Paul Shortino is one of the great voices of rock. From where it all started with Rough Cutt to the new release from King Kobra he has built up an impressive body of work over the years. He’s also one of the nicest guys you could meet and has some great stories about the road he’s travelled and the late great Ronnie James Dio.
Mark: Hi Paul, thanks again for taking the time to speak with The Rockpit here Down under! I know you are heading off to NAMM later in the week to play with King Kobra, and there’ll be a new album out soon. Can you just tell us a little bit about how you got together with Carmine and the guys, and when the new album is likely to be out?
Paul: I think the album is going to be released in March. They haven’t given us an exact date, but it should be some time in the middle of March. The whole thing came about when I was recording the vocals for Ron Keel here in my studio, and Carmine happened to come in to the studio, in Los Angeles, and Pat Reagan was mixing some of the tracks, and they were talking and saying you should put King Kobra back together, and do an album and release it. Carmine was like, I don’t know if Mark will be interested, he’s had a sex change, and I’m not sure about the whole situation there. So Brian Jay from Keel was sitting there and said well you should check out Paul Shortino. Me and Carmine know each other and we’ve done stuff together in the past, next thing Carmine got hold of me and we did a night here in Las Vegas at Green Valley, with a band called The Sinners, where he and Dave Henzerling came up and we all jammed and did a song called ‘Hunger’. Then that weekend we were all together and we put together three songs for King Kobra, and then it just blossomed and boomed after that.
Mark: That sounds great. So do you have plans to tour, or is that what you will be talking to the guys about this week?
Paul: Actually we are going to be doing some dates. We’re going to get together at NAMM and talk about it. The idea is to check out our options this year as far as festivals and things like that go. So, it looks like we are going to make an attempt to move forward on that.
Mark: That’s excellent. I actually saw you in July when you played at the Sunset Station with The Sin City Sinners, and Great White. So, it’s funny how that happened with you eventually ending up playing with Great White.
Paul: Oh, I know, isn’t that weird?! It was strange how that all came about!
Mark: You went over to the Stockholm Rockout, I understand and that went down pretty well, I saw some of the You Tube there.
Paul: Yeah, it was great, I don’t think I should’ve taken the shirt off though!! But other than that it was good! (Laughs!)
Mark: It was cool, if I look that good at your age, I’ll be happy!
Paul: Well thank you! I think some of those pictures with the shirt off will haunt me forever, but it’s all good!
(laughs)
Mark: Is anything going to happen with that? I know they’ve got someone else singing for them at the moment.
Paul: I think Jani Lane is singing with them right now; but Great White is like a big family with Terry Ilous, Jani lane and Great White all under the same management and the same agent.
Mark: Yeah, I know Terry a little bit, and we saw him with Great White at The Brixton, which was the first night they played without Jack, down at Redondo Beach. I think he only got about two hours notice, I think you probably got a little bit longer than that to learn the songs!
Paul: Yeah, I got a lot more than that. I never really listened to their stuff, and they’ve got some really great songs.
Mark: Yeah they were a little different to a lot of the eighties bands, a great bluesy vibe to them, very cool.
Paul: They have some great songs and it was a lot of fun doing it. I didn’t expect any more to come from it other than the one gig, knowing how much of an in house thing it is.
Mark: Sounds like it was a lot of fun!
Mark: You always seem to be very busy, how would you describe your work ethic?
Paul: Well, my wife keeps me really busy! (Laughs) I just did a song for a French band, and also an Italian band, called LizHard. It’s fun doing stuff for younger bands. Also I’m right in the middle of finishing Michael Cosyn’s record, I’ve been working on that for like a year and a half now, it’s like a Robin Trower kind of direction. He was singing all the stuff and he got a hold of me and asked if I wanted to be part of his project, to produce and mix the album. I also did a track for Carrot Top, for his show, we did a heavy metal version of “Send in the Clowns”! People can check it out at Three Ring Metal Circus!
Mark: That’s cool. One of the things I saw, whilst reading a previous interview, was that you and Dave Hendzerling may be doing a Motown album, which sounded really cool!
Paul: Oh, Yeah! I definitely want to go back and get to my roots, because I listened to a lot of Motown when I was growing up. It was some of the best music that ever came out, as far as I’m concerned. The Stones, Rod Stewart, and a lot of other great bands have all done versions of it, it’s just great stuff.
Mark: I love Motown, such a lot of really great songs came out of that label. I always thought you could really “rock” a lot of those songs up.
Paul: Oh, Yeah, a good song is always a good song, no matter what style of music it is, you can always change the arrangement.
Mark: I hope something comes of that.
Paul: I spoke to the guys in Rough Cutt, and they want to get back together and do a record, so that might be happening this year, with Frontier Records.
Mark: That’s great, we love Frontiers they do a great job!
Paul: We won’t be using Amir though (Rough Cutt guitarist 1984-1987) we’ll be using Craig Goldie (Rough Cutt guitarist, 1983-1984), one of the first guitarists of Rough Cutt.
Mark: Yes, we saw him touring Australia a couple of years ago with Budgie, the Welsh band. We’ll be looking out for that release.
Mark: When we saw you in Vegas last year, I was just thinking of all the people who I know who live there, it seems Vegas has turned in to a home from home for lots of names from 80’s rock!
Paul: Yeah, a lot of guys are moving up here, I think because of the housing, everyone can get a house really cheap, and the cost of living is a lot cheaper than living in California.
Mark: Phoenix seems to be the same too.
Paul: Phoenix is the same too; it’s another good part of the country to live.
Mark: I know Jake E Lee, lives just down the road from Vince Neill’s bar there. He seems to be surfacing a bit more than he used to, do you know what he’s up to these days?
Paul: I ran in to him a few times. I don’t think he’s ready to get back in to the music scene right away, I’ve given him my card and said I’d love to get you in to the studio, and just hash out some ideas, but I don’t think he will right now.
Mark: It’s great that people are reaching out to him; I believe he’s had a hard time over the last few years from what I’ve been told.
Paul: I heard from a friend, actually a guy from the Sinners, who asked him if he’d come and do some songs as people would love to see Jake E Lee, and he said well Jake E Lee isn’t around right now.
Mark: I think as long as people are around asking about him and showing they care, that’s the main thing.
Paul: Yeah, absolutely, I’d love to see him get out there again, as he’s such a great guitar player.
Mark: Before I ask you about the old history, i.e. Rough Cutt, Quiet Riot, King Kobra, do you ever get bored being asked questions about those bands?
Paul: No, not really, it goes with the territory! It’s like if I had a hit song I’d have to play that forever and ever, you know! It’s part of the business.
Mark: I loved Rough Cutt back in the early eighties; in a way I always thought you were a few years ahead of your time.
Paul: What really happened was we waited around, we got signed before Ratt, Dokken and the second wave of Quiet Riot (not with Randy, but with Carlos and Frankie). We waited around so long for a producer as Ted Templeman had signed the band so we wanted to wait around for him, but as he was right in the middle of doing something with Eric Clapton and Lyndsay Buckingham it dragged on. That carried on for a year and kind of pushed us back after everybody else who had got signed had come out with their albums, WASP and Motley and everybody.
Tipper Gore if you had an album out before that time period and were getting radio play, the PMRC thing, with the stamp on the albums would only escalate your record sales! You know everybody always wants something they can’t have. If you weren’t getting spun on the radio at that time, a record came out when that stamp came out, which was a year and a half after everyone had got their albums out. We had a great time with Ronnie on Sacred Heart Tour, we actually did a tour before that with Ronnie, Krokus and Accept, that was our first one when the album first came out. Then we went on tour with Ronnie, who had the largest grossing tour of that time with Sacred Heart. People couldn’t get our albums in the store because they weren’t there, they sold out the initial 100,000 copies they pressed and then they had to repress them, and it was weird because we were on this great tour, and our A and R man left after the album was finished and went to Capitol.
Mark: It’s almost as if everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.
Paul: Yeah, totally, it was Spinal Tap! I did that movie and my whole career has been Spinal Tap!!
Mark: Yeah, I saw you on the Sin City Sinners webisode they did reprising that role!
Paul: (Laughing)
Mark: I think you could do a TV series about that! Going back to when we saw you with the Sinners, you did a great tribute to Ronnie James Dio. I read back in the early days with Rough Cutt, you had some material with Ronnie on it. Is there any chance that material might get an airing in the future?
Paul: Ronnie cut some stuff with us and he also produced a lot of stuff with us, and just recently when I sang at his memorial, Angelo who been the sound engineer on the first three Dio albums shared with me after the memorial, that he and Ronnie were upset that they didn’t get to produce the album, and I didn’t know that, and none of the guys in Rough Cutt ever knew that. I guess it was Wendy’s decision to have an outside producer instead of Ronnie, maybe she thought I would try to sound like Ronnie. I would have really loved to have done the record with Ronnie, it would have been rawer, and it would have come out a lot sooner, and probably come out just after Holy Diver.
Mark: It’s one of those things isn’t it? I think often about Ronnie and what he did for the music we love, I just don’t think we’ll see anyone like that again.
Paul: Yeah, he’s like the heavy metal Elvis! What a great human being and a gentle spirit, and a gentleman’s gentleman.
Mark: Moving on to your Quiet Riot days. I loved the self titled album in 1988, and the song “Stay with Me Tonight”, is probably one of my favourite songs of the time. What sort of memories have you got of that period, because I know it all ended quite badly? Is it still a touchy subject with you?
Paul: No, it was a great band, that song actually was supposed to go on a Rough Cutt album, but it didn’t make it on the second album (Rough Cutt), so I stuck it away. I brought it to the table for Quiet Riot, and Frankie came up with a funkier feel to it and we changed the arrangement. The Quiet Riot boys really liked it and we cut that song with two other tracks, and then went in to a year of litigation! In fact we did two other songs, one was “Your Time is Gonna Come”, which Rough Cutt demoed with, and then in the middle of it, there was a drum solo with Tommy Lee and Frankie Bennalli in it, and the second track which I don’t remember the name of, didn’t make the album, but ‘Stay With Me Tonight’, about a year later we went in to the studio and then started doing the rest of the album, and that was the only track that made it on the record. But we worked for about a year at Jimmy Waldo’s studio on that album and it was really a whole political mess!
They didn’t want Spencer to know that I was in the studio working with the guys, because they only had one record left to do under his contract, Quiet Riot had signed a deal with Pasha Records, and Spencer Proffer ended up getting a distribution deal with CBS, and what Quiet Riot wanted to do when I joined the band, was do the last album and go around Spencer and go to CBS directly. But, that didn’t happen and we spent a year of litigation, and it was my attorney who ended up solidifying their deal and getting their publishing back, something that they never even had! The only mistake I think I made was that we agreed to split the publishing up, and I went one step further and gave everybody an equal share on the writing on a lot of the songs I wrote, which I should have probably held on to. They just recently released all that stuff on Digital, and I totally took it up the tail pipe!! I wrote the melodies and some of the music and the lyrics to some of the songs and I’ve got less percentage than other people. Spencer ended up with more percentage, and he sold off his publishing companies and everything to another publisher and so their percentage is all different. Mr nice guy, that’s what happens when you’re nice! But, I’m not gonna change who I am.
Mark: When Frankie got the band together, was there an offer?
Paul: What, when he got the new Quiet Riot together? I don’t know how that all came about, because I only knew that Frankie was saying to everyone on the internet that as long as Kevin’s mum was alive, they weren’t gonna do a Quiet Riot thing. They had a falling out with Carlos and Rudy, we still talk, it sounds like they got somebody who sounds like Kevin. I wish them all the best, and maybe someday we’ll all get together and tour that record, it was a good record. Funnily enough someone made a recording of “Calling The Shots” off that album, and they did a marching band thing! And they put it out on a CD, and I get money every once in a while! They sent me a copy of the record and it was really cool to hear that song with a marching band!!
Mark: Laughs. That would be great! I will have to see if I can find a copy!
Paul: I’ll have to send it to you! I was doing an interview with someone in New York not too long ago and they had the first record I’d ever done when I was 17: it was recorded in 1970 on Dell and Snuff Garratt (famous US 60’s and 70’s producer) was the producer, he’d done Liza Minnelli, Sonny and Cher, tonnes of people. It actually hit Billboard at 22 with a bullet, and Vicky Laurence, who was on the Carol Burnett show, her husband wrote a song called “ That’s The Night The Lights Went Out On Georgia”, and that came out about six months after my record came out, and that kicked me to the kerb! Her song went to number one, but what an interesting thing that was when I was seventeen. The guy sent me the record, actually sent me the 45, the promotional track! But I couldn’t play it because I don’t have a turntable anymore. But, another guy who has a radio show had it and sent me over an MP3, I’ll have to send that to you, it’s pretty trippy at 17!
Mark: That sounds great, and that’s something I never knew.
Paul: The song was called “Follow me”, and it got to number 22, and initially it was with Paul and Jojo, but the original was Paul and Coco, which was Coco Dolenz, Micky Dolenz from The Monkeys sister! But the managers got hold of it, and ended up getting a session singer to replace her, and it became Paul and Jojo!
Mark: That’s funny. I know you did the theme song for Dr. Eggman, one of my nephews told me about that!
Paul: Yeah, somebody contacted my wife on the internet and asked if I wanted to do this thing for Sega, it was fun to do.
Mark: Your solo CD, last year was really well received, do you have any more solo plans or are they all on hold at the moment?
Paul: I’m working on a record right now with my son, I’m gonna do some songs with him, he was on a song “Love of My Life”, on which he featured when he was 17, he’s now a grown man with two children, and we are Grandparents! And we’re also producing a record with my niece with Geoff Northrup.
Mark: Yes, you’ve done two albums with Geoff, one of which I’ve managed to track down.
Paul: Four solo albums, “Back on Track”, then there was “Stand or Fall”, which was a blues record and then there’s “It’s About Time” and “Sacred Place”.
Mark: Are they hard to get hold of? I know we’re in Australia where it is hard to get hold of any decent stuff!
Paul: I think CD Baby have some of that stuff for sale.
Mark: You also worked with Michael Voss, who I met a couple of years ago at Rocklahoma, when he played with Mad Max, and he was one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met! What’s it like working in the studio with him?
Paul: Actually we haven’t had that fortunate moment to work together in the same studio. We did one of my favourite solo records, ‘Chasing the Dream’ together. It was really weird how that came about, he got hold of me to do a song called ‘Rock Me’ for the voices of rock, and I did it, and the next thing I knew George from AOR Heaven got hold of me and said do you want to do a record with Michael Voss? My wife actually set the whole thing up, put the thing together and me and Michael have become very close friends. He just mixed the King Kobra record. I really like him as a human being, he’s very humble and a genuinely nice person, it’s hard to find people like that in this business.
Mark: Yes he is a lovely guy. In your career I’m sure you’ve had many magic moments, is there one in particular that makes you smile when you think about it?
Paul: Yeah, I think there’s one moment that touches my heart. We were at the country club in Reseda playing with Rough Cutt, and Ronnie came up and performed with us, that, and the moment with Stars, we did a benefit thing, Stars, for the children in Africa, and that was one of the most exciting moments in my life to be in the same place as all the people I looked up to in my whole career. The one place where nobody had egos and everyone got along great. I was fortunate enough to be able to sing some of the main lines as a main vocalist, and I owe all that to Ronnie and Wendy Dio, he did anything he could to help me.
Mark: There were some great names in there, Rob Halford, Dave from Y&T, Eric Bloom, was he there?
Paul: Yeah, and I get to see him once in a while when he comes to town.
Mark: The industry has really changed over the past few years. How hard do you think it is for young bands to get a break these days?
Paul: I think it’s probably easier with the internet to get their product out there. As far as the major labels go, I think they want everything, where you are already selling records before they even pick you up anymore. They got caught with their pants down, they should’ve been thinking about what the internet was going to bring to the table.
Mark: I suppose it means for people like yourself, touring becomes a far more lucrative thing.
Paul: I haven’t actually been out touring hardly at all; I’ve been mostly in the studio for the past ten years. But, maybe with The Kobra and the reforming of Rough Cutt, I’ll get back out there and tour. You definitely need to get out and tour, but it’s so expensive with the price of petrol etc.
Mark: It is, the fact that the A&R side has fallen out of the major record labels, means all of a sudden you’ve got all the promotional expenses as well.
Paul: And all those major labels are not there anymore. I think American Idol and America’s Got Talent, is preparing people to buy some of these records, because they get to see them for six to eight weeks on an on going basis.
Mark: It’s like an extended advertorial!
Paul: Yes, it certainly is. But, even some of the people who win these shows haven’t done that well. People can now download what they want to, it’s gone from albums back to singles, as now you can pay 99 cents and pick a song and download it off the album. The only thing is that I think the quality of the music isn’t as good as it used to be on vinyl.
Mark: I don’t think people have the time anymore, it’s all so instant, you can put up an MP3 on a website more or less instantaneously.
Paul: CD’s are going to be extinct here soon, everyone’s going to be going on to their computers and they’ll be hooked up to the big screen TV’s.
Mark: The big thing I think for me, is it always seems to dilute it, bringing out a new album is not a big event anymore, now everyone else in the world is having the same experience.
Paul: Yes, and I don’t think fans are like the fans they used to be. The younger people are very fickle, their concentration is very short, and you see it in the new movies and everything else, there’s so much going on as it takes so much to keep the attention span of the young people today. They are so hooked in to their little gadgets. We’ve become a society that is so dependent on computers that people don’t use their brain anymore, you go to McDonalds and you push a button for a cheeseburger, and it tells you how much it will cost and how much change you should get!! I think if we were to have a blackout throughout the world, then people would be lost!! I think about the Amish people and how great they have it, they just live off the land, and they have an imagination. The other night I was watching the old Spanky and our gang, those old 30’s movies, and thinking how imaginative those kids all were, unlike today.
Mark: I think you’re right; computers are almost like babysitters for kids these days.
Paul: I know lots of people whose kids are so savvy on the computer, 5 or 6 years old, and they use them like its nothing! I didn’t get in to that stuff until about 12 years ago! I got a recording studio and I was a computer illiterate when I started! The information overload is overwhelming, and it’s still you get it sussed out, and then everything is upgraded, and it’s like how do I get this to work!!
Mark: That’s how they make their money out of people like us!
Mark: I’ve now just got a few quick questions if that’s OK. Two questions that we ask everyone… If you could have been involved in the creation of any piece of music, or an album, what would it have been and why?
Paul: I think that would have been the first Led Zeppelin album. I think that had such an impact on music at that time, drum sound, everything, it sure caught my eye! Of course I should’ve probably said The Beatles, as they were the innovators of the recording industry; they took us to different places that we never even knew.
Mark: The last question is what is the meaning of life?
Paul: There’s a song that we wrote on the King Kobra album: “We may not be around here tomorrow, or in a place that we can stay (singing), no time to beg, no time to borrow, just take it day by day. The greatest thing we ever know is to live life for today, so let your love show before we fade away. (stops singing), I think that last line is the meaning of life.
Mark: That’s cool and you are the first to sing their answer!
Mark: Now just a few quick questions from the internet. Who is your favourite vocalist of all time?
Paul: That’s tough because I have so many of them! I was so close to Ronnie, he’s one of my favourites, and Paul Rogers, he’s one of the great phrases. Ronnie was a big influence on my life, even more so now that he’s passed away, I feel I really didn’t appreciate what he had to offer when I was so close to him when I was living with him and he was coaching me through things. I didn’t know how lucky I was at that time until he’s gone and then you cherish those moments so much.
Mark; It’s a wonderful thing to be able to look back at things like that.
Paul: I just put a story up about when I was living with Wendy and Ronnie. They had a German Shepherd named Nietzsche, and a poodle named Sasha, and a big Russian blue cat named Bruce, and I had an Australian Shelpie collie, and her name was Santana. We all lived together, and they moved me in because of my trust in human beings has always been absolute: you tell me something, and I believe you. I signed many a contract without taking it to an attorney, on just good faith, and so they moved me in to their home, so I wouldn’t get caught with my pants down anymore! I was going to a Rough Cutt rehearsal one night, and I was going out to my car and this Doberman Pincher with this spiked collar came running up to me, and I was like wait a minute, I already had to deal with Ronnie’s German Shepherd, who’d been treated badly before Ronnie had her, and so if anyone came, they would put her in the bathroom, and let her out later to sniff everyone, and you had to be careful getting up, I gave her so many cookies, she loved me! I didn’t trust this Doberman, he had a look in his eye, his name was Buster, and he ended up being Ronnie’s Doberman. This dog followed me home, and I screamed out for Ronnie and Wendy and they went in to the house, and got a bunch of cookies, which they gave to him. He then became all loving, and he had a note on his collar, which was actually a Wendy’s hamburger receipt, and somebody had written on there, my name is Buster and I understand German! (Laughs). Next thing you know we had another dog living with us at the house, there was always something about Wendy and Ronnie, they always took in strays, including myself! I’ve got lots more stories that I will probably share on Ronnie’s site. I saw some pictures in Ronnie’s memorial booklet of him and Buster, at his castle before he passed away.
Mark: I was lucky enough to see Dio, back in the day and also a couple of years ago when they toured Australia, with Heaven & Hell. Just to see the power that he still had towards the end, and being a guy of such small stature he could still captivate an entire audience, it was amazing.
Paul: Yeah, he had so much magic, God had definitely blessed Ronnie, in more than one way, especially with his voice and his charisma. It’s such a shame we lost him, he was so young.
Mark: Well, thank you so much for talking to us, if you are ever over here in Australia, please look us up.
Paul: Yeah, I hope to make it this time. I’ve never been there, in all my years in the music business. One of my favourite bands is AC/DC. Heaven was also a great band, we toured with them, they were from Australia as well.
Mark: Yeah, not a lot of people outside of Australia know about them. They were a very good band back in the day!
Paul: Mitch Ferry was playing with them for a while, and we did a few shows with them. On the Dio tour we did Detroit and the O’Hare Arena in Dayton. But, I have a funny story about that! We did the show in Detroit, I flew there and the guys were on the road in a Winnebago, and they hit a deer, and so we ended up finishing the tour in Lincoln town cars. Here we are in Detroit, Amir and Matt met two girls after the show. Heaven did the warm up for us and then we warmed up for Ronnie, and that night everybody decided they would drive to Dayton, Ohio, it’s only about two and a half hours from Detroit. So, me the road manager and Chris the guitarist, and his roadie, we decided we were going to fly. So Matt and Amir, and these two girls go up to an ATM, and the girls get some money out, and they get robbed! Matt and Amir see this and just hide in the back seat!! Dave, the drummer, also met a girl and they all end up driving to Dayton. Meanwhile we go to the airport and start drinking some Bloody Mary’s, it’s early in the morning and our flight got cancelled! We finally got a flight out about two hours before we were meant to be on stage! Heaven’s on stage, and we thought, we have to go and rent a car. The girl at the counter said she was supposed to be at the concert, but she had to work, so I said you have to rent us a car because we’re supposed to be on in twenty minutes! We got a car, and then these people we met on the plane asked us for some signed, autographed pictures, and then said follow us, we’ll get you to the arena! It was like a movie, and we pulled up fifteen minutes too late! Heaven kept playing, and I’m from Ohio, and I had like thirty family members who were back stage at that show. Anyway we got up on stage and did the show, and we’re off to the next gig, in these town cars.
We’re all in the car and I was going fast, and I saw these State Troopers, and they came right after us. Now, I didn’t pull over because the other guys were eating drugs!! And, they throw away the key if you’ve got any drugs on you in Ohio!! Eventually, I pulled over in to a rest area, and the cops were right on us! I get out of the car and I leave it in gear, they get out and they’ve got their guns drawn and everything. I got out and told the road manager to run to the bathroom, like he really had to go to the bathroom; he had really bad haemorrhoids on the road!!! I told the cops this story, you could not get away with this in LA, they would shoot you if you got out of the car and ran!! The car was still moving, it was in gear and it hits a railroad tie. I was so nervous, I got tongue tied, anyway we talked and the cop said you were driving recklessly; you either need to pay the ticket in full now or you’ll face the judge. So, we said we’d pay the ticket, and I still have a pin from one of the state troopers, and we ended up signing some things for the troopers’ kids as they were at the concert that night! It was weird they looked in the back of the car, and there was Chris and this other guy chewing on pot!! They had it between their teeth and everything! And he said what are you chewing on? And they said sandwiches! I was so nervous; I thought we were all going to jail! I will never forget that as long as I live.
Mark: That’s a great rock and roll story to leave us with!
Paul: It’s been a pleasure, my friend.
Mark: It has, thanks so much for your time Paul.
Paul: God bless you and your family, and let me know if you are ever in town, come by and we’ll go and check out some shows!
Mark: It’s been wonderful talking to you, it’s been cool, just like talking to an old mate! Thanks, Paul, see you later.
