Many years ago there was a band signed to MCA Records called Cold Sweat. In 1990 they released their only album ‘Break Out’ and like a lot of bands signed to that label, like Giuffria, Hardline, Lillian Axe, Bang Tango, Spread Eagle, Sweet F.A. , Steelheart, Trixter and others, the real rock fans noticed, but without a major push another great band flew under the radars. 32 Years later ‘Break Out’ has certainly stood the test of time and for the last 21 years the voice of Cold Sweat has been making waves with his outfit ‘The Fifth’ whose new self-titled EP sees a new line-up and dates to back it up. We caught up with Roy to talk all about the new lease of life and future plans.
Roy: Hello, hello!
Mark: Hi Roy how are you?
Roy: Mark, man man! So glad we finally got to do this!
Mark: Me too mate. It’s always interesting when you get to hear new material from a voice you heard way back in the day especially when the new material is so damned good. I was always a fan of the Cold Sweat album but I guess like a lot of people I never got to see you play live with them.
Roy: You know Cold Sweat is one of those bands that goes in the category of ‘woulda, coulda, shoulda’ you know. If that record had come out maybe three ears earlier it could have been a whole other ball game. But I’m still very proud of the record. I still think it very much stands the test of time, and that’s down to the song writing of Marc Ferrari and all of the other guys. But yeah, great time in my life for sure.
Mark: I bet it was great to get the guys back together o the Cruise recently, I had some friends who saw you and said everyone did a great job.
Roy: Well it was super special because we haven’t seen each other, you might as well say in 30 years. So to be able to get the opportunity to come together after all that time and perform at the pre-Cruise party and then do the Cruise, man it was magical! When we got to rehearse before the show, getting everybody in the room for the first time in decades was one of those ‘Holy shit!’ moments. But it was great Mark, and we tore it up, it was a special time.
Mark: It’s always great to do things like that for the right reasons.
Roy: Yeah whatever bitterness that there might have been in the past, that subsided throughout the years, you get older, you get wiser and you get through it. You know we had been asked to do the Cruise a couple of times but we just hadn’t got to the point where we were ready to do that. But this time everybody was ready, we did it and it turned out great. It was great part of my career, it was the part that gave me my chance in the national spotlight even though it was short-lived because of Grunge, I am still very proud of the Cold Sweat record and I’ve held that banner high with my current project The Fifth.
Mark: Before we get onto The Fifth let’s take it all back and start where it all began. What was it that made you realise that music was going to be such an important part of your life? Was there a defining moment?
Roy: There truly was! I was like any other kid born and raised in The South, we ran, we rode bikes and were very active, we played sports something I loved and did all the way through my early childhood through school and up right up until High School and that’s where I was bitten by the music bug. Now I’d always been a music fan and I was always drawn to Rock music and stuff like that and I always had a really sophisticated ear from an early age because of my sisters’ always playing music. So I grew up in a house with a lot of music. But was a young ‘jock’ and I was friends with everybody and one day I just happened to go and see a friend of mine who was in a band rehearse. And they were practicing and doing ‘You Really Got Me’ by Van Halen and Mark, you know I knew that song backwards and forwards, and the guy singing really didn’t have the cadence, you know? (Roy sings “Girl you really got me now.“) And me being a little cocky ‘jock’ kid I was like “Oh man, you’re doing it wrong” and the guy was like “Well hey, if you think you could do better go ahead?” And I’m like “OK!” So I grabbed the mic and I did it, and they fired that gut that day and hired me! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Roy: So I go home, I go and tell my Mom and Dad that I’m singing in a band. And my Mom is immediately “Oh hell no you’re not!” you know “You’re playing football and you’re gonna go to college.” And my Dad quietly got up and went to the back bedroom, opened up the closet and I heard him digging through stuff. I heard him coming down the hallway with an album, and I came to find out that his brother and his cousins had a Gospel Bluegrass band so the music was kind of in my lineage even though I didn’t realise it. I always liked music, was drawn to it, but I just stumbled into it. So when I realised I could still get as many girls without having to run laps and have guys bigger than me run over me playing football I thought ‘I think I’m going to go with this Rock and Roll thing.’ So around the age of 15 I started singing in bands, kinda by accident and it just took off from there.
Mark: Were they cover bands locally or were you playing originals?
Roy: Covers at first, you know you hone your skills, learn from the masters, but at a very early age I started writing stuff. So we had originals that we would put into the set, we went into a recording studio and recorded stuff and actually when I was a senior in High School my band Gibraltar had a number one song on the local FM station call in vote. So you know I was already well on my way through my High School years to a career in music. Like I said, my life took a real quick turn once I started singing. My Dad even managed the band.
Mark: So what led you to Cold Sweat?
Roy: Well my father, bless his heart managed my band and toured with us up and down the East Coast. At that time I’d been doing the ‘bar circuit’ for maybe seven years. So Gibraltar was playing down in Florida – we were doing a run of shows, and one of the nights a friend of the former singer came up and said “Hey I’ve got a friend in a band that’s already signed – Marc Ferrari from Keel is in there and Wendy Dio is their manager, and look man you’re perfect for them.” So he handed me Marc Ferrari’s phone number. So after 7 years of the club circuit I’m already a veteran, so I’m just like “OK, whatever dude” – the guy was hammered, you know. So I take the phone number and I put it in the pocket of my jeans and I go and do my set. Then a couple of days later when the band goes to do their laundry, I go through my pockets and I find the phone number. And I’ll never forget it, I was sitting in a hotel room with my dad sitting right there and I said “Can I see if this number is legit?” and he said “Yes, sure”, so I called and it was Marc. I sent a demo out, he wasn’t thrilled with it as I’d never had a demo so I didn’t know how the whole thing worked. So I literally pretty much begged him for a live audition and he said “Look the management and the label has already sent out a number of people but if you fly yourself out on your dime, I’ll let you sleep on my floor and I’ll give you a live audition.”
Mark: That sounds like an offer you had to take!
Roy: So I got on an aeroplane for the first time, flew out on a Monday, auditioned on a Wednesday and signed a record deal on a Friday.
Mark: (laughs) Wow.
Roy: It was just that fast. It was almost like the movie ‘Rockstar’.
Mark: Let’s get onto The Fifth now. I just listened to the EP and the songs are just great.
Roy: Thank you.
Mark: Take us a little way back – I know that ‘Confessions…’ came out in 2008 and got a more recent re-issue, but for those not familiar with the history – when did the band start?
Roy: Mark, The Fifth has been my labour of love, it’s been my musical therapy. I put the band together when my father passed away. I was living in Los Angeles during the Cold Sweat years, I spent several years in Atlanta and after that I moved back to North Carolina when my father passed away. I put the band together in the early 2000’s and it slowly and organically progressed. It was something for me to do musically and creatively. When you’re a creative person, and you’ve done it as long as I have, I gave up on the chase for fame and fortune a long time ago and now I do it for your own reasons. The Fifth for me is a creative outlet where I can input my thoughts and be creative with other people. We’ve moved along kind of under the radar, but ‘Confessions of Man’ in 2008 was when the band got the chance to tour Japan and that’s when I kinda realised that the band had a broader appeal, like I said it’s been an organic growth, there’s been ups and downs but what we put out on the latest EP I wanted to start afresh, I wanted to rebrand and reboot, because these guys that I’ve got now are great. It’s like I finally found that right recipe and chemistry.
Mark: I know the band has been through changes but the guys you have around you now sound awesome. How long have the songs on the EP been around?
Roy: The songs have been around since our Guitarist Justin Womble became involved in the project. Justin is like the new age guitar slinger! Justin is one of the, if not the most talented guitarists I’ve ever worked with. He can go from any style of playing, from Blues to Shred, to Country to Southern Rock – teh guy is just a musical ‘rain man’ (laughs) . Justin brought me several riffs and I was able to go through and select the ones I kind of ‘vibed on’ the most. So we decided to go ahead and tackle an EP because it had been a long time since we had a release of new music so I wanted to capture the ‘lightning in the bottle’ and ‘strike when the iron was hot’ every cliché that you could come up with! I just wanted to get in there and get some stuff recorded.
Mark: I imagine you guys sound amazing live, when are the next shows?
Roy: The band is getting ready for a nine date tour, we’re heading to 8 States in 9 days and that’s going to be a gruelling one, but after the shutdown of Covid we’re just grateful to be able to get out there any play again. So we’re excited about the tour and excited about the relationship we’ve been building with RFK Media and Ron Keel, we’re writing for the new CD now and doing shows with Stryper in a couple of months. So things are started to turn around.
Mark: And the EP sounds great, normally on an EP there’s a couple of great tracks and a little filler, but this is solid from start to finish. Even the ballad ‘Home’ – I’m always a little wary of the obligatory ballad but that is how it should be done!
Roy: Well you know when Justin brought me that song, that was one of the only ones he brought to me as a demo completed – start, finish, guitar solo, everything was done. And that solo Mark, to me is just brilliant – there’s a part in it where he hits three notes and he holds one, and you know how it is Mark, it’s like sex! So when I heard that song from beginning to end I thought “Man that’s a big Hair ballad!” That’s a special song and I must have rewritten it three times with different lyrics and different melodies to where I finally came upon the final version that I thought was worthy of the song he brought me. That’s always a very big thing for me: when someone brings their music to you and they entrust you to write lyrics and melodies to complete the vision I take it very seriously.
Mark: ‘Calm Before the Storm’ and ‘Roll the Bones’ really grabbed me as well, and when you have tracks like ‘Shake Little Sister’ on there it’s tough competition. Everyone I know who’s heard it though seems to have their own favourites.
Roy: Well that’s the way I view it – the EP has a little bit of something for everybody. ‘Calm Before the Storm’ what it started out as and what it turned into are so different. But going back to a previous question we are very much a ‘live’ rock band, so whenever you see us live you’re gonna hear those three part harmonies and it’s gonna be us singing it. And that’s a really cool thing about this band – were as real as it gets! When my boys get up they plus into a Marshall and an SVT and the drummer gets behind a drum kit and they put the microphones in front of the face and ‘Here we go!’ It’s great to be with a group of guys that are talented enough that they can do that. They’ve got my back and it feels great to have that.
Mark: And it would be great to catch you sometime.
Roy: I’ve been very blessed in music and got t travel a lot, lived in L.A. and Atlanta ad got to go to Japan and Germany and the UK, and Mexico and Canada, I’ve gotten the chance to do some travelling and I wish everybody could do that. I think it helps you as a person and it broadens your world view because I know there’s a lot of people here in the States that I know they haven’t moved out of their five County radius.
Mark: I know what you mean, I remember being in country Oklahoma once in a Walmart and a lady I was asking for directions couldn’t believe I was from Australia she thought it was a made up place on TV. There’s a sweetness in that but also a sadness too.
Roy: There is a sweetness in that and those people are the ‘salt of the earth’ there’s a lot of good people in this country but you’ve been down to Florida, there’s also a lot of cuckoo birds! (laughs) That’s one thing about this country especially now, the diversity and the nuttiness is equally distributed!
Mark: (Mark) It is. I shall have to see you live though and I think getting you on Festival bill with a big crowd would work wonders – it just takes people to hear you.
Roy: That’s what we’re shooting for. Like I said we’re a live band and very visual, everybody moves. We put on a show like they used to. Rock bands used to do that then Grunge came along and they just started staring at their Doc Martins and quit moving.
Mark: Those were the days. And now that Rock is out of the mainstream doesn’t mean that there aren’t a heap of great bands out there. Sadly its harder to see them, but it’s easier to hear them.
Roy: For independent Rock bands out there of our size it’s the new frontier. The way the industry is right now. Here in the States we’re like the red-headed step-child, we’re that unspoken genre that gets written out of the script and the Grammys. We’re the Rodney Dangerfields of the music business. We very much depend on the grass roots, other bands, social media, people like you still flying the flag for new Rock music. It’s the true music lovers that we need to create more of. We came from a time where music meant more to us – we could hear a song and it immediately could take us to a time in our lives when our girlfriend just broke up with us, or we just got a new car, or of a particular summer, you know what I mean? Nowadays music has become just another form of downloadable content that we hold on these things right here (Roy holds up his phone) and it’s not in here (he holds his hand to his heart). It’s not there like it used to be for us.
Mark: You touched on it before, music used to be fun, it was complete entertainment, an escape, an experience you shared with friends that you could lose yourself in, you created your own memories rather than watched everyone else’s. Then Grunge came and it was like a switch was flicked rather than concentrate on the positive things, or escape the bad even if just for teh night it was like, hey let’s concentrate on all the shitty things that are happening to me all the time, even when we’re listening to music or actually at a show. Wallowing in self-pity became fashionable!
Roy: (laughs) You’re right, When Grunge create the void people that used to listen to Rock either turned to Gangster Rap or Garth Brooks! When you think about it that’s the two genres that the labels backed – in the early 90’s there were all these Country artists coming out with fringe leather jackets and big light shows all of a sudden. It’s like the record industry abandoned Rock music and kind of directed the market where they saw fit. Rock is still out there, and there’s a lot of great stuff, but its not given the respect it should be given.
Mark: It’s such a shame, there are as many great bands around now as there have ever been, it’s just so hard to find them when the mainstream media ignores it all.
Roy: The labels aren’t doing it, you have to.
Mark: The labels are only interested in buying up old guy’s back catalogues and reselling it to us time and gain. And streaming has destroyed all hopes of a living wage for many musicians.
Roy: And those that get signed get pressured into fitting into the corporate box. Take Shinedown for example, a great band, very talented, wonderful musicians, look at what they started out as and where they are now. I liked early Shinedown, I liked ’45’, I liked ‘Fly From the Inside’ they were dark, they were edgy, they were still good hard melodic rock. And they got that little bit of commercial success and the label gets involved, they get sucked into teh machine and the label goes “OK we want another song like this… and another – just like this. Then we want another – just like this.” Those bands get caught by the labels, yes they’re touring, yes they’re huge and famous but they cant step out of the box now. Band s like us can step out of the box all day long, and that’s the freedom that comes for smaller Rock bands now, we’re back to the underground baby!
Mark: You mentioned a tour – when does that kick off?
Roy: It’s March 25th – we’re going to Parkersburg West Virginia then Delaware, Indianapolis, Marland, Pittsburgh, Kentucky and Ohio – eight states and nine dates. We start in West Virginia and we end it in West Virginia. All the dates are on the website.
Mark: Everyone should get out to those.
Mark: We’ll say goodbye with a few questions we like to ask everyone first time around.
Roy: Sounds good.
Mark: If you could have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for the creation of any great album just to see how the magic happened in the studio, what would you love to have seen being made?
Roy: Wow, you know what I think. I would have loved to have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for some of those last Queen sessions when Freddie Mercury knew that he was passing away and he was in there cutting vocals, and he knew that this was going to be his last time. I can only imagine the amount of emotion in that control room and that studio during those sessions.
Mark: Too much emotion for me I think, a huge loss and crazy yo think it’s been 31 years now. On that topic I guess, let’s end with an easy one ‘What is the meaning of life?’
Roy: Oh wow. The meaning of life for everyone is something different; but for me it’s about making sure you made some type of impact in a positive way and that you leave in a good way and not a band way. And I think with my music, but mostly my children, I try to raise my children to be insightful, empathetic, caring kids that are gonna change the world. So I think for me it’s about leaving this life better than when you came in.
Mark: Great words. Take care Roy and al the best for the tour.
Roy: Thanks Mark, you too.
Calm Before the Storm tour dates:
25 March – Martinsburg, WV – Bad Habits
26 March – Newark, DE – Halftime Sports Bar
27 March – Baltimore, MD – Fish Head Cantina
28 March – Turtle Creek, PA – Sub Alpine Society
29 March – Hamtramck, MI – New Dodge Lounge
30 March – Indianapolis, IN – Black Circle
31 March – Louisville, KY – 21st in Germantown
01 April – Dayton, OH – Little York Tavern
02 April – Parkersburg, WV – The Dils Center
THE FIFTH ON THE WEB
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