Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Lefts That's Podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Job Brusheky So Joe, how do
Speaker 1: you know Brewce Springsteen.
Speaker 2: Well, back in the day nineteen eighty we did a
Speaker 2: record called Have a Good Time to Get Out Alive
Speaker 2: that Steve van Zant was participating in for a while.
Speaker 2: He was doing some production work. Stephen was really good
Speaker 2: friends with Steve Popovich, who was the president CEO of
Speaker 2: Cleveland Entertainment Cleveland International. They had Meatloaf. We were rehearsing
Speaker 2: in SR Studios in New York City to record the
Speaker 2: album Media Sound and Steve pop Which brought Steve van
Speaker 2: Zant to the rehearsals and eventually into studio and produced
Speaker 2: some tracks on that particular record. And after the initial
Speaker 2: tracks were finished, we took a break and Mick Ronson
Speaker 2: was also working on that record and went home to
Speaker 2: Pittsburgh for a while, came back to New York City
Speaker 2: and Mick was working with Meatloaf to do the follow
Speaker 2: up to Bat Out of Hell. And he invited me
Speaker 2: down to the power station one night and in the
Speaker 2: next room one of the studios a I think the
Speaker 2: Mick Ronson and Meeto for studio b Steve and Bruce
Speaker 2: z Vansant and Bruce were working on the River and
Speaker 2: just happened to run into him and were introduced, and
Speaker 2: Bruce became a fan of that particular record, and we
Speaker 2: hooked up one night in Big Man's Claire's Clements Club,
Speaker 2: Red Bank, New Jersey, and hung out for most of
Speaker 2: the evening and just hit it off, became friends, and
Speaker 2: basically that's how we met. But we played New Jersey
Speaker 2: a lot, and some of Bruce's crew and you know
Speaker 2: people who work for him, It comes to his play
Speaker 2: all the time.
Speaker 1: So since you know him personally, what does the average
Speaker 1: person or the media and not know about Bruce?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 2: He's very kind, he's funny, he's hilarious. He could be
Speaker 2: a stand up comic. If he decides this rock and
Speaker 2: roll thing's not going to work out.
Speaker 1: Okay, you end up writing songs with him? How does
Speaker 1: that happen?
Speaker 2: Well, the first record we did together was called American
Speaker 2: Babylon and I had He invited me out to Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: I played him a couple of songs he really liked.
Speaker 2: At the end of the session, he asked me what
Speaker 2: else I had I played him a few more songs.
Speaker 2: They weren't very good. He said, you gotta write better
Speaker 2: songs than that, and I agreed with him. I didn't
Speaker 2: have a really good batch of songs at that particular moment.
Speaker 2: So when I came back to Pittsburgh, I had a
Speaker 2: determination to write better, better, better music. And uh so
Speaker 2: I came up with a set of lyrics for a
Speaker 2: song called Homestead, which is uh the uh, you know,
Speaker 2: the quintin central Pittsburgh steel mill town that I had
Speaker 2: known all the guys who worked in the union there
Speaker 2: and we had helped set up food banks, et cetera
Speaker 2: over the years. And so the next time Bruce and
Speaker 2: I got together to finish those particular songs we were
Speaker 2: working on in Los Angeles was in New York City,
Speaker 2: and just on you know, on a whim or you know,
Speaker 2: built my courage and gave him a set of lyrics.
Speaker 2: He liked it. So we wrote Homestead together. Then we
Speaker 2: wrote Dark and Bloody Ground together. As for my je accident,
Speaker 2: we started working a bit on you know, something that
Speaker 2: we hoped that was going to be a Bruce Springsteen
Speaker 2: project for a while, and did a bunch of other
Speaker 2: co writes the ones that come out just recently.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're sitting in Pittsburgh and Bruce calls you
Speaker 1: and says, come out to LA. I mean, tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit more about that.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Well, I was at the uh A trough in my career.
Speaker 2: I wasn't doing that great and my wife Leanne mentioned
Speaker 2: she said, you know, you're pretty good friends with Bruce.
Speaker 2: Why don't you give him a call and ask him
Speaker 2: if he'd consider playing on one of your records. So
Speaker 2: I was doing a weekday gig at a singles club,
Speaker 2: which is something I rarely do, but I was doing
Speaker 2: a single solo show acoustic.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was one of those gays where nobody was particular
Speaker 2: and interested in what I had to sing, you know.
Speaker 1: And you know, so I'm up.
Speaker 2: There playing away and re evaluating my career choices and
Speaker 2: during the break my sonme and Brian Coleman. He comes
Speaker 2: over and says, hey, you better call home right away.
Speaker 2: In the end, just call it. So this is the
Speaker 2: days before cell phones. So I went back into the
Speaker 2: kitchen and you know, the kitchen help was banging pots
Speaker 2: and pans. It was a restaurant and there was a
Speaker 2: lot of noise. I asked him to keep it down
Speaker 2: a bit, and I call it home. She said, Bruce
Speaker 2: just called and he wants you to give him a bus.
Speaker 2: I called. Bruce was out in Los Angeles in those days,
Speaker 2: and he invited me out to work on a song.
Speaker 2: So you know, I had to actually borrow money from
Speaker 2: my mom and dad to get plane ticket and went
Speaker 2: to Los Angeles and worked on chain smoking and never
Speaker 2: be enough time to forget about you.
Speaker 1: So you go to LA you stay at his house?
Speaker 2: Yes, I did?
Speaker 1: And how long did you stay?
Speaker 2: The first time? Couple of days, three or four days? Maybe,
Speaker 2: second time, same thing. And then and then I went
Speaker 2: to hung out with him in New Jersey for a while,
Speaker 2: and then we just got you know, we just hit
Speaker 2: it off. We had a nice easy wrapoor for writing
Speaker 2: and just started working together a lot back in mid
Speaker 2: to late nineties.
Speaker 1: Okay, if your wife hadn't pushed you, are you the
Speaker 1: type of guy who would have reached out to the boss.
Speaker 2: Probably not, No, No, I probably would not have.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're talking about the material you written being
Speaker 1: on this extravaganza that Bruce recently released, right, So did
Speaker 1: you think those songs would never see the light of day.
Speaker 2: Well, it took a while. It took a while for
Speaker 2: him to get here, I'll say that, but uh, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm more than happy they're out now, more than happy
Speaker 2: they're out period. But yeah, yeah, I am happy there
Speaker 2: they're out. I think they're really good representative examples of
Speaker 2: what we were doing in those days.
Speaker 1: So you wrote a number of songs, I mean, Elton
Speaker 1: John you know they call it two rooms. Bernie wrote
Speaker 1: the lyrics and Elton wrote the melodies the changes. How
Speaker 1: did you and Bruce do it? You talked to that
Speaker 1: you gave him the lyrics for one time. Is that
Speaker 1: how you normally did or you'd sit in the same room.
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: Both.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I gave him the lyrics, sometimes I sent them
Speaker 2: the lyrics, and sometimes we wrote face to face. But basically,
Speaker 2: you know, I did most of the lyrics that he
Speaker 2: contributed some. He did almost all the music. I contributed
Speaker 2: bits and pieces along the way.
Speaker 1: So how do you feel, I mean, you emailed me
Speaker 1: that you had some songs on the new project, But
Speaker 1: how do you feel when people talk to you and
Speaker 1: they just want to talk about Springsteen?
Speaker 2: Well, you know that's part of you cast a large
Speaker 2: shadow if you want to work with him, and you know,
Speaker 2: so it was just part of the partner procedure. But
Speaker 2: I'm confident enough in my own abilities that you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not intimidated by it.
Speaker 1: Well, needless to say, although you had major label records
Speaker 1: on MCA, you and the House Rockers did not reach ubiquity.
Speaker 1: But no, we did not when you were working with Springsteen.
Speaker 1: Did you feel this was my break? This is going
Speaker 1: to happen?
Speaker 2: Well, you know every record I do, I feel this
Speaker 2: is my break. This is going to happen. Of course,
Speaker 2: if Bruce said a little bit more exposure, maybe more
Speaker 2: people want to hear what he's up to, what you know,
Speaker 2: why he picked me to work with So you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm always hoping to for that one song that you know,
Speaker 2: Chris Fiel Easy Street like everybody else.
Speaker 1: Okay, he has played live with you a number of
Speaker 1: times too.
Speaker 2: Yes, over fifty times we're played together.
Speaker 1: And what is that like?
Speaker 2: Well, it's like, you know, you got a baseball team
Speaker 2: and you got Mickey Manno playing a center field, or
Speaker 2: Willie Mays, or you got a football team you got
Speaker 2: Joe Montana sitting in a quarterback. So you know, he's
Speaker 2: a great musician and it automatically elevates what you're doing.
Speaker 1: You talked about your wife saying to call the boss.
Speaker 1: How many times have you been married?
Speaker 2: Twice?
Speaker 1: And how long each time?
Speaker 2: The first time was about five years and we're over
Speaker 2: thirty on this one.
Speaker 1: Okay, to what degree did being a musician affect your
Speaker 1: first relationship and how is being a musician affected your
Speaker 1: second marriage?
Speaker 2: Well, the first my first wife was very wonderful girl,
Speaker 2: very smart, very intelligent, just just wasn't into the music thing.
Speaker 2: So that was a factor and a splitting And my
Speaker 2: current wife is you know, she's been there through thick
Speaker 2: and thin thirty years on in and as you know,
Speaker 2: if I'm talking to multiple musicians, you know it's not
Speaker 2: an easy thing to do.
Speaker 1: So how did you meet your president mine?
Speaker 2: I met her at a job. I was playing guitar
Speaker 2: and she grew up said hello, and she's one of
Speaker 2: those things.
Speaker 1: You know. Here we go, and do you have kids?
Speaker 2: I have two children. I have a daughter, Desiree and
Speaker 2: my son Johnny, who's current band member and producer of
Speaker 2: my last several records.
Speaker 1: And what is your daughter up to?
Speaker 2: She works for P and C Bank, she's in the
Speaker 2: corporate world.
Speaker 1: Okay, So how did you decide to become a musician.
Speaker 2: Well, pretty much, my family was musical. My father was
Speaker 2: a musician. We were coal miners. Both sides of my
Speaker 2: family were coal miners. Yeah, but dad's family especially was
Speaker 2: very poor and music was just his passion and he
Speaker 2: played could play just about any instrument you put in
Speaker 2: front of him, and he was pretty serious at it.
Speaker 2: Before World War Two he had a band called the
Speaker 2: Happy Serenaders, who you know, would play on AM radio
Speaker 2: live in those days as they did all around one microphone.
Speaker 2: So I grew up in a house full of music,
Speaker 2: everything from old time country, western to swing to polka's
Speaker 2: to ethnic music. My mother was in a Tamba rits
Speaker 2: in groups, which is an ethnic group here in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, tell me what was the name of what
Speaker 1: what kind of music?
Speaker 2: It was called the Tamba Ritson's. Uh, there's a huge
Speaker 2: Tamba Ritson's organization that plays out at Duquine University. But
Speaker 2: this was local, local ethnic music. Played a Serbian, Russian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian,
Speaker 2: Slovenian folk songs and dances. So she did that and
Speaker 2: she also had a beautiful voice as she sang.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know that she sang the standards of the day
Speaker 2: around the house all the time. So there was music
Speaker 2: going all the time. That that was, you know, their
Speaker 2: form of entertainment. Uh. I can remember my mother washing
Speaker 2: clothes and my dad sitting on a sellar steps playing
Speaker 2: guitar and my mother sang on it. And then I
Speaker 2: had an uncle who was, you know, more of a
Speaker 2: Fonsie type with the slick back hair, and you know,
Speaker 2: he was into uh rock and roll, and at a
Speaker 2: very young age, I can remember him combing his hair
Speaker 2: in the mirror and uh he had a little record player.
Speaker 2: You know, it looked like a little little box with
Speaker 2: a spindle, played forty fives and to this thing, I
Speaker 2: could still remember the songs Speed Up by the Cadillact,
Speaker 2: the Great Pretenders, uh Platters right, Great Balls of Fire,
Speaker 2: Jerry y Lewis who wears short shorts to Royal Teams,
Speaker 2: Great Balls of Fire, Elvis. And they played an old
Speaker 2: stack of records. But he combed his hair and then
Speaker 2: he missed his hair up, pull the records back up
Speaker 2: and start all over again. So it was it was
Speaker 2: a Saturday ritual and uh, you know, once I heard that,
Speaker 2: you know, it just became part and parcel of you know,
Speaker 2: just who I was. And then of course like the
Speaker 2: big bang for for my generations, the Beatles on Sullivan Show,
Speaker 2: and so they said, oh man, these guys, you know,
Speaker 2: I want to be a part of that.
Speaker 1: Before we get to the Beatles. How many generations were
Speaker 1: your parents' families in America?
Speaker 3: Uh, well, my grandparents came over, so my parents were
Speaker 3: born here, but one set of parents, grandparents came over
Speaker 3: from Ukrainia i was part of the Austrian Hungarian Empire
Speaker 3: at the time, and the other set of grandparents came
Speaker 3: over from.
Speaker 2: Serbia, which was also part of the Austrian Hungarian Empire at
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: So how did they end up in Pittsburgh and how
Speaker 1: did they become coal miners?
Speaker 2: Well, they're a I believe probably imported from their villages
Speaker 2: to come work to coal mines. And so, you know,
Speaker 2: I grew up western prences of any one little coal
Speaker 2: patch we used to call it after another. So they were.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 2: They were, you know, all coal miners. My grandfather. By
Speaker 2: the time I was born, the still steel mills were
Speaker 2: going strong, but the coal miners coal mining in this
Speaker 2: area where I grew up, it was primarily all mine out. Uh.
Speaker 2: My grandfather I just to remember him coming home from
Speaker 2: from working the coal mines.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: My dad and all his brothers were coal miners, and
Speaker 2: all my uncles were coal miners. So I was basically
Speaker 2: the first generation out of the coal mine for both
Speaker 2: sides of the family.
Speaker 1: So you know, you hear you know, black lung and
Speaker 1: all the negative effects of being in coal mines. Was
Speaker 1: that in your family too?
Speaker 2: Yeah, my father had black mom and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: it was not something that he aspired to do. Uh.
Speaker 2: He he started working at Koleman when he's twelve years
Speaker 2: old and uh got paid by the ton, so uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: he was he was not a fan of that particular
Speaker 2: line of work, to say the least.
Speaker 1: At what age did he die after?
Speaker 2: After World War Two he became a Uh he tinkered
Speaker 2: around with electronics for a while and then he settled
Speaker 2: on fixing cars. He was a musician for a while, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, a part time musician, and and you know
Speaker 2: he played in uh one of the big joys of
Speaker 2: his life.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: He was combat veteran World War two. But after World
Speaker 2: War Two he was stationed in Paris, and he played
Speaker 2: in a swing band in Paris for a couple of
Speaker 2: months after the war ended. And uh, that seemed to
Speaker 2: be like his you know, uh, most funny ever had
Speaker 2: according to him.
Speaker 1: Okay, but we think of coal miners dying young. Did
Speaker 1: your father die on.
Speaker 2: No, he did not. He was fortunately lived to be
Speaker 2: eighty nine.
Speaker 1: Wow, my father died at seventeen and he was never
Speaker 1: underground until he died. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm fortunate. I have. You know, all my family
Speaker 2: at pretty extended, extended runs, and they were all coal miners,
Speaker 2: So yeah, I got longevity on my side.
Speaker 1: Okay, how many kids in your family?
Speaker 2: Two?
Speaker 1: You the older, the younger. I'm the oldest, and your sibling. Boy, girl,
Speaker 1: I have a.
Speaker 2: Brother who's a retired school teacher.
Speaker 1: Okay, And how did your parents meet?
Speaker 2: They met World War Two. My dad was home on leave.
Speaker 2: I was a song called nineteen forty five on a
Speaker 2: coming home record. I have a special ed degree. I
Speaker 2: was teaching a special ed at the time. In nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety five, I guess ninety five, fifty years since the
Speaker 2: end of World War Two. I decided that I was
Speaker 2: gonna call my parents and interview them and get the
Speaker 2: details on how they met, so I would say we'd
Speaker 2: be able to pass that information that their story done
Speaker 2: to my children. And so I interviewed them, and of
Speaker 2: course my dad, you know, he was one of the
Speaker 2: generations hard to get anything out of him. He didn't
Speaker 2: talk too much about in the past. But my mother
Speaker 2: gave me the story they met when my dad was
Speaker 2: home on furlough before he shipped overseas for World War Two.
Speaker 2: So I wrote a song called nineteen forty five, which Bruce,
Speaker 2: you know, Bruce and I collaborated on. It's the truest
Speaker 2: story I've ever written. It's about my mom and dad
Speaker 2: meeting during the world World War two, and you know
Speaker 2: how my thoughts of reuniting with her kept my dad
Speaker 2: alive when he was fighting.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're a child of the fifties. What was your skies? Yeah,
Speaker 1: fifties and sixties. Well, I mean, you know you're coming
Speaker 1: of age. You're born in nineteen forty eight, so that
Speaker 1: you see what was your experience rock and roll? Depending
Speaker 1: on who we just you know, it is either fifty one,
Speaker 1: fifty three de bandon who we decided it was Rocket
Speaker 1: eighty eight, rock around the clock, whatever. But you know
Speaker 1: that era. His scene is, you know, mostly people being oblivious,
Speaker 1: having fun even though there was racism everywhere. What was
Speaker 1: your growing up like before the sixties and all the
Speaker 1: youth changes.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I guess pretty pretty fifties sixty is
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't you know, music was a big
Speaker 2: important part. Listen to music all the time. I was
Speaker 2: in love with rock and roll and always listened to it.
Speaker 2: You know, it was into Chuck Berry and Boat Diddley
Speaker 2: and all that stuff. And uh there AM radio was
Speaker 2: king here in Pittsburgh, and you would hear all the
Speaker 2: top forty stuff on AM radio, but there was always
Speaker 2: outlying stations that had these really unique disc jockeys, and
Speaker 2: starting Friday night about six six or seven o'clock in
Speaker 2: the evening, they would start trying to obscure each other. So,
Speaker 2: you know, I grew up listening to the Stones and uh,
Speaker 2: you know in the sixties of Stones, the Beatles, you know,
Speaker 2: Motown and all that stuff. But I also was hearing
Speaker 2: all these really obscure rhythm and blues rock and roll artists,
Speaker 2: uh that were really big here in Pittsburgh. They were
Speaker 2: called the Pittsburgh Sound. So I listened to everything I could,
Speaker 2: and you know, went to school dances. Uh, you know,
Speaker 2: not much of a socialite, pretty much introverted and lost
Speaker 2: in the wilderness until I got a guitar, and then
Speaker 2: I started realizing, I think I really like to do
Speaker 2: this for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: When did you get a guitar?
Speaker 2: I got a guitar, probably a couple weeks after I
Speaker 2: saw the Beatles on it at Sullivan Electric Guitar, but
Speaker 2: we did have an acoustic guitar at home that I
Speaker 2: banged around on.
Speaker 1: Okay, so tell me the experience of watching the Beatles
Speaker 1: before you saw them. Did you like them? They were
Speaker 1: on three Sundays on Ed Sullivan.
Speaker 2: Tell me, well, somehow I was able. Jack Parr had
Speaker 2: the original Tonight Show and my dad and I watched
Speaker 2: the Beatles during a promotional clip of it She Loves You.
Speaker 1: I saw that too. No one seems to remember November.
Speaker 2: Sember vividly, and I thought, wow, it's really great. And then, somehow, miraculously,
Speaker 2: again before they were actually on TV, I found a
Speaker 2: copy of their album and uh, you know, they used
Speaker 2: to sell where I had to buy records when I
Speaker 2: was growing up. I was you know, basically country suburbs.
Speaker 2: There was no record stores, but like at a five
Speaker 2: and ten they used to call them five and ten
Speaker 2: set store of wool Worse, and they all had areas
Speaker 2: where you could buy records and listen to records. And
Speaker 2: I found a copy of Meet the Beatles there before
Speaker 2: they were on the Sullivan Show, so I was actually
Speaker 2: able to hear their music before most people did, because
Speaker 2: I just lucked upon this record. I don't know how
Speaker 2: to this day they had it there, but they did,
Speaker 2: and you know of course that you know, it was thrilling.
Speaker 2: It was like, wow, man, I want to be part
Speaker 2: of that. Yeah, And the part of it was, you know,
Speaker 2: you saw guys that were close to your age actually
Speaker 2: playing guitar and singing. Most of the bands around town
Speaker 2: where I grew up there were rock bands, but they
Speaker 2: were mostly instrumental bands, surf bands, the guitars, very few
Speaker 2: vocal stuff. But you know, the Beatles were all self contained.
Speaker 2: And then and then find out they're writing their own songs,
Speaker 2: as wow, you know, man, what is this? And they
Speaker 2: looked like aliens, so that made their appeal stronger. But uh,
Speaker 2: and then what's still the deal for me was the Stones.
Speaker 2: You know, because the Beatles were too perfect, too many chords.
Speaker 2: They sang two pretty but the Stones stones. When I
Speaker 2: heard the Stones, it's more like the music I've been
Speaker 2: listening to. I think I could whack whack out a
Speaker 2: couple of these songs. You know.
Speaker 1: So okay, So how do you get the electric guitar?
Speaker 1: You beg your appearance? How to go down?
Speaker 2: I bought it myself. I always worked part time jobs,
Speaker 2: everything from being a paper boy to working in a
Speaker 2: to be in a caddie to working in a lumberyard.
Speaker 2: And uh, I bought a guitar at Sears roebucks. I
Speaker 2: think it was sixty some bucks, and uh there was
Speaker 2: an amplifier built in the case, and that was it.
Speaker 1: Okay, those were looked down upon the time, but then
Speaker 1: it flipped and everybody was into those silver tone guitars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you still have it?
Speaker 2: No? I wish I did, And I wish I had
Speaker 2: a silvertone amp that I eventually bought too. But you know,
Speaker 2: in those days, we traded traded guitars and amps like
Speaker 2: we traded baseball cards. I wish I had my baseball
Speaker 2: cards too. That let go. But you know, so, uh yeah,
Speaker 2: but they're great, you know, a great sound and little
Speaker 2: little things that there were four and everybody had one. Everybody,
Speaker 2: just about everybody I knew went out and bought a guitar.
Speaker 2: A lot of us kept it up a lot, a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I went into mom's cupboard somewhere under the bed.
Speaker 1: Okay, you go to Stiers, you buy the guitar. How
Speaker 1: do you learn how to play it? Uh?
Speaker 2: Well, my neighbor was a little bit younger than maybe.
Speaker 2: He had been taking guitar lesson since he was six
Speaker 2: seven years old, so he was quite proficient when the
Speaker 2: bells already hit. He taught me a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 2: And my dad could play guitar, so he taught me
Speaker 2: a bunch of stuff. And then, uh, there was a
Speaker 2: bunch of teen nightclubs that go on a weekend. You
Speaker 2: hear all. I saw obscure Pittsburgh Music, and you got
Speaker 2: to see like Mitch Ryner and Detroit Wills and Bo
Speaker 2: Diddley and Sam de Sham and the Pharaohs and Wilson Pickett.
Speaker 2: You know, so all those guys, h Junior Walker and
Speaker 2: the All Stars, and I make my way down front
Speaker 2: and just watch what they're playing. And plus there are
Speaker 2: all the local bands too. A local band, uh eventually
Speaker 2: became a Tommy James band. It became to Shawn Delsa
Speaker 2: from my home area.
Speaker 1: So when did you start forming bands? When did you
Speaker 1: start playing outside the house.
Speaker 2: Uh, well, we tried right away. Uh. You know, it
Speaker 2: probably took us a couple months to learn enough chords,
Speaker 2: but uh, you know, as fast as I could. And
Speaker 2: in high school, Uh, you know, I played dances. Uh.
Speaker 2: We had I thing here in Pittsburgh called Swans's which
Speaker 2: is a dance at a swimming pool. I played those.
Speaker 1: Uh wait, wait, tell me more about that. I've never
Speaker 1: heard of that.
Speaker 2: Well, they have a swimming pool and in the evening
Speaker 2: on a Friday night or or maybe a weeknight during
Speaker 2: the well obviously in the summer, kids weren't in school
Speaker 2: that you know that they have a band playing, uh
Speaker 2: you know, somewhere in the refreshment area, and the kids
Speaker 2: would swim and get out of swimming pool, dance and
Speaker 2: even played a couple of bars. Back in the day
Speaker 2: when I was growing up, down and Go Go dancers,
Speaker 2: you know, the whole nine yards.
Speaker 1: Okay, you graduate from high school, then what.
Speaker 2: Then I went to college. It's not something I had
Speaker 2: a burning desire to do. But I promised my father
Speaker 2: since he had did not receive an education because he
Speaker 2: had to drop by of school when he was twelve
Speaker 2: years old, then went to sixth grade. But I promised
Speaker 2: him I would go to college and went to college
Speaker 2: at a okay California State College at his California, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: which is a little mill town we called Harvard on
Speaker 2: Demon and you know, it was like just you know,
Speaker 2: I thought I was going to be going where everybody
Speaker 2: had long hair and beatles songs, and it was it
Speaker 2: was like a throwback to the fifties and it was
Speaker 2: time work in a bad way. And so I was
Speaker 2: not able to have a guitar in my dorm room
Speaker 2: for a couple of years. So it was for boating,
Speaker 2: no guitarist, no music, no fun. And after I moved
Speaker 2: out of the dorm one summer, I went to spent
Speaker 2: summer Atlantic City and bought my first telecaster to lay
Speaker 2: away at a pawn shop and swear to myself I
Speaker 2: was never going to quit playing. So I've been playing
Speaker 2: NonStop since nineteen sixty eight. I'd you end up in
Speaker 2: Atlantic City. I just went there to work for the summer.
Speaker 2: What did you do any city racetrack? I was mostly
Speaker 2: a bus boy. I didn't like being a waiter. I
Speaker 2: preferred not to have to socialize with the with the
Speaker 2: people who were ordering food or bartender. So I just
Speaker 2: cleaned up and uh we found a niche at the
Speaker 2: Atlantic City Racetrack, which served us well the following year
Speaker 2: because they had the Atlantic City Polk Festival there. Pretty
Speaker 2: much to run out of Atlantic City Racetrack because everybody
Speaker 2: knew us, and you know, just went back to school,
Speaker 2: formed the band and went at it. Try to try
Speaker 2: to just playing as much as I could.
Speaker 1: So you're in college, is this being playing gigs?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I played bars. I played a lot of frat parties.
Speaker 2: There were a lot of places to play in those days.
Speaker 2: Live music was still a huge, huge thing. You could
Speaker 2: play pretty much as much as you wanted to, and
Speaker 2: h you know, the pay was you know, to hundred
Speaker 2: bucks was like tops. If you got two hundred bucks,
Speaker 2: you were really doing something if you walked out. I
Speaker 2: was played in small bands, trios or quartets, but my
Speaker 2: college band was a trio. So you know, if we
Speaker 2: could make one hundred and fifty bucks, I was fifty
Speaker 2: bucks each you live there for a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: of fifty bucks on those days in a college town.
Speaker 1: Okay, if your band is a trio in nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: what are you playing? Cream songs? What are you playing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we did some originals.
Speaker 1: I did have.
Speaker 2: An audition with RCA Records.
Speaker 1: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're going to California State College.
Speaker 1: How do you get an audition for OURCA Records.
Speaker 2: We had a friend who was a musician, and he
Speaker 2: told there was a guy from Pittsburgh who worked with
Speaker 2: RCA named Tom Causey, and he told him about us.
Speaker 2: We're one of the few bands that were playing originals
Speaker 2: plus the usual Beatles, Stones, Creamimi Hendricks, you know blues
Speaker 2: stuff that everybody else is playing, long extended jams, you know,
Speaker 2: really long hair, which is a bit dangerous in that area.
Speaker 2: And anyways, we we did have an audition. I just
Speaker 2: ran into the audition, ran in, just discovered the audition
Speaker 2: tape for the studio. I work out all the time.
Speaker 2: Uh the Tom had uh delivered to the studio having
Speaker 2: transfer into the digital but uh, for one reason or another,
Speaker 2: we never did. The guy showed up late. My band disappeared.
Speaker 2: I gave him, uh the demo tape, never heard from
Speaker 2: him again.
Speaker 1: Well, since you listened to the demo tape today, what'd
Speaker 1: you think?
Speaker 2: You know what? I haven't been able to listen to
Speaker 2: it yet because it was all real, the real stuff.
Speaker 2: But uh, I gotta still track it down. I keep
Speaker 2: bugging them for it. As I recall, it wasn't too bad.
Speaker 2: There was a couple of good songs, but yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: it was definitely a sixty sounded thing, a lot of
Speaker 2: heavy guitar.
Speaker 1: How do you start writing songs?
Speaker 2: Well, I originally started writing songs probably that was it
Speaker 2: wasn't good enough to copy. I was never never my
Speaker 2: forte sitting down and copying somebody else's stuff. No perfect
Speaker 2: like a lot of my friends could do. So, uh I,
Speaker 2: plus the Beatles and the Stones and everybody else is writing.
Speaker 2: You know, everybody's playing originals. So you know that's what
Speaker 2: you inspired to do. You put you wrote originals?
Speaker 1: So you graduate from college? Then on.
Speaker 3: And then I.
Speaker 2: Didn't do anything spectacular for a while. I worked in
Speaker 2: a mental institution, uh I noticed is not politically correct,
Speaker 2: but they call it a mental institution for the mentally
Speaker 2: retarded at that time. I was the first wave into
Speaker 2: the mental institutions when they opened them up to public
Speaker 2: schools and I had a class there. The kids rolled
Speaker 2: in cloth diaperson when I got there, Lena on the floor.
Speaker 2: Nobody was torely trained, nobody could eat themselves, nobody could walk.
Speaker 2: And we sort of stayed there for a couple of
Speaker 2: years and more young kids come in. I was very
Speaker 2: young at the time, in my early twenties. We transformed
Speaker 2: the place, changed these kids' lives, and I was young
Speaker 2: and single. I was saving up all my money and
Speaker 2: got a band together in Pittsburgh, was rented a house,
Speaker 2: bought a PA and we started recording demos in my
Speaker 2: basement and rehearsing every night with the idea that we
Speaker 2: were going to make a record one day. My partner
Speaker 2: for many years is our Deani and I started to band.
Speaker 2: We called ourselves the brick Ally Band. At the time.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back. What was your calling that you
Speaker 1: wanted to work with a mentally challenged as they say.
Speaker 2: To that, Uh, well, my calling was uh kel State.
Speaker 2: Kel U was a teacher's college at that time, and
Speaker 2: I was to stay in school. I had to transfer
Speaker 2: out as liberal arts into to UH education and UH
Speaker 2: why did you have to do that to stay in school? Well,
Speaker 2: because it was the height of the Vietnam War and
Speaker 2: they were canceling all liberal arts deferments. And I promised
Speaker 2: my father I was going to graduate from college no
Speaker 2: matter what. I was there for a couple of years,
Speaker 2: doing really well, and then I UH to finish school,
Speaker 2: I had to transfer out of what I was doing.
Speaker 2: So UH me and a couple other my buddies, we
Speaker 2: were at a loss for words. We didn't know what
Speaker 2: we were going to do. And uh kel you was
Speaker 2: a very tiny school at the time, and uh during
Speaker 2: the registration drive were we found out our the pharmacy
Speaker 2: had be canceled, and couldn't decide what we were going
Speaker 2: to do with our lives, and and made the decision
Speaker 2: on the line. The special ed was the shortest line,
Speaker 2: so we went over there to register, just to get
Speaker 2: it done and over with it.
Speaker 1: And then I grew up.
Speaker 2: My best friend had had two uh disabled brother and sister,
Speaker 2: and I had an uncle who was several policies, so
Speaker 2: I had I had a a feeling, ah that I
Speaker 2: might be able to help some of these kids and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, I once I went into the to the
Speaker 2: Western Center, which was the institution I worked at, after
Speaker 2: the shock of being there and seeing the conditions, I
Speaker 2: really really loved working with those kids, so that it
Speaker 2: was probably the best job ever had. Yeah, so how
Speaker 2: did you end up avoiding the draft? I've finished out.
Speaker 2: I ended up getting a federal scholarship to study special education,
Speaker 2: and then my number I was one fifty. I was
Speaker 2: gonna get drafted anyways. Then I got a federal scholarship.
Speaker 2: My last year teaching under federal you know, everything paid
Speaker 2: full both as a special ed was a new field
Speaker 2: at that time, and they needed people to go and
Speaker 2: work and work with these kids. And the next year,
Speaker 2: you know, the country decided that the whole Vietnam experience
Speaker 2: wasn't that a great idea, and the draft went down significantly.
Speaker 2: So I went back into the draft pool, but my
Speaker 2: number wasn't high enough to be drafted.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have this brick Alley band. What is
Speaker 1: the status of that band?
Speaker 2: Well, the status of that band was we were playing
Speaker 2: clubs after well, we were rehearsing and writing religiously that
Speaker 2: for about a year and we just finally decided, you know,
Speaker 2: we better go get some gigs because otherwise we're never
Speaker 2: going to get out of the basement. And we try
Speaker 2: to learn some covers top forty stuff just to work,
Speaker 2: because in those days Pittsburgh was pretty much the top
Speaker 2: forty song type of club scene. You played ten o'clock,
Speaker 2: went to ten forty, he took twenty minutes off eleven
Speaker 2: eleven forty. There were strict rules about what you could
Speaker 2: do and not do, and we were terrible, terrible Top forty.
Speaker 2: We sucked. I mean, I couldn't stand this. We didn't
Speaker 2: We weren't very good at it. Our hearts wasn't in it.
Speaker 2: And we found a guy who was named Marty Pizzano
Speaker 2: at a club on West Liberty Avenue and we uh
Speaker 2: talked to him in and letting us play there, and
Speaker 2: I guess she wasn't doing too well, so we said, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, can we have a night and we'll just
Speaker 2: take the door, let us do anything we want to do,
Speaker 2: and he said yeah, And within a short time we
Speaker 2: built up a big following there and at the same
Speaker 2: time Cleveland Entertainment Steve Popovic got one of my demos and.
Speaker 1: A little bit slower Okay, you're a bad top forty band, right,
Speaker 1: what is building the following.
Speaker 2: Uh, Well, we went in and just played whatever we
Speaker 2: wanted to play, and we have been rehearsing for a year,
Speaker 2: so we're a really good band and we play one
Speaker 2: set of original material. We were determined to make a record,
Speaker 2: so the music that we were playing in those days.
Speaker 2: Eventually it became our first record, Love So Tough, on
Speaker 2: Cleveland International. So at the same time that we were
Speaker 2: playing I was we were making demo tapes and sending
Speaker 2: them out and Steve Popovich.
Speaker 1: Before we get to pop there's a different era. Everybody
Speaker 1: doesn't have a laptop. You go into the studio to
Speaker 1: make these demos.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, there was no home recording, you know.
Speaker 2: And so who's paying for that? Well, I was because
Speaker 2: I was teaching. I had any money. I would say,
Speaker 2: my rock and roll career was financed by special ed.
Speaker 1: And then if you're not doing any gigs, it's hard
Speaker 1: to keep a band together. So how'd you keep the
Speaker 1: band together?
Speaker 2: Well, after the first year, we decided we were going
Speaker 2: out and play play some gigs, and we caught on
Speaker 2: this club called the Gazebo, and we started working almost
Speaker 2: immediately after people. I don't know. It was just like
Speaker 2: one of the seismic things that happens in music in
Speaker 2: a particular down. People just got got tuned into what
Speaker 2: we were doing.
Speaker 1: Okay, how many demos had you sent out before Steve reacted?
Speaker 1: Only two? You remember what happened with those two?
Speaker 2: Uh? Well, the second one we got a record doing.
Speaker 2: The first one wasn't very good. I got a couple
Speaker 2: of rejection records. And Steve, you're familiar with Steve Pofferman.
Speaker 1: I knew Steve well.
Speaker 2: Steve was originally from western Pennsylvania. And uh, you know
Speaker 2: Popovich a Serbian name. I had Papovich relatives. You know,
Speaker 2: there was just a connection to what we were doing
Speaker 2: and and and you know his his personal life, and uh,
Speaker 2: I guess you heard something that he related to and
Speaker 2: he invited us. We were playing at this point, after
Speaker 2: a year in my basement, we were out playing pretty
Speaker 2: pretty regularly. We're starting to become more and more popular
Speaker 2: around town. We had found this after the gazebo. He
Speaker 2: sold the gazebo, Marty was sold the gazebo. We found
Speaker 2: a herm turf in the College section of Pittsburgh. Oakland
Speaker 2: called the Decade, and we were immediate success at the
Speaker 2: Decade and we played. We had a Thursday night residency
Speaker 2: for a long time and a lot of a lot
Speaker 2: of weeks we played Thursday and Saturday. So Uh. At
Speaker 2: the same time, we were making demo tapes. And one
Speaker 2: of the tapes, UH, Steve put out say Goodbye to
Speaker 2: Hollywood in full page Addam Billboard Magazine, Ronnie Spector Billy
Speaker 2: Joel song produced by Steve van Zant, recorded by the
Speaker 2: street band Cleveland Popovich. It just seemed like a you know,
Speaker 2: uh a place I should send the song stick and UH,
Speaker 2: so I headed out the door one one Friday, I
Speaker 2: believe we had a out of town gig. And I
Speaker 2: got a phone call and Steve and he liked the
Speaker 2: demo tape.
Speaker 1: I sent him.
Speaker 2: Advised us up to Cleveland on the following Sunday. He
Speaker 2: said he's having a little get together, a little uh picnic.
Speaker 2: So we make our way up to Cleveland, me and
Speaker 2: a couple of guys in the band, and UH find
Speaker 2: our way to Steve's house and Water's house outday out
Speaker 2: the suburbs. Uh Cleveland. Knock on the door, door opens
Speaker 2: and there's Ronnie Spector in a fluorescent purple bikini almost
Speaker 2: fell over right right there on the spot, and it's
Speaker 2: very friendly invites us in. Uh ron back, she said,
Speaker 2: go on back, Steve will be here pretty soon and
Speaker 2: then we're gonna have a little picnic. So go around back.
Speaker 2: And a little while later, a big tour bus pulls
Speaker 2: up and I jumped Steve Popovich, Marty Mooney, uh By,
Speaker 2: Jukes Side, Johnny and the Juice Southside went there. But
Speaker 2: the Jukes were there and bos skags. We had the
Speaker 2: number one country song in the country at the time,
Speaker 2: the Silk Degrees number one record. So in the middle
Speaker 2: of this party, we're sitting there, you know, being total
Speaker 2: totally uncomfortable because you know, we're such outsiders and we're
Speaker 2: all with all these heavy hitters, and uh Steve throws
Speaker 2: on demo tape and you know, of course we're cringing,
Speaker 2: and Boss Guys walks over and says he really liked
Speaker 2: it and shakes my hand and said, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: hook up with Steve. He's still do good bye you.
Speaker 2: So yeah, a little while later, we had a private
Speaker 2: meeting with Steve, and you know, I always say to
Speaker 2: people that he sent us back to Pittsburgh with a
Speaker 2: pocket full of hope. He decided he was going to
Speaker 2: finance our demo sessions and we went back to a
Speaker 2: couple more demo sessions, signed us to Cleveland Entertainment, Cleveland
Speaker 2: National Management, and a production company, and then eventually signed
Speaker 2: signed the band. UH placed the band on mc A.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now it's time to make a record, right
Speaker 1: so you know.
Speaker 2: We play Thursday night. Well, Steve and Marty Mooney were
Speaker 2: the de facto producers of the first record, and there
Speaker 2: was a club in Cleveland, the Agora Club, very popular club,
Speaker 2: and above the club they had a recording studio called Agency.
Speaker 2: So a lot of knights would play Thursday night, get
Speaker 2: up Friday, drive to Cleveland, record Friday, sometimes take Friday
Speaker 2: night off, sometimes drive back and play Friday night. But
Speaker 2: we recorded basically our stage show at the Agency without
Speaker 2: you know, no more than one day at a time.
Speaker 2: We never did two days in a row. We never
Speaker 2: stayed overnight. We drove up, played come back. A couple
Speaker 2: of weeks later we would go record a couple more songs,
Speaker 2: and Steve Popovich placed us on MCA Records, and right
Speaker 2: when the record was getting ready, to come out. They
Speaker 2: decided to remix it and do some over So I
Speaker 2: went to New Jersey, to the House of Music in
Speaker 2: New Jersey and did some overdubs and some lead guitar,
Speaker 2: and then eventually the record came out in May of
Speaker 2: seventy nine, and it was very, very critically acclaimed. People
Speaker 2: loved it. And by that time I decided I was,
Speaker 2: you know, I was going to through my hat and
Speaker 2: a ring and go full time musicians. So, you know,
Speaker 2: just felt like I was never going to get that chance,
Speaker 2: probably never going to get that chance again. So I
Speaker 2: took it and went played.
Speaker 1: Okay, a couple of questions, So you stop working in
Speaker 1: special education? Right? How did the name of the band change? Oh?
Speaker 2: Well, Uh, brick Ellie was a name of an infamous
Speaker 2: red light district here in a section of Pittsburgh called
Speaker 2: McKey Sport. And uh he Steve hated the name, and
Speaker 2: my mother hated the name too, by the way, but
Speaker 2: that's a whole different story. But uh, he hated the name,
Speaker 2: and uh he want us to change it. Uh, So
Speaker 2: we came up with Houserockers, and uh, not too long ago,
Speaker 2: I discovered that Steve Poffovich with Steve van Zandt decided
Speaker 2: to christen us ourn City House Rockers because they were
Speaker 2: really into the regional thing at the time and wanted
Speaker 2: us to be a regional band be accepted in our
Speaker 2: own part of the world. So he dubbed us the
Speaker 2: Honest City Houserockers.
Speaker 1: And you know, we.
Speaker 2: Probably whined and cried about a little bit, but not
Speaker 2: too much because we were just happy to have a
Speaker 2: record coming out.
Speaker 1: So the record comes out, gets positive reviews, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't sell.
Speaker 2: It didn't sell too much.
Speaker 1: Now I did that.
Speaker 2: They made the sixty seventy thousand copies at the time,
Speaker 2: which are still pretty good. We got read up and
Speaker 2: Rolling Stone. I think it's surprised a hell lot everybody
Speaker 2: how well it did. Actually, And in those days, you know,
Speaker 2: you had to come up with a follow up really quickly.
Speaker 2: So we were back in this We put that out
Speaker 2: in seventy nine. We were back in the studio in
Speaker 2: February of nineteen eighty to record the follow up come.
Speaker 1: Out in May. Did you have all of those songs ready?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we had a lot of them ready. You know,
Speaker 2: that's all I was doing, right, So I was playing
Speaker 2: they're not playing We had the misfortune of trying to
Speaker 2: monitor tour during the first real gas shortage. When you
Speaker 2: get gased, like if you had an odd number, even number,
Speaker 2: determined whether you had enough gas to go anywhere. So
Speaker 2: it's very, very difficult to tour. And I had it
Speaker 2: turned out to be a cancer scare. They found a
Speaker 2: tumor in my throat and I had at an emergency
Speaker 2: operation which turned out to be benign, thank god, so
Speaker 2: that not be off for a while. So our first
Speaker 2: record we did not tour much. We played probably from
Speaker 2: May to October a lot, and then then I had
Speaker 2: to take a couple of months off and used it
Speaker 2: to write a lot and then we're back in the
Speaker 2: studio in February.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, when you're back in the studio, is it
Speaker 1: still one day on the weekends or is it more
Speaker 1: conventional where you're there for a few weeks.
Speaker 2: Now, we were, we were living the high life. Then
Speaker 2: it was New York City s I R Studios actually
Speaker 2: rehearsing and uh Steve and his partner Marty Moody. Steve
Speaker 2: Poppas and Marty Mudy were really loved music, really really
Speaker 2: good music guys, but they could not put their ideas
Speaker 2: across they weren't musically adept enough to describe what they
Speaker 2: wanted us to do. That I guess it made any sense.
Speaker 2: So one day, the first day in the studio, Steve
Speaker 2: Puppovitch shows up with Nick Ronson. Uh, it's because he
Speaker 2: had signed Ian Hunter and Hunter Ronson band at the
Speaker 2: moment that uh the record that Ian did Cleveland Rocks
Speaker 2: along with a schizophrenic And so mc ronson came in
Speaker 2: and start working with us, and then one day we
Speaker 2: had about a week or ten days of rehearse person
Speaker 2: at si R eight ten hours a day. Would usually
Speaker 2: rehearse in the morning by ourselves, then McK ronson would
Speaker 2: come in and work with us in the afternoon, and
Speaker 2: one morning Steve Papa shows up with Steve van ZANDT.
Speaker 2: So Steve van Zant would start working with us in
Speaker 2: the morning, and then mc ronson would come in in
Speaker 2: the afternoon. And then we went in the studio and
Speaker 2: sometimes Steve was there, sometimes Mick was there. Sometimes we're
Speaker 2: both there. And then Steve left to work on the River.
Speaker 2: I told he was working with the River was with
Speaker 2: Bruce and Ian Hunter started showing up. Mick Ronson, so
Speaker 2: There was a whole cast of characters contributing to that
Speaker 2: record have a Good Time to Get Out of Lives
Speaker 2: And Mick Ronson was responsible for so many arrangements. Steve
Speaker 2: an Zant was responsible for some of the arrangements, Ian
Speaker 2: Hunter was responsible for some of them, and and some
Speaker 2: of them were the band We were just transferred from
Speaker 2: what we were doing at home.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what was the special sauce of each of
Speaker 1: these individuals?
Speaker 2: Well, uh, first of all, uh, you know, they were
Speaker 2: the first rock stars we ever met. Uh, you know,
Speaker 2: we knew nothing about the music business. Uh and we
Speaker 2: we didn't even know anybody who worked in a record store.
Speaker 2: So they were pretty phenomenal. I mean we were raw
Speaker 2: as raw could be, and each of them had you know,
Speaker 2: they were all really good musicians obviously, and you know
Speaker 2: they were able to take a song and like rock
Speaker 2: Ola that closed the record. We went intoto that session
Speaker 2: with it being the fastest song on our in our
Speaker 2: repertoire that we were presenting everybody and just couldn't make
Speaker 2: it work. And Mick Ronson, who was a very good pianist,
Speaker 2: whatever and start playing the song as a ballad and
Speaker 2: completely transformed the song, and oh man, you know, how
Speaker 2: do they do that? You know, it just gave us
Speaker 2: a whole different perspective of how songs were written. And
Speaker 2: Steve van Zander did the same thing with the song
Speaker 2: that Ronson worked on. It was very slow called old
Speaker 2: Man's Bar and van Zane heard it and he changed
Speaker 2: it into Junior's Bar, which was one of our more
Speaker 2: popular songs to get played on the underground. And just
Speaker 2: watching this guy's work and how they arranged the the
Speaker 2: instruments and uh, you know, what not to play just
Speaker 2: as important as what to play. Give us some spaces
Speaker 2: and stuff, so you know. And then Ian come in
Speaker 2: and you know, he did the same thing. He just
Speaker 2: he took took one song and had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with the way he eventually, uh guided us through a
Speaker 2: song called Hypnotized, and it was just a germ of
Speaker 2: an idea and watch these guys just create something on
Speaker 2: the spot like that was. It was very very inspirational
Speaker 2: and educational.
Speaker 1: So tell me about the title track, have a good
Speaker 1: Time to get out a Lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's one we pretty much uh brought in
Speaker 2: from Pittsburgh. Well we're playing the bars in Pittsburgh in
Speaker 2: those days, it was a pretty rough time. You know,
Speaker 2: it's still it was still a lot of still workers,
Speaker 2: really tough. You know, the steelers were tough, the bars
Speaker 2: were tough, and some of the guys, Uh, we were
Speaker 2: drawing these really big crowds, and night after night it
Speaker 2: would break out in fights. And uh, during one of
Speaker 2: the uh riots when we were playing, you know, I
Speaker 2: stopped singing and trying to calm everybody down, and just
Speaker 2: a phrase just come out of my mouth. Hey guys,
Speaker 2: you know, I have a good time to get out
Speaker 2: of here alive, you know. And for some reason I
Speaker 2: got home that night and uh, I saw I'm basically
Speaker 2: just reade itself. Yeah, just one of those gifts that
Speaker 2: come to you occasionally.
Speaker 1: And what about Pumping Iron?
Speaker 2: Pumping Iron was the same thing. It was just about
Speaker 2: the local guys that we were hanging out with. And uh,
Speaker 2: you know, those those were two that pretty much stayed
Speaker 2: the same from the demo sessions. Uh. We did a
Speaker 2: two CD release of that on Cleveland not too long ago,
Speaker 2: and we put all the demos of those songs on it.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if we put the demo Pump Now,
Speaker 2: but Pump Now didn't change much there's pretty much what
Speaker 2: we were doing.
Speaker 1: Okay, you talk about the demos. A lot of people
Speaker 1: can't find the tracks from hit records. Are you a
Speaker 1: pack rat and you kept all this stuff or you
Speaker 1: have to look for it? I kept.
Speaker 2: I kept everything that I could get my hands on
Speaker 2: it through the years. You know, when we were doing
Speaker 2: Have a Good Time to Get Out Alive. It was
Speaker 2: forty years, and we transferred a lot of stuff from
Speaker 2: cassettes because that was like the main thing I would
Speaker 2: come home from the studio with. I had a good
Speaker 2: cassette player, and I didn't want to reel the real
Speaker 2: I didn't have one, so I'd come home with cassettes.
Speaker 2: But I did keep old, real copies of most everything
Speaker 2: I did so so I was able to be forcing
Speaker 2: enough to keep keep keep just about everything I've ever recorded.
Speaker 1: Okay, the album comes out gets a lot of ink,
Speaker 1: a lot of positive reviews. What was it like from
Speaker 1: your side of the.
Speaker 2: Fence, Well, it was one of those things were all
Speaker 2: of a sudden we were legit. You know, we were
Speaker 2: being talked about in the same breath as the Clash
Speaker 2: and Leonard Skinner and Bruce and Jay Giles and you know,
Speaker 2: all the guys that you know, we were big fans of,
Speaker 2: so it was it was a bit transformational and uh
Speaker 2: to realize that, you know, we're connecting in that fashion
Speaker 2: with a lot of people is very gratifying.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what's the process of that album coming out,
Speaker 1: going on the road, and then going back in the studio.
Speaker 2: Well, we played for as long as we could, and again,
Speaker 2: you know, we're doing an album a year. So it
Speaker 2: came around to the spring and Steve Popovich was very,
Speaker 2: very instrumental in our career and uh, you know, I
Speaker 2: don't want to second guests or think what those guys
Speaker 2: were doing, but they became, to my knowledge, they became
Speaker 2: embroiled trying to do a follow up about a bad
Speaker 2: out of Hell. It was a very very painful process
Speaker 2: for him. There was a lot of infighting and we
Speaker 2: were sort of left by the wayside, and we decided
Speaker 2: to go on our own and and just record the
Speaker 2: record because nobody was responding to us. So Denny rosen
Speaker 2: Krantz was our connection in Los Angeles, and he flew
Speaker 2: me out to l A and uh, he suggested we
Speaker 2: use Steve Cropper, and uh, you know, I took him
Speaker 2: up on it immediately because you know, a chance to
Speaker 2: work with all time greats, how could you pass that up?
Speaker 2: So we went back to Pittsburgh, wrote some songs Steve.
Speaker 2: Steve came in and sat with us for a week,
Speaker 2: ten days rehearsed, and every day went a couple of gigs. Uh,
Speaker 2: you know, just a real Trooper, and went out to
Speaker 2: Los Angeles and recorded Blood on the Bricks, our follow
Speaker 2: up at Cherokee Studios. By the way, on nov Our
Speaker 2: Records just did a two CD release re release of
Speaker 2: Blood on the Bricks, completely remastered in a CD of
Speaker 2: demos and live songs included in it, which really really
Speaker 2: great sounding compilation. And you know that really put a
Speaker 2: new shine on some of the songs.
Speaker 1: So what did Cropper bring to the studio?
Speaker 2: Well, Cropper. You know, when Steve my first thought that
Speaker 2: I was playing with Steve Cropper, of course I was
Speaker 2: thrilled beyond belief. But when he actually showed up the rehearsals,
Speaker 2: I sat down room. I was so nervous, my hands
Speaker 2: were shaken. I barely play guitar. But Steve just you know,
Speaker 2: he had a sense of rhythm and timing that was
Speaker 2: just impeccable and uh uh arrange arranging, you know, he
Speaker 2: he he he. He deferred to us if I was
Speaker 2: really adamant about doing something a particular song went to
Speaker 2: keep in. But you know, I just think, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: he brought out the best in the band because we
Speaker 2: were all so in all of them that we picked
Speaker 2: up everybody picked up their game as far as musically,
Speaker 2: just trying to show Steve we were worthy of playing
Speaker 2: with them.
Speaker 1: Okay, what was the consequence of that album coming.
Speaker 2: Out, Well, we had a remember Solid Gold. We were
Speaker 2: pick hitter a week on Solid Gold with Marilyn McCoo
Speaker 2: and Andy Gibb were the the co host. We recorded
Speaker 2: the Solid Gold the night the Dodgers won the World
Speaker 2: Series I think in nineteen eighty It was nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: one in La We were there that night and we
Speaker 2: were afraid that we weren't going to be able to
Speaker 2: get to the airport because the whole city would be
Speaker 2: going crazy. I Meanwhile, it barely made a blip on
Speaker 2: the map because when the Parts won the World Series
Speaker 2: in seventy nine just destroyed the city. The fans.
Speaker 1: Okay, the album comes out, it doesn't quite make the
Speaker 1: mark of the previous record.
Speaker 2: No, well again, Steve, Steve Puffett, we had no management,
Speaker 2: were rutterless, and it was very disheartening. And you know,
Speaker 2: in retrospect, you know, maybe we shouldn't have made that record,
Speaker 2: Maybe should have waited till we had our our act
Speaker 2: a little bit together, more together. But you know, we
Speaker 2: were young, and you know, we wanted to go. We
Speaker 2: want to keep going. We didn't want to just sit
Speaker 2: around and do nothing.
Speaker 1: And then you make one more record for MCA.
Speaker 2: Right cracking under pressure. I think they dropped us like
Speaker 2: three days after the record come on, and it wasn't
Speaker 2: a record we wanted to make anyway. So it's one
Speaker 2: of those things less said about it the better.
Speaker 1: What do you mean you didn't want to make it?
Speaker 2: Well, it's you know, we were using it was very
Speaker 2: eighty sounding. In retrospect, we should you know, we should have,
Speaker 2: and we were getting pressure from the record company to
Speaker 2: sound a certain way and you know, try to come
Speaker 2: up with a hit song and et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 2: and you know we should have probably just again not
Speaker 2: it recorded that particular record, but we were impatient.
Speaker 1: Okay, but you know, the big gets dropped and then
Speaker 1: the band breaks up.
Speaker 2: Right, the band breaks up then, So what was that
Speaker 2: like for you? Well, everybody, it was very, very frustrating.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 2: Art and I, you know, and jeff O Simmons is
Speaker 2: still playing with me. We put a band together and
Speaker 2: decided I wasn't going to go by Krisheky because I
Speaker 2: was tired of people butchering. I went by my childhood
Speaker 2: nicknamed Joey G. So we went back to Joey G
Speaker 2: in a Brooke Alley band. We had a local hit
Speaker 2: here in Pittsburgh, the very eighties sounded thing again, and
Speaker 2: and then that sort of ran its course and I
Speaker 2: was able to get back to the basics and got
Speaker 2: a record do with Brounder, and I decided from now
Speaker 2: on I was going to be uh put my name
Speaker 2: out front, uh just in case, you know, started losing
Speaker 2: band members again, because when I went from Iron City
Speaker 2: House Rockers to joe Brishecky, a lot of people did
Speaker 2: not recognize my name. I mean a lot of people
Speaker 2: knew who the Iron City House Rockers were, but people,
Speaker 2: unless they were fans in the band, didn't realize, you know,
Speaker 2: it was me.
Speaker 1: Okay, but you've been to the mountaintop and now you're
Speaker 1: back in the Valley.
Speaker 2: I've been to the mountaintop, oh Man, Big Valley, Big Valley.
Speaker 2: But you know, we were played locally. Yeah, we're from Boston,
Speaker 2: d C. New York City at Cleveland, so we had
Speaker 2: a you know, four or five state area that we
Speaker 2: played in pretty regularly.
Speaker 1: But it's not like today today. You know, it's hard
Speaker 1: to have a hit that everybody knows. Everybody's regional. Back then,
Speaker 1: it was about being on MTV, being on the radio,
Speaker 1: and if you didn't have a major label, that couldn't
Speaker 1: even happen relevant what you recorded.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're you know, we were playing because we love
Speaker 2: to play basically.
Speaker 1: Well, how disillusioning was it that you came so close
Speaker 1: but it didn't happen for you.
Speaker 2: I was bitter for a while, for a long time,
Speaker 2: maybe a good five six seven years, especially because during
Speaker 2: the Blood of brick Are we had a uh, we
Speaker 2: were having conversations with Freddie demand. You know, Freddie is
Speaker 2: sure with ultimately work with Madonna. Yeah, yeah, he wanted
Speaker 2: to sign us he could, and we had a hard
Speaker 2: time getting free of our old contracts, and you know,
Speaker 2: he went on signed Madonna and we got one way
Speaker 2: ticket to the Lucaville.
Speaker 1: So well, how did you ultimately make peace that it
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna happen for you?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I got married, remarried, start having children
Speaker 2: and realized that, you know, music is just part of
Speaker 2: my life. It wasn't my whole life. And uh, you know,
Speaker 2: realize if you have kids, you got to take care
Speaker 2: of him. They were more important than having a hit record.
Speaker 1: So when did you start working a day job? Again? Uh?
Speaker 2: Did rod eighty eight?
Speaker 1: And how did that come together?
Speaker 2: Well? I had a teaching degree, so I went down
Speaker 2: in communities uh uh community uh center in McKees Rocks,
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania and started teaching uh people to get their g
Speaker 2: e eds General Equivalency diploma.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And it was very successful at it got hundreds of
Speaker 2: people their their high school diplomas and also did a
Speaker 2: little bit English as the second language. And but yeah,
Speaker 2: and then uh, you know, Johnny came along, and then I,
Speaker 2: you know, I was having the kids were having some
Speaker 2: health problems. I had no health insurance, so I had
Speaker 2: to get a job of some health chores. So I
Speaker 2: went into uh the special ed thing again.
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean is it tough emotionally or because you
Speaker 1: have a family. You say this is superior or do
Speaker 1: you feel like, as you say, bitter, how do you know,
Speaker 1: as I say, it's got to be really tough. You
Speaker 1: know a lot of people are musicians. You had a
Speaker 1: number of major label loubums. We're hanging with rock stars.
Speaker 1: Now you're back in Pittsburgh, right, Well, I just live
Speaker 1: with it. You know where it went.
Speaker 2: You know, we had our shot, we didn't quite make it,
Speaker 2: and you know I wanted to keep playing music. I
Speaker 2: just found a way to do it.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: When I uh, you know, we did a couple of records,
Speaker 2: and we were going nowhere fast, and I was start
Speaker 2: teaching special at again, and I was working with again.
Speaker 2: This is a misnomber of kids who were called socially
Speaker 2: and emotionally mal adjusted, were violent, A lot of violent kids.
Speaker 2: License to restrain. We're working there and still teaching ged
Speaker 2: at night. So I taught. I worked all day, taught
Speaker 2: G G D night, had a steady Wednesday night gig,
Speaker 2: and then we tried to playing most Fridays and Saturdays
Speaker 2: and some I still did a record called end of
Speaker 2: the Century of course man slightly out of time or
Speaker 2: end of the century. It was nineteen ninety two, and anyway,
Speaker 2: it was about it. I was about the end of
Speaker 2: my rope. And that's when my wife suggested that I
Speaker 2: give Bruce a call and turned into American Babylon Project,
Speaker 2: which gave me a new lease in life.
Speaker 1: Do you ever make any money as a house rocker?
Speaker 2: Uh? No, occasionally occasionally nice payday here and there, But yeah,
Speaker 2: I worked at Bay Gig til I was seventy five
Speaker 2: years old.
Speaker 1: So much kind So at this point any royalties, Uh.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Wait waiting for that big boat to arrive.
Speaker 1: You know, so obviously the kids are out of the house.
Speaker 1: What kept you working until seventy five?
Speaker 2: I like put food on the table. I got to
Speaker 2: the point where I had a serious back injury. It
Speaker 2: made it tough to to travel, and you know, just
Speaker 2: get used to a certain level of income. And you know,
Speaker 2: in a way it was very free because for some reason,
Speaker 2: you know, all these years of teaching, I was still
Speaker 2: able to write all these records. And my first year
Speaker 2: I had off as a retiree, I didn't write a
Speaker 2: song the whole year. You know, I just found a
Speaker 2: way to do it, maybe because I don't want to
Speaker 2: give up and you know, I always love playing music,
Speaker 2: and even in uh the worst of times, you know,
Speaker 2: it was it was something I always wanted to do.
Speaker 2: And my son started playing with me, and uh, I
Speaker 2: can remember one gig and I'm thinking, what am I?
Speaker 2: You know, I'm getting old. I'm up there killing myself
Speaker 2: as people even care what I'm doing. And I look
Speaker 2: over and he's to my right and he's just bashing
Speaker 2: away on a guitar and he's having the time of
Speaker 2: his life. And I think, yeah, you know, that's why
Speaker 2: I started doing this. So I always try to keep
Speaker 2: that in mind.
Speaker 1: So how do you finally decide to stop teaching?
Speaker 2: Well, I got offer for a buyot for health insurance, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, and I was getting up there in age
Speaker 2: so and I never had easy jobs. I had always
Speaker 2: worked in rough neighborhoods with really tough kids, so it
Speaker 2: was the easiest thing in the world to do.
Speaker 1: So if these kids are prone to being violent, how
Speaker 1: do you manage them? What do you how do you
Speaker 1: teach them? What's the key?
Speaker 2: Well, you have to be consistent, uh, you know, you
Speaker 2: have to set expectations and try to get them to
Speaker 2: live up to it. And you've got to show you
Speaker 2: care about them, and and uh, the ones that buy
Speaker 2: into that you have some results. And some of the
Speaker 2: kids are so damaged by the time you get them.
Speaker 2: You know that you just hope that they have some
Speaker 2: kind of decent life ahead of them. But yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: I run into kids all the time, now, you know
Speaker 2: that I tip back in the day, I just got
Speaker 2: an email from from somebody on LinkedIn, so vice president
Speaker 2: of the company, and he said, you know, thank you,
Speaker 2: mister chief for helping me out. You know, I had
Speaker 2: a bunch of kids that I was really really close to,
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm still contact with them. They still hey,
Speaker 2: mister G. You know, we love you, mister G. And
Speaker 2: one guy said I was the father he never had.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so I mean it's worth it, you know,
Speaker 2: less time in purgatory for me in some work, guys.
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, So how rewarding is that work compared
Speaker 1: to being on stage and having an audience response.
Speaker 2: Well, they're both rewarding in different ways. Having the audience
Speaker 2: response immediate, it's right there, boom boom boom. You know,
Speaker 2: some of these kids, you work with them for years
Speaker 2: before you see any kind of progress, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's it's really you can't compare you of them.
Speaker 2: They're they're too far apart. There's too they're so completely opposite.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, as an artist and a musician, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, it's sort of like a you know, I
Speaker 2: don't give a ship, you know, when when you're gonna play,
Speaker 2: when I get there, when I feel like it, you know,
Speaker 2: what are you gonna do? I don't know. Let's make
Speaker 2: it up as we go along. But as a special
Speaker 2: ed teacher, with the kind of kids I worked with,
Speaker 2: you had to be very structured. You know, you had
Speaker 2: to be on the ball.
Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 2: You know, I used music a lot. I did a
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of music with some of the kids.
Speaker 2: You know, we did some great, great shows when I
Speaker 2: started working at a high school with some of the
Speaker 2: kids that I worked with, we did a motown review
Speaker 2: one time. It's terrific, and uh, you know, it's just
Speaker 2: two completely different parts of the brain at work. And
Speaker 2: I'm really right side. And for me to be organized
Speaker 2: and a teacher requires way way more effort than we
Speaker 2: get out and playing guitar.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've done a certain amount of charity work. Parkinson's
Speaker 1: tree of life. What's the motivation and how much of that.
Speaker 2: Do you do? Well? We've literally done hundreds of charity
Speaker 2: gigs over the years, and my parents always, you know,
Speaker 2: taught me to give to others less fortunate than yourself.
Speaker 2: And you know, the House Rockers, we always felt we're
Speaker 2: part of the community here in Pittsburgh. Whether everybody thinks
Speaker 2: that or not, we do. And as part of being
Speaker 2: good citizens, to give back to the community and personally,
Speaker 2: you know, to help others less fortunate than yourself, I
Speaker 2: think is something everybody should do. I mean, that's sort
Speaker 2: of a no brainer, right, everybody should do that. Why
Speaker 2: wouldn't you if you could, why wouldn't you help you
Speaker 2: fellow man?
Speaker 1: So if you leave the house and you go around,
Speaker 1: to what degree are you recognize in the Pittsburgh area, Uh.
Speaker 2: Various degrees. All depends the age group. Not so much
Speaker 2: with the youngsters, you know, probably under forties, under thirties.
Speaker 2: But you know, I mean everybody. You know, I go
Speaker 2: to the grocery store, people knows me. I go to
Speaker 2: the post office, you know, gas station, the mechanics pretty
Speaker 2: much buddies with with all of them. You know, Pittsburgh
Speaker 2: is a small city, but a big town. And uh,
Speaker 2: you know, there's always a small degree of separation. You
Speaker 2: know if you go to another town. You know, my
Speaker 2: son is over in Rome, and you know he runs
Speaker 2: into a musicians parents Rome. Hey, I shouldad doing, you know.
Speaker 2: And so you know it's Pittsburgh. Everybody is connected pretty closely,
Speaker 2: especially the musical community.
Speaker 1: So what is it about Pittsburgh. Certainly in the sixties,
Speaker 1: you know, you had the Pirates, you had Bill Masarowski.
Speaker 1: Then at the end of the decade the seventies, the
Speaker 1: steel mills closed. Now Pittsburgh is very hip again. I
Speaker 1: mean it used to be that Pittsburgh might as well
Speaker 1: have been Iowa City.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: What is Pittsburgh like and how has it changed over
Speaker 1: your lifetime? Uh?
Speaker 2: Well, it used to be a lot tougher.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It was you know, a shot and a beer steel mill.
Speaker 2: You know, still those twenty four hours a day, terribly
Speaker 2: smelling dirty, and it has progressed into it and then it,
Speaker 2: you know, the hard time set and it had lost
Speaker 2: the world a lot of people. You know, we during
Speaker 2: the Iron City Houserocker era, we lost a third of
Speaker 2: our population here in Pittsburgh and a lot of our
Speaker 2: fans had to move out to uh find employment elsewhere.
Speaker 2: I don't know what it is about Pittsburgh. It's it's uh,
Speaker 2: it's it's community, neighborhood, family oriented people here, you know,
Speaker 2: pretty always sort of friendly once you get to know everybody.
Speaker 2: Everybody's kind of friendly and very few errors about. You know,
Speaker 2: nobody has a feeling of superorit superior superiority, being from
Speaker 2: uh you know, Lawrenceville Homestead, and.
Speaker 1: You know it was a lot of.
Speaker 2: Immigrant roots and people bomb together. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, the town I grew up in.
Speaker 2: Was a small still uh, the coal mining town, and uh,
Speaker 2: there was nobody there but Serbians and Italians and the
Speaker 2: mixed marriage was a servant Italian and you know my
Speaker 2: grandmother could a Serbian man, could she cook good Italian food?
Speaker 2: Just because she was friends with everybody, and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: it was a rough time, but everybody sort of had
Speaker 2: your back. And uh, I think the Steelers when Pittsburgh
Speaker 2: was coming out at the uh the steelmalls collapsed and
Speaker 2: the Steelers and the Pirates sort of epitomized that. That's
Speaker 2: why the town became sports crazy, because it gave the
Speaker 2: town and identity. Hey, you know, we're tough, we're gonna
Speaker 2: we're gonna persevere, and we're gonna come out on top.
Speaker 2: That was always sort of the you know, people were
Speaker 2: not afraid of hard work here.
Speaker 1: So what's the status of your music career today and
Speaker 1: what were you playing writing?
Speaker 2: Well, my status is we signed to Omnivore Records. Last
Speaker 2: year we put out house rocker at Joe Grasheki Anthology,
Speaker 2: which was thirty six remastered tracks with a booklet and
Speaker 2: all the recording information. Extremely proud of that particular project.
Speaker 2: If I was going to say, hey, what were you
Speaker 2: doing for the last forty years, well here, yeah, listen
Speaker 2: to this. I'll tell you very very pleased with the
Speaker 2: results and sounds terrific. The music sounds, for the most part,
Speaker 2: sounds very current, like it could have been recorded and
Speaker 2: played that day or even written today. Then we put
Speaker 2: out a record called Cannot Run a Memory, which I
Speaker 2: think is one of my finest records we've ever done
Speaker 2: with a new band that we have Arnie Grosheky on
Speaker 2: guitar and helped produce it, Danny Gackner on guitar, Jeff
Speaker 2: Garrison on bass, and Jeff Jeffrey Jeffers Simon is on drums.
Speaker 2: He's been with me since nineteen eighty four. And Rick
Speaker 2: Wakowski is our producer all around jack altrades everything from
Speaker 2: vocals to keyboards and guitarist percussion. I still have the
Speaker 2: same road crew I've had for thirty years or more,
Speaker 2: Bryan Coleman, Rick U Black or a couple of new
Speaker 2: guys Mikey O'Toole and mikey Rita. Very fortunate have very
Speaker 2: loyal carrying band members. Blooding the Bricks came out, the
Speaker 2: Steve Cropper double CD we just put out, and a
Speaker 2: couple weeks we're going to release a new single called
Speaker 2: Living in a Blues Song, which is a statement on
Speaker 2: gun violence. Ah, we're getting ready to drop that, hopefully
Speaker 2: beyond two or three weeks. And we're working on a
Speaker 2: new record. So we're still going full speed ahead.
Speaker 1: And to what degree do you still have the dream
Speaker 1: or hopes? Are you're just saying this is what I do?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, this is it is what I do?
Speaker 2: You know? And like you say, people ask when I
Speaker 2: am not I can say well, I'm a musician before
Speaker 2: I say well, I'm a musician and a school teacher.
Speaker 2: Now I'm back to being a musician. And you know,
Speaker 2: I'm always thinking the next one I write is going
Speaker 2: to be the one that's gonna you know, put me
Speaker 2: on Easy Street, We'll buy the new Lexus. So you know,
Speaker 2: there's always that hope that so I'm always shooting for it.
Speaker 2: You know, I want that one big song, Bob.
Speaker 1: You know, well I hope you get it. Joe. I
Speaker 1: want to thank you so much for we're telling your
Speaker 1: story to my audience.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for having me. It was great fun.
Speaker 1: Until next time. This is Bob left Sid