The Midnight Devils are a high energy Glam edged Rock and Roll band from Omaha, Nebraska. Adorned with make up and lipstick they look like no one else and sound like no one else. The band features Sniper on lead guitar, Sam Spade on bass and vocals, and Jimmy Mess on drums. Out on the road in support their upcoming album, The Midnight Devils are in Australia to tear it up with ‘Bon But Not Forgotten.’ It’s loud, dirty, Rock and Roll at it’s finest! We caught up with Sam Spade before they got on the plane and as we speak the band will be in Perth for Friday’s show at The Ravenswood Hotel.
Mark: Hey Sam, how are you!
Sam: I’m great, doing great Mark!
Mark: I was just watching some YouTube of you guys from Blackpool in the U.K. – you certainly get around!
Sam: We’ve been to a ton of countries now, I think maybe thirteen different countries so far in just a few years! It’s all been great, the response has been overwhelming.
Mark: And it’s great to see you doing it all without the support of a label. not that there’s much of that these days. It must be costing you a bit to get out there?
Sam: Yes, and that’s kinda the tough part, but it’s also testament to the desire to survive and the will to be our own bosses and create our own destiny. We’re not relying on anyone to do it and we’re not under any management contracts or anything – we’re going out and doing this all by ourselves, I think the way all Rock and Roll bands should do it.
Mark: Absolutely, I had a few mates in the U.K. who said you were fantastic and you can be sure they are telling their mates to catch you next time you come round, so it’s all building for the future.
Sam: Yeah, that’s kinda what it is, our goal was to form a band and travel the world playing our music and when you get the opportunities, what’s the only think stopping us? Money? OK we can figure that out later, let’s go! We have to say yes and do this right now.
Mark: I love your sound. The first I heard of you was when you were originally slated to come down and support Donnie Vie. Obviously that didn’t pan out, but you still came! And now you’re back!
Sam: Yeah! That was a defining moment I think in our career because we got the call from Alex Kane, one of our good friends, we call him our Punk Rock Grandpa!
Mark: (laughs)
Sam: He said “You guys are coming to Australia with us” and I couldn’t fathom it, I didn’t know how it was even possible. But we thought ‘when do you even get this opportunity again?’ So the correct response was ‘yeah we’re coming’ and then we got hit with the news that Donnie wasn’t coming. But the Peters at MR Records just said ‘you just get n the plane and we’ll figure it out when you get here’ and it turned out to be this really cool experience that set it up for us to make a return.
Mark: It’s great to see you back and great to see you’ve expanded where you’re playing – we’re way out West and not a lot of bands come out to see us here – Perth to Sydney is like London to Moscow.
Sam: Yeah we played over East the first time, but this week we’re coming to Perth and our first two shows are out there. ‘Bon But Not Forgotten’ are from there and as it’s their last time over the shows should be really good. Really wild!
Mark: It is a bit of an institution!
Sam: It blew my mind when we heard we’d be playing with them! Our Tour Manager Chris Peters got us the gig opening for them! When we last played it was an afternoon show and a Sunday and we thought who was going to be there are that time, but there were 500 there – it was unbelievable! They do such great work and get people so excited to celebrate AC/DC!
Mark: It’s ironic really isn’t it Bon is of course from Scotland but in the West where he lived for some time, he is a local legend. You’ve never seen as many Bon Scott AC/DC tribute acts as there are in Western Australia! We’ve been going 15 years now and I think one of the very first shows we were invited to was James Morley’s ‘Bon But Not Forgotten’!
Sam: An absolute legend in his own right! And really one of the nicest dudes that we met on the tour. And Skenie too – those guys are legends of Aussie Rock and Roll, and us coming in as foreigners, I was just so blown away by their performance and the way they treated us!
Mark: Great guys.
Sam: We were in Baltimore on the East Coast a couple of months ago playing the M3 Festival and at the after party there was this Australian dude there and he comes up, and he was kinda grinding my gears a little bit and I said “We’re gonna be in Australia in a few months opening for Bon But Not Forgotten” and he said “Wait, I’m best friends with Skenie” and he called him up right there in the middle of the Festival so we could chat! It was so cool.
Mark: A great guy, and The Poor, I think are one f our best. But let’s talk Midnight Devils – when did you guys start out?
Sam: The band officially started, if you want to put a date on it, in 2016, so we’re going on about 8 years or so now, but we came out of the ashes of an 80’s hair metal tribute band that we had out here in Nebraska. Our lead guitarist Sniper and I decided that we wanted to travel, we wanted to be our own bosses, and really create this thing and do it teh way that we wanted to do it. So we started out as a two man acoustic thing in small town bars with full hair and makeup. And people loved it and people hated it, but we got such a reaction that we thought “We have to add a drummer to this”. Our first album came out in 2018, and we did it all ourselves, all independent, and it just kinda took off from there.
Mark: And where does the love of that type of music come from?
Sam: Mark, I grew up on Kiss: that was my “A-ha moment” you know when the clouds part and the sun shines down. Hearing ‘Detroit Rock City’ as a 13 year old kid who was just disillusioned with the though of getting a real job and having to conform, I wanted to get out and say what I had to say. Kiss was the band that made me realise that was OK, and then following that AC/DC was the next band, and I realised that these Rock and Roll bands were for me – I had to do this. When I first started playing I was a guitar player and I played in a number of touring Punk Rock bands. So it was all from that love of the Punk Rock “I can do anything and no one can tell me no” and mix that with the Glam Rock and we were kinda onto something. And I always kinda held onto that love of Punk Rock and the love of Glam.
Mark: And it’s paying off, you’re getting on some great bills. You mentioned M3 in the U.S. but there’s also HRH Sleave in the U.K.
Sam: That will be our third HRH Festival – if no one’s been to it – the U.K. parties are just so amazing and so different to the U.S. When you go o there’s a thousand people just ready and waiting to party and we get such a great response. The energy is overwhelming and we just love it. The last time we were over we were touring with pretty Boy Floyd and we’d just opened for Yngwie, and we’d opened for him a few times so we knew what we were getting into! But the Fest was great – completely sold out!
Mark: And a great line up for you, and good to see you up there in the billing too. I saw Bai Bang in the States back in 2009, they have that DIY ethos too.
Sam: We just met them last year!
Mark: And Kickin’ Valentina a great band, and obviously Space Age Playboys will be cool!
Sam: And we’ll be supporting Kickin’ Valentina for the U.K. leg of their tour – so two American bands running round the U.K. together! No trouble at all!
Mark: (Laughs)
Sam: Touring especially in another country is a challenge. As soon as you step off the plane you know that you have to do well enough to get invited back the next year. We always go in with that attitude.
Mark: That’s a great attitude to have. If you could have been a ‘Fly on the wall’ for the creation of any album in the history of Rock and Roll, what would you like to have been there for and why? What’s that one that stands out?
Sam: Oh man, there’s a ton and I could name a million! The one that came right off the top of the head was ‘Appetite For Destruction’ Guns ‘n’ Roses were such a departure and almost made Rock and Roll cool again! I would have loved to have been there for that, just to see what went into it, and the creative process. I know they had a lot of songs written going into recording that album but it was such a defining moment – one of those records that stopped everyone in their tracks!
Mark: Absolutely. And an easy one to close – ‘what is the meaning of life?’
Sam: That’s the easy one eh? (laughs) I really, really believe this – that that meaning of life is about being happy and being kind to people, and doing as many good things as you can do with the short amount of time we have on this Earth. Working as hard as you can to reach that goal and to better yourself – achieving the greatest possible version of yourself as a human being.
Mark: That’s a great answer, I like it! The one thing we need to talk about before you go is the new album – which is due out in July.
Sam: Yes, its’s very exciting, it’s a huge record – I’ve been calling it a monster as the sessions were so fun. It’s one of the few times I’ve really had a blast in the studio and that was due in part to our amazing production crew. Ric Browde was our main producer – he produced Ted Nugent ‘Double Live Gonzo’; he produced the first Poison record and the first Faster Pussycat record. so to sit and collaborate with him was one of teh most enriching experiences ever. And Share Ross from Vixen and Bam Ross from Dogs D’Amour were also producing – so those three combined in a house in Florida set the stage for what is to be Midnight Devils number three: and album so hard it hurts!
Mark: Some great names there – I thought that Ric had retired a while ago, I’d not seen him produce anything recently?
Sam: He came out of retirement to produce The Midnight Devils!
Mark: That’s so cool.
Sam: The great story of it all was that we were on tour in Italy and our tour manager said, “I love what you guys are doing but you need the studio side to shine, and I’ve got the guy for you – he’s in the U.S. and he’s called Browde – you need to call him.” And I called him and I couldn’t believe it but we landed it and we made it happen.
Mark: That’s great to hear! And how do you know Share and Bam?
Sam: We knew Bam from our first big tour, in 2020 we got the call that we were going to support The Quireboys. We got the call that they needed us in Salt Lake City in a week , it was brilliant! And Bam was the drummer for that U.S. Tour and The Quireboys at the time. Then two weeks into the tour Covid hits and it all went downhill after that. But that was amazing to experience a first big tour.
Mark: And now of course there are two Quireboys.
Sam: Right! And we’ve toured with both – I love those guys – the coolest of the cool.
Mark: A great band, and a great era for music. And its great that you’re bring that back, as well as all of these vintage bands resurfacing.
Sam: Well this is my stance on the whole thing – in 2024 there are so many bands going around and so many genres but I think what people forget is that 90% of people just want to go and listen to Rock and Roll music and have a great time! Sure Modern Metal is great, and all the other genres are great but at the end of the day bands like AC/DC and Kiss are the best because it’s just Rock and Roll music – you don’t have to think too hard – you just go out and have fun! And that is why I think bands like that are so successful.
Mark: I think you’re spot on! Come and say hi when you hit the West, or as George Lynch calls it – ‘California without the people’.
Sam: I’m so excited, It will be great and then we’re on to Japan. We’ll hang out!
Mark: Take care,
Sam: Meet you at the start of July.
