and mix it all together. You know like the Stones and all our favourite bands like The Who and all the classic bands – they weren’t just about getting a sound and sticking with it, they brought other things in to make it interesting.
Mark: And you’ve done that brilliantly on the album. When I first heard the guitars on ‘Blue Like the Morning’ I was almost tearful. Where does a song like that come from, what was the kernel for that one?
Paul: The kernel was I read a script, I was doing some film scoring and I had a friend that had written a movie called ‘Blue Like The Morning’ and she asked if I could score the movie, so I scored the movie but also I wrote her a theme song. So I read the script and I wrote the lyrics to go right along with the script. I kinda had ideas about chord progression already and I put it together borrowing a couple of things I’d done in the past, and it just kind of came together in a matter of just ten minutes. So I played it for her over the phone and she started crying and asked if I could go and record it, and it just so happened that I was meeting up with Jo and our bass-player Muddy the next day. I showed it to them once and they got to it right away adding things and making changes, it just worked. (To Jo) We recorded that in like one day right?
Jo: Yeah it was a first take kind of thing. There’s a magic about that song, the mood was there already when Paul brought it, but the way we did that was on the first take – Paul on drums, we got the basic track in that first take. That’s why it’s so magical you know. So I did the acoustic track and then I did the slide and even the slide was a first take too. And that’s very rare that happens on a whole track, it takes on a life of its own and you can’t reproduce it.
Paul: Yeah I don’t know if we could ever do it like that again. It was fresh in our minds, I think I barely got through the song and Muddy was already hitting record, we were just right into it, and I just got behind the drums – I’m playing real light brushes in the background, and just the whole mood and the feel felt good. The chemistry between me and Jo and Muddy just felt good and it all came together.
Mark: And just a part of the magic of the whole. Will we see a vinyl release? A record like this deserves one.
Jo: It will get a vinyl release.
Mark: I really am going to buy one of those, if I can get it outside of the US.
Paul: Me and Jo really hit it off musically. I love writing with Jo and I love what we come up with , but we’re not so great about putting the stuff out and promoting it. Both of us just found out today that our first single is out today, now! We didn’t have a chance to get anything out about it or do this big release but ‘Everybody Rains’ is out now!
Jo: And the album will be out on CD, digitally and on vinyl.
Paul: The release date is May 13th but you can pre-order as of Monday (links at the bottom of the page).
Mark: The variety doesn’t stop either – you’ve got Spanish guitar, you’ve got Jazz, a wonderful mix and I like that you referenced Americana which is a pretty eclectic label in itself so it fits pretty well. Let’s look a bit further back though now – where did the name ‘Sonic Boom’ come from?
Paul: I just like the name, my niece Miranda, I was up north at the yearly family get together and I was just shooting out names and I asked her what she liked and she said “I like Sonic Boom” just like that and I thought that was kind of cool so I ran it by Jo. Then later on we found out that there was another ‘Sonic Boom’.
Mark: That’s a bit Spinal Tap…
Paul: (laughs) So then we decided to call it ‘Jo Dog and Paul Black’s Sonic Boom’. So we have this big long name, but there you go!
Jo: we were thinking of calling ourselves ‘Chicka-Boom’ do you remember that Paul?
Paul: Why didn’t we call ourselves Chicka-Boom?
Jo: Because there was a band called Chicka-Boom!
Paul: (laughs) They’ve all been taken!
Jo: It was because of the Johnny Cash Boom-Chicka-Boom style!
Paul: So why not call ourselves ‘Boom Chicka Boom’? (laughs)
Mark: I’m googling that for you now guys… sorry taken.
Paul: OK we’ll write a song called ‘Boom Chicka Boom’ that blows every other song called Boom Chicka Boom away! (laughs)
Jo and Mark: (laughing)
Jo: OK ‘Jo Dog and Paul Black’s Boom Chicka Boom’ it is.
Mark: Both of you were part of the soundtrack of my teens, Jo in The Dogs who I saw many times, and you Paul the man who wrote some of the best songs on the first L.A. Guns album.
Paul: You can say anything bad you like about L.A. Guns! (laughs)
Mark:(laughs) Well I know a few times you got back with Tracii and it ended less than satisfactorily.
Paul: Honestly I did it knowing how he was. It was good at the time and I did actually bury the hatchet before I went out with him for a couple of years knowing it was going to end badly. So I did it knowing it you know and I don’t regret it because people got to know who I was and got to play in front of a few big crowds. And I was able to win crowds over. I learnt how to tour and get a crowd onside and I got written up in ‘Spin’ and quoted in ‘Rolling Stone Magazine.’ And so now people sort of know who Paul Black is, and with this album they’re really going to know who Paul Black is.
Mark: I think they are. I can see the heart and soul you and Jo have put in to this release. I think it’s my favourite music you have made. I mean I like the first album but this album has that something extra. Some of the songs take you on a journey while others are immediate and the variety and the diversity keeps you on your toes. A collection of wonderful songs. You should be proud.
Paul: I really appreciate you saying that, that’s really good to hear and obviously this is our first interview, our first single is out today and both Jo and I are interested to see the reaction. But I can say that the real difference between the first record that we did 20 years ago and this record is that this is a real album. We did put a lot of thought into it to make it a cohesive whole that made sense. Because The Beatles and Rolling Stones used to put these albums together that kind of told a story. The first album, I like a lot of what is on there but again Jo and I were struggling, we had no money – we didn’t even have money to print up a CD you know! Eventually we printed up a thousand copies of that thing. But at the time we were just becoming parents and going through all these struggles and one thing after the other would pull us apart so we couldn’t really keep a band together. And we ended up with all these demos and Jo and I had this little rolling recording machine that we had in our dump of a studio and we ended up just taking all of the recordings and just putting it out. We like the recordings but we didn’t put a whole lot of thought into it. But this time around we put a lot more thought in. There were a few tracks that were left over that I thought were really good, and we had a producer kinda helping us out with what he thought should go on the album and so we did ultimately decide to cut three songs so that everything on this record made sense. It’s not that these three won’t get used – we’ll probably put them on the next record. So I think that’s the big difference. The first was pretty much demos on a real low budget, this one is a low budget as well but we put a lot of thought into it. It’s a finished record.
Mark: It’s certainly that. My album of the year so far.
Mark: Before we go, as denizens of the scene in the 80’s leave us with a few highs and lows from those days before Grunge helped it all fall down?
Jo: Well for me, you know, it was all uncharted territory. It felt like from being a little family of four guys it spread to being a family of a whole group and everybody became one – the fans and the band all became a unit! A wave and that rarely happens and I was lucky enough to be right in the middle of it. I mean my old band was never that big really if you think about it The Dogs were never… The only money that the record label gave us was when we supported Uriah Heep – and we brought more people than them to Hammersmith Odeon. That was the only back up we got from them. Other bands like The Quireboys they would go on tour with The Stones, Ozzy and Bon Jovi and all those kind of bands. But we just stayed very small time.
Mark: One of my favourite tours was when you took out The Black Crowes – what a tour that was – I had to take time off Uni to follow that one!
Jo: That was great tour they supported us on that one, they’d just come off a tour with AC/DC and then they came to play these sleazy gigs with us in England! It was great. Before the Black Crowes we had Mark Ford and Muddy’s band – Burning Tree. They were a great band, amazing musicians far better live than the album I think. For a three piece they were just incredible.
Mark: Marks’ still making some great music. What about you Paul? What were some of the positives?
Paul: I think it was a really interesting life in those days that took me into L.A. as a drummer. Just being around time and meeting people. I ended up with some pretty incredible bands especially during the Punk Rock days. I was in a band called the Mau Mau’s who were notorious. They did put a record out years and years later that Robbie Krieger had a hand in producing. We were probably one of the biggest Punk Bands but the cards just didn’t fall right for us. There were a lot of drugs going on and we messed up a lot of deals. And from there I moved onto The Jones as a drummer – that was a real Trash Rock band, with Country influences, kinda New York Dolls style musically. And that was great. The whole thing coming out of the 80’s and all of these bands and then L.A. Guns and Black Cherry . I just went through this whirlwind of just living this really unusually fast-paced life where I never knew where I was going to end up at the end of the night. It was pretty crazy but I kind of lived life like the world was going to blow up in five years anyway, so nothing mattered! So it was crazy and I really made it far when I reverted over to being a singer. I wanted a band that I could easily write songs with and I had to kind of give up the drums and see it from a singer’s point of view to kind of communicate what I wanted. And my first band for that was L.A. Guns, that’s when I first stood out front and whereas before I could kind of hide behind the drums, here I was out front and I was exposed. But not only was I exposed I was singing my thoughts, my feelings to an audience of people. Now that to me was like a raw nerve being exposed because I’d been through a lot. So I had to learn how to work a crowd and for me in the beginning I thought that to do that I had to be loaded! So I was not always in the best space, and I think towards the end of the 80’s…. The highlight was that I got to go through all these really great bands, all these really popular bands and I kind of held the key to the City for a while. I could just go anywhere any time wherever I wanted and people just let me right through the door, and it was fun, it was a blast. But in the end it just all came crashing down on me where I ended up having my songs stolen from me by former bandmates and them going on to achieve gold and platinum records using my songs and taking my name right off of them. I had to get lawyers, I was an unknown artist trying to sue not only my former band members but also the biggest label in town. And speaking of Nirvana, the lawsuit started in 1988 and didn’t get settled until 1990. So in 1990 I had Gold Records to my credit but at that point with Nirvana coming in you didn’t want to mention L.A. Guns, that was the kiss of death. People would ask me, “You have Platinum records, what songs did you write?” and I’d have to say “Ah well a song called…. (Paul puts his hand over his mouth to muffle the name)”. They changed one of my songs to ‘Sex Action!” That was the first single! It was originally a song called ‘Love and Hate’ and that’s what got them signed. But ‘Sex Action’ is an embarrassing title to me I couldn’t mention it to people that I wrote that song. I hated it you know. It was a catch 22 situation – I owned a couple of gold records but on the other hand I didn’t want to tell anyone what I got them for.
Mark: (laughs)
Pail: I was proud of it and embarrassed at the same time. It was just the weirdest feeling and that would be the low. But that’s also the high because that’s about when I met Jo right in 1990 and we started a creative outlet that has been very satisfying for both of us. Regardless of us becoming Rock Stars or not it didn’t matter we were just writing what we felt – it’s like a true artists relationship.
Jo: When we did start jamming together we did actually busk a few times too.
Mark: Did anyone request ‘Sex Action’ when you busked?
Paul: (laughs)
Jo: No were were doing some very obscure songs that no one would ever have heard of, but that maybe would have gotten those tips a bit higher? (laughs)
Paul: Can you play ‘Sex Action’? (laughs and shakes his head)
Mark: It’s interesting when you look back now at the music of the 80’s and you see half the bands still out there, some with no original members treading the nostalgia circuit, I know everyone has to make a living, but I was there I saw and heard all that when it was fresh and I’d rather hear something new. Yes I know I’m probably in the minority, but to me an album like this is far more satisfying than hearing the same songs again and again played by bands who haven’t written in 30 years. It’s not fair guys of your age should be sat on the porch strumming the Blues but you’re making the best music of your lives.
Jo: Thank you for that.
Paul: I appreciate that. It’s funny though I always saw myself in retirement playing drums in a Blues band in some sort of seedy bar and that’s how I would ride out the rest of my life just hitting the drums and playing Jazz and Blues.
Mark: I can thing of worse ways to go out.
Mark: Let’s get back to inspirations. If you could have been a ‘Fly on the Wall’ for the creation of any great album in the history of Rock and Roll, what would you like to have seen being created?
Jo: Well for me, anything like ‘Blonde on Blonde’ I’d love to see that because that was all one-takes. Dylan is an expert on one-takes, though sometimes he fails miserably. But the ‘Blonde on Blonde’ album it just shines with that spontaneity. I love that one, I could mention the ‘White Album’ but everyone knows so much about that. That was the opposite it took so long to do it take after take after take.
Mark: You would have been there for a while as a fly I think for that one!
Jo: (laughs)
Mark: What about you Paul?
Paul: For some reason I probably think it would be ‘Aftermath’ by the Rolling Stones just because that album had such an impact on me when I was young, I used to play it again and again. I love all the songs on it so it would have been cool to see Brian Jones in the studio and just see how that early Stones sound came together.
Mark: And let’s end with the really easy one. What is the meaning of life?
Jo: (laughs) Oh, humour.
Mark: We all need that!
Paul: (laughs) I think it’s because when ice cream melts it doesn’t leave any bones.
Mark: (laughs) I like that. And as unique and original as your music. Thank you both so much for your time, keep in touch and good luck with the album.
Paul: Thank you Mark.
Jo: Thanks Mark.
Mark: Stay safe.