Johnny Casino (John A Spittles) is the founding member and songwriter of the great Australian rock ‘n’ roll band Asteroid B612, Philadelphia PA’s Johnny Casino’s Easy Action, the rotating line-up that is Johnny Casino and the Secrets (featuring the who’s who of Australian rock ‘n’ roll), The Egos, The Lord Street Sound, Carrie Phillis and the Downtown 3. The ramblin’ gamblin’ man, a musical journeyman equally at home in the high-octane atmosphere of Motor City garage rock, the fundamental three chord riffage of 50s rock’n’roll, the charismatic soul of Philadelphia or the dusty plains of Californian country. With spiritual guidance courtesy of Chuck Berry, the MC5, Berry Gordy and Gram Parsons, Casino is always looking for new musical challenges, whether it’s a riff to plunder, a melody to celebrate or a moment to capture.
Johnny is set to release 5×7 The Days of Wine and Cola digitally via Golden Robot Records on March 1. It will also be available as a 5″x7″ and CD Box Set.
Johnny has just dropped a single from the release, titled ‘Love Over Fear’. “I´m just looking for a space to be free, a space to think, I don´t care for living in the big cities no more and I believe that greed and ego are the modern war, I feel we are being force fed fear and hostility by the media and it´s hard to know who to believe anymore I don´t have time nor do I care about religion but it don´t bother me if you do just don´t push it on me,’’ states Johnny.
It is best to let Johnny describe the concept of the release. “A crazy idea? Probably, but an idea, none the less!! I am a dreamer and as a kid while I was playing front yard footy with my mates, I dreamed of playing first grade (rugby league) for the North Sydney Bears. Once I picked up a guitar and started to write my own songs, I dreamed of the many ways I could release records. Well, up until now I have pretty much made a lot of those dreams come true, and while I never played first grade for the Bears, I have released many records in many formats BUT until now never a singles box set!
5×7 The Days of Wine and Cola is 5 x 7inch singles in a handmade, hand stamped, hand numbered box which also contains a CD with all the tracks from the singles plus a bonus track and a handmade booklet. Would you call it ‘’Artisan’’? Maybe, but let’s just call it a lot of work, but fun none the less. It is also being made available digitally.
Great homemade pizza is to thank for this project being what it is!
I had made a date to be in the studio with my brother Pepe to start work on new songs for a new album. We had started recording some basic acoustic tracks for the songs and at around 2pm we had recorded the acoustic ‘’beds’’ for 6 new original songs. It is at this moment when Pepe says, ‘’Hey, Johnny, I´m hungry and I feel like cooking some pizza, let´s have lunch’’. If you have had one of Pepe´s homemade pizza´s you don´t say no! So, after eating a belly full of pizza and a beer or 2, we went back downstairs into the studio to keep working. I´m not sure if it was the pizza or the beer but I then said to Pepe, ‘’Okay, let’s just finish the day by recording some covers for fun and I’m sure I will find a way to use them in the future,‘’ and so we did. Later that night in my home in Denia, I was reflecting on what we had done in the studio that day and it occurred to me that we had enough songs to make the ever-elusive singles boxset.
And so, it was born!
We made arrangements to have the rest of the band come in and play their parts, which took longer than usual because of the pandemic but in the end, we got there! Alongside Pepe and I doing our things, you can hear Isidro Rubio on the drums and percussion, Julian Marco on bass guitar and Lucy Ellis on backing vocals, all recorded and mixed at Estudio Tigruss in Els Poblets and Montepino Spain.
Mastered by Loki Lockwood at Creep Hollow in Melbourne Australia and brought to your ears and hands by La Vila Nova Records Spain, Folc Records Spain, Beast Records France and Golden Robot Records Australia.”