Shades Apart is a rock survivor

(June 6, 1999)

Nothing is going to keep the New Jersey crunch-rock trio Shades Apart from its appointment with destiny, not even the flood of the century.

Lead singer-guitarist Mark V. tells a story of just how intent he, drummer Ed Brown and bassist Kevin Lynch are on making it.

"We recorded a demo of four songs out of our friend's studio called the Blasting Room in Fort Collins, Colo.," V. said recently. "While we were recording the demo, we were all deeply focused on it. We were putting in 14-, 15-hour days to do this demo within like four days. We were sleeping in the control room; we'd wake up and start tracking, that whole thing.

"So, on the last night, we had the phones shut off and we were finishing up some vocals or something and we finally put the phone back on and calls started coming in. People were saying, 'It's raining so hard, there's a flood out here, don't go down this road when you drive home.' Five in the morning rolls around and we go outside and the river had overflowed. Cars were floating around; it was crazy. That shows you how much we were in our own world.

"After that, we had a European tour lined up with Samiam and while we were away our manager was looking around to see if anybody was interested and Universal was the most interested. They were really into it."

That led to "Eyewitness," the group's seventh album but first for a major label. Released April 20, the LP features the electrifying single "Valentine," now positioned at No. 31 on Billboard's mainstream rock tracks chart.

Brown said "Eyewitness" wasn't do or die for the band, but they knew they had to buckle down.

"We've done so much work to get to this point that we all felt, 'Let's make this record as good as we can make it,' " he said. "We put up with a lot to get here. We took advantage of the opportunity with the extra time and resources to make a better record than we probably would have if we had made it five years ago.

"When we were getting ready to record 'Seeing Things,' the album before this, it was probably the hardest time to stay focused and make a good record. We were just barely scraping by and morale was low. We were coming off a lot of touring, and we had come at the end of the cycle for the record before it and there wasn't a lot of money to go around. But we knew that if we could make it through that, we could make a good record, that things would get better."

It all fell into place when the band hooked up with producer Lou Giordano (Goo Goo Dolls, Live, Husker Du) and engineer Mike Fraser (Metallica, Aerosmith).

"Lou's a very even-keeled guy, very laid-back and really open-minded," V. said. "We traded ideas very easily; he wasn't hard-line about anything, like 'Try this!' It went both ways. We respected each other's ideas.

"When people found out we were working with him, the response was, 'Oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense.' And in the end, it did. It worked out great."

BWF (before we forget): To keep up to date on Shades Apart on the Web @ www.shadesaparthq.com.

Billy Joe Shaver's a winner with 'Victory'

(Aug. 30, 1998)

Nothing has come easy for Billy Joe Shaver. He was raised by his grandmother in a small, poor Texas town. Before peddling his songs in Nashville, he worked a variety of odd jobs, including at a sawmill, where he lost four fingers on his right hand in an accident. He also broke his back when he was in his 20s.

Along the way, he became a respected songwriter on Music Row. Four of his songs have topped the country charts by other artists: "Ride Me Down Easy" (Bobby Bare); "I Couldn't Be Me Without You" (Johnny Rodriguez); "Just Because You Asked Me To" (Waylon Jennings), and "Old Chunk of Coal" (John Anderson). Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Trisha Yearwood have all done Shaver songs.

"I don't get CMA Awards or Grammys," Shaver said recently. "These things here, when people like that do my songs, that means so much to me. That keeps me going. You can't buy those things. You can't go out and politic for it. You get those by doing quality work."

And then there was Kris Kristofferson.

"Everybody considered me a songwriter until Kris Kristofferson did 'Good Christian Soldier' on his 'Silver Tongued Devil and I' album (in 1971)," Shaver said. "He came up to me and said, 'Billy, you're so great. I feel like there's a big ax over the top of my head and if I don't help you, it's going to fall on me.' I said, 'Well, gosh, Kris, I'm sorry.' He said, 'Don't be sorry, just get out of the way and let me do this.' He went and borrowed money and put me in the studio and produced my first album, 'Old Five and Dimers,' and this was even before his own first album came out, so he was sticking his neck out for me.

"He's such a generous, unselfish guy. A lot of people don't know that. A lot of people think he's tough and hard to deal with, but that's not true. He's a big-hearted guy and I guess he has to watch it because he'd give the shirt right off his back. He's a real good fella and so smart."

Others wanted to help Shaver too. Jennings used 10 Shaver-penned songs for his 1973 breakthrough album, "Honky Tonk Heroes," considered by many as the album that ushered in the outlaw movement.

"I couldn't say any one person instigated that, because nobody did it on purpose," Shaver said. "We went with what we had and did it. I'll say this much, Kris Kristofferson had a lot to do with it because of his appearance. We all - me, Willie, Waylon, Kris, David Allan Coe - came into town wearing Levis and Wranglers and there were places in Nashville that would not let you in with blue jeans on. We continued to be who we were, in song and in person. That's what changed; the sequins and slickness went out the window. People started writing about gut-wrenching things and stuff that was really going down."

Shaver is still doing that today, better than ever, on his New West Records debut, "Victory," a sweet, gentle country gospel album full of quiet, reflective simplicity. It's also intensely personal.

The album teams Shaver with his son, Eddy, who plays guitar.

"We had a reconciliation and we got closer with this album," Shaver said. "It's just a father and son thing that you beat to death sometimes. We've conquered that for quite a while because we started being friends and when you become friends, it becomes a whole lot easier. We got past that, and you have to when you're going into a long stretch of road."

"Victory" also helps Shaver cope with the illness of his longtime love, Brenda, who has liver cancer. The couple finally married on Aug. 16, Shaver's birthday.

"She's doing better now," Shaver said. "She took her last chemo treatment for a while. She gets about two weeks off and then she goes back for four more. We're hoping to get to that point where she doesn't have to take them anymore and get it into remission."

"If I Give My Soul," in particular, is a gift to Brenda.

"A disc in my neck went bad," Shaver said. "It was so bad I had to go into the V.A. hospital in Nashville and have it operated on. It really went bad when I was down in Texas somewhere; it got so bad I would cry and you just can't make me cry otherwise.

"Brenda gave me a ride back to Nashville; she didn't have to, she had a boyfriend back then, but she did it as a friend. On the way there, I wrote that song while she was driving ... 'If I give my soul to Jesus, would she take me back again?' I had already given my soul to Jesus, of course. I was coming from a street-level thinking, because it helps me and other people too. Most of the stuff I do is like the cheapest form of psychiatry. It's therapeutic. I usually do it to help myself."

BWF (before we forget): Win with Shaver on the Web @ www.newwestrecords.com and www.bakernorthrop.com.

Vonda Shepard: In the right place at the right time

(May 17, 1998)

Just when Vonda Shepard thought she was going nowhere, she bumped into her new best friend, Ally McBeal.

The New York-born singer-songwriter isn't a complete stranger to success. Her duet with Dan Hill on his 1987 comeback hit, "Can't We Try," went Top 10. She also recorded a few critically lauded albums for Reprise Records and made some high-powered friends along the way.

But, in a flash, she was back to square one.

"During the down time, when I got dropped by Reprise (in 1992)," Shepard said recently, "and I couldn't get anything going, I got very, very sad, and I put all that sadness into my writing. I loved the songs so much that I thought, 'I'm not going to stop.'

"I finally got it together to record the 'It's Good, Eve' album and got signed (by independent label VesperAlley) from that and started getting exposure. There's a song on there called 'Maryland,' where it says, 'I'll never give up, 'cuz what is there to give up anyway?' I love music, why would I quit?"

Good thing she didn't. Her longtime friend, actress Michelle Pfeiffer, married TV producer/writer David E. Kelley ("Picket Fences," "Chicago Hope," "The Practice") several years ago, and both often attended Shepard's shows before sparse crowds in Hollywood, Calif., clubs.

Shepard's songs, Kelley thought, would be perfect for his next project, the Fox series "Ally McBeal," a dramedy about the personal and professional travails of a young female lawyer.

The pilot episode had been shot, but Kelley wanted to add a bar, a place where McBeal and her co-workers could unwind after hours of litigation. He then took it a step further, placing Shepard onstage in the bar, her songs serving as the voice for McBeal's thoughts.

"It started with, 'Can you act?' and I said, 'I used to,' " Shepard said. "I studied acting for a few years, and I said, 'Maybe, I don't know, let's try it.' I didn't know it would entail everything that it's entailed up to now. It's been a whirlwind."

Shepard now has "TV star" to add to her resume, along with a new album, "Songs From Ally McBeal featuring Vonda Shepard" (550 Music/Sony Music Soundtrax, released April 28) and a hit waiting in the wings, the theme song "Searchin' My Soul." She's also touring the country with Willy Porter.

"I had hoped for so long that it would happen and I had my sort of successes along the way to keep going," Shepard said. "There was a time when I was worried it wasn't going to happen.

"I thought I would be overwhelmed by all this attention, but I just go and do my job. I'm in the studio and don't see anybody for 18 hours and then I'm on the set with all the actors and other people. It hasn't really hit me yet, for some reason, and I think that's probably good because if I was 21 years old, I'd be freaking out right now. I've been through enough in my life, so I'm grounded."

As he's writing scripts, Kelley chooses the songs for each episode, be they Shepard originals or standards (such as "I Only Want to Be With You" and "Hooked On a Feeling").

"A lot of times, he plays my CDs while he's writing and gets inspired by a certain song," Shepard said. "He has a lot of music in his head; he's an aficionado, and it's part of his writing process.

"I just write for myself and for my albums, and he feels my songs are so intrinsic to Ally's emotional life that they just really fit and I don't have to really alter any of my writing styles or lyrics. I did write a new song called 'Soothe Me,' which I played for him, and said, 'You might like this song.' He thought it was perfect for this one episode and put it in."

Which brings up the question: Is Shepard a lot like McBeal?

"My songs are autobiographical," she said, "and they seem to fit with her character, so I guess we do have a lot in common, at least emotionally. We are both career-women in the '90s and have the desire to end up with somebody.

"I'm pretty focused. That's what's interesting, people are drawn to the music, that's her deeper soul. Even if on the surface she's sort of a goofy and neurotic person, she does have supposed deeper inner thoughts."

Before "Ally McBeal" took over her life, Shepard wrote enough material for another album, which likely will come with a major-label deal soon.

BWF (before we forget): "Songs From Ally McBeal" peaked at No. 7 on Billboard's pop chart and went platinum (selling more than 1 million copies). ... The Vonda Shepard album discography - "Vonda Shepard" (Reprise, 1989); "The Radical Light" (1992); "It's Good, Eve" (VesperAlley, 1996); "Songs From Ally McBeal featuring Vonda Shepard" (550 Music/Sony Music Soundtrax, 1998). ... Search for more on Vonda Shepard on the Web @ www.550music.com or www.vesperalley.com.

Shonen Knife sharpens a 'Brand New Knife'

(Feb. 27, 1997)

In Japan, the yen doesn't stretch far for musicians, let alone everyday people.

Recording studio space, if and when it's available, is cramped and sky-high expensive. And for the loopy pop trio Shonen Knife, there's the added distraction of fans at every corner in their native Osaka.

That's why, for their Big Deal Records debut album, "Brand New Knife" (due March 11), sisters Naoko (guitar) and Atsuko Yamano (drums) and bassist Michie Nakatani chose to record outside Japan for the first time since they formed Shonen Knife in 1982.

"The studios in Osaka are usually very small," Naoko Yamano said recently. "We don't have enough space to record drum sounds. We couldn't play all together at the same time. We could just play guitar and bass.

"This time, we recorded at a studio in Los Angeles. The studio was very huge and the sound system was nice, so we could rent a nice drum kit and also could use many amplifiers. We could finally all play together in one room, so we could make a very nice groove."

Yamano said the band was pleased with the vibrancy of "Brand New Knife," giving credit to the producers, the Robb Brothers (Lemonheads, Buffalo Tom, Rod Stewart).

"They were very good to us," Yamano said. "They didn't do anything by force. They understood that we are a three-piece rock guitar band, so they knew the most important thing was the band sound."

The trio's last album, "Rock Animals," wasn't a big seller in 1994 for Virgin Records, but it continued a growing industry buzz for their lighthearted, untarnished songs about their favorite things (ice cream, cats, jelly beans, rockets), filled with instantly graspable pop hooks.

Before "Rock Animals," Shonen Knife built a U.S. cult following on several independent releases. Virgin stepped in 1993 and issued "Let's Knife," their major-label debut, and their popularity soared after opening for the likes of Nirvana and Redd Kross and an appearance on the Lollapalooza tour in 1994. They also cut a track ("Top of the World") for the Carpenters tribute album in 1994. It recently was used as a theme song for a Microsoft TV ad campaign.

An example of their standing among their peers: Some 20 American bands teamed for a Shonen Knife tribute album, with groups such as Sonic Youth, L7 and Babes in Toyland contributing cover versions.

Yamano said the past three years have been their busiest yet.

"We toured a lot and then in '95 we started to make demos and preproduction for the new album," she said. "In '96, we went to Los Angeles for two months, from April to the end of May, for recording. During the recording, we had Saturdays and Sundays off so we could refresh ourselves."

Shonen Knife is an anomaly in the cookie-cutter pop world of Japan. Bored with their jobs, they quit and pursued their musical dreams, despite having no training or experience. Passionate and determined, they taught themselves how to play.

Today, they are perhaps the most independent act in Japan, often booking their own tours, managing themselves and handling all the bookkeeping.

"We are the bosses," Nakao Yamano said. "Usually, Japanese bands, singers, pop idols have managers or they are controlled by producers or record company people. We are very independent.

"Sometimes it's hard because we are too busy for paperwork. We need more spare time. Also, many Japanese bands or singers hire professional musicians for recording. Sometimes all their background music is played by computers, so it's very easy for them.

"For Shonen Knife, we write the songs, we have to do arrangements and we do rehearsals for recording."

All that on top of writing their songs in English first, contrary to pop customs in Japan.

"I write them in English and then I translate them into Japanese," Yamano said. "That's why I think English is not only American language but it's also rock 'n' roll language.

"The style of language is totally different. We can put many meanings in one line if I use English, but it's very difficult to put many meanings for one line in Japanese."

BWF (before we forget): A selected Shonen Knife discography - "Burning Farm" (K Records, 1985); "Shonen Knife" (Gasatanka/Giant, 1989); "712" (Gasatanka/Rockville, 1991); "Let's Knife" (Virgin, 1993); "Rock Animals" (1994); "Birds and B-Sides" (1996); "Brand New Knife" (Big Deal, 1997).

Simon Says time to rock out

(May 16, 1999)

What's in the water in Sacramento?

It's home to Cake, Far, the Deftones and Oleander, to name a few, and now there's Simon Says. The young hard-rock quartet's Hollywood Records debut album, "Jump Start," was issued April 20.

"The scene in Sacramento, what's cool about it is there isn't a specific sound coming out," singer Matt Franks said recently. "It's not like grunge from Seattle or metal from Florida. All the bands coming out, they're a really eclectic collection.

"Obviously, we have some great musicians there and great bands, but I don't know why it's happening there all of a sudden, other than the fact that the talent's there. It's not like people are moving to Sacramento to start bands. It's just one of the new buzz towns."

Franks, guitarist Zac Diebels, bassist Michael Arrieta and drummer Mike Johnston impressed Hollywood after a pair of indie albums, "Little Boy" (1995) and "Perfect Example" (1997), did well on the West Coast.

"We've been together six years this month, since we were juniors in high school," Franks said. "We toured our asses off through the West Coast and we started to develop a regional following. Our name got out there. The turning point was working with our new manager. We recorded demos and he personally took them down and shopped to the labels and we ended up showcasing for 15 labels.

"The music's heavy and we've been criticized as being Ozzfest-like, but I don't really take that as a criticism. We have elements of the Deftones and all the heavy bands, but there's a melody in our music. That's what appealed to these labels, that while it is heavy and they can gain the respect of the hard-core audience, they can ride the fence and maybe go to radio at some point."

Simon Says has its hands full, juggling three tours at the same time - a headline tour, a series of ESPN-related dates and several high school appearances.

BWF (before we forget): Right said Simon Says on the Web @ www.hollywoodrecords.com.

Sister Hazel's on a mission of pop mercy

(Jan. 16, 1997)

The hardest-working band in Gainesville, Fla., isn't the University of Florida's marching band, fresh from its national championship gig at the Sugar Bowl. It's the entrepreneurial pop quintet Sister Hazel.

These guys are busy: They have a huge merchandise inventory, including 15 different band T-shirts and 11 hats, with logos designed by band members. They have a Sister Hazel hotline and run their own Web site. And they have a mailing list of 5,000 fans throughout the Southeast.

Oh, yeah, and they make music, too.

The group makes its major-label debut (on Universal) on Feb. 25 with the rerelease of its independent album " ... somewhere more familiar." The LP has been remixed and remastered, but it retains the band's unabashedly pop-rock sound.

"One of the things we realized from the onset," singer-guitarist Ken Block said recently, "you can't control everything, but the things you can control, you should. There are so many bands out there, so you really have to work hard at separating yourself. That's why we're into everything."

Like any fledgling band, Block and band mates guitarist Andrew Copeland, bassist Jeff Beres, drummer Mark Trojanowski and guitarist Ryan Newell had a tough early going, playing to sparse crowds. But as they became more visible in Gainesville and in other southern big-college towns, their following grew.

Their self-titled debut disc was a pleasant surprise, even to them, selling more than 9,000 copies.

"We made a demo tape simply to get gigs," Block said. "As we made these tapes, people would say, 'Hey, I'd like to have a copy.' Within two weeks, we had sold about a thousand tapes, so we decided to go ahead and press it up on CD."

Similar sales of "... somewhere more familiar," originally released on Autonomous Records, wasn't lost on Universal, which signed them to a deal.

"We knew the first record was literally a demo," Block said. "Our musicianship has come a long way since then. We did preproduction for a few weeks. We went in and broke down every song and said, 'Hey, what can we do to make this better?' We smoothed out the parts that may have been rough. We went in really prepared.

"On the remastered version, the songs haven't changed a lot structurally, but it's definitely sonically bigger and some of the parts have changed, only in a more tasteful, vintage way."

The band's name pays homage to Gainesville legend Sister Hazel, who runs a rescue mission for the homeless.

"When I was a kid, these commercials used to come on TV and they'd say Sister Hazel's Rescue Mission is having this or doing that," Block said, "and I remember one time I turned to my mom and said, 'That lady's helping out people she doesn't even know?' She said, 'Yeah,' and I thought that was the coolest thing ever."

When Block and the others formed the band, their songs of positivity and acceptance meshed with Sister Hazel's philosophy of "unconditional regard for all beings." Block tried for months to contact Sister Hazel to seek permission to use her name.

"When we had a release party for our first recording, it was in the paper," Block said, "and the next morning at 7, my roommate says, 'Ken, I think you're going to want to pick up the phone. It's Sister Hazel.' Immediately, I wanted to say, 'I thought you were dead,' but I stopped myself.

"I told her, 'I tried to find you.' She said she had been in Haiti and Belize running rescue missions and that she left Belize because there were too many snakes, so she had started a new mission in town."

Block agreed to meet Sister Hazel at a Shoney's restaurant the next day. She wanted to check him out.

"We met for about two hours and had a great time," he said. "She has a very powerful presence. Of course, some members of her congregation were like, 'They play rock 'n' roll and they play in bars.' But she told them she can take care of herself and was a good judge of character. She's been super-supportive from the beginning."

BWF (before we forget): "All For You" debuted at No. 26 on Billboard's pop chart in July 1997, peaked at No. 11 in October, while "... somewhere more familiar" cracked the Top 50 on the album chart and was certified gold. ... Check out Sister Hazel on the Web @ www.sisterhazel.com.

How Stella of Sister Soleil got her groove back

(Aug. 16, 1998)

Every artist has their lean years. Stella Katsoudas of the eclectic-pop group Sister Soleil remembers hers all too well.

At times, it was a struggle just to carry on in her native Chicago.

"I was slaving and living off food stamps for six years before I got a record deal," Katsoudas said recently. "I pushed myself through the kind of fatigue that makes people either want to commit suicide or just completely throw in the towel."

Then along came her heroes, Universal Records head Doug Morris and Peter Gabriel.

Morris signed Sister Soleil after hearing the group's self-released "Drown Me In You" EP. Katsoudas then was whisked off to London to record the group's debut album, "Soularium," with an ensemble of first-rate musicians at Gabriel's Real World Studios in Box, England. Gabriel gave her some priceless advice through the five-month sessions and even provided vocals on the track "Blind." The album was released July 14.

"It's music of the world, what's going on in the world," Katsoudas said of the amiable album. "In Chicago, I was schooled with the Wax Trax train of thought, very electronic music, but I'm also a big advocate and fan of pop and songwriting and Eastern influences and my Greek Orthodox roots, the sound of the religion musically. I like to bring people together, I like to break down barriers, just like Peter. I hate segregation in music; it's contradictory to what music is. Music has the capacity to make people feel human."

Katsoudas is Everyhuman, an artist with a conscience and a heart as big as Lake Michigan.

"To survive emotionally, I have to make music," she said, "and when that motivation's not good enough, I think about all the people I could affect in a positive way. There's so many kids out there that I could do things for that I wished someone had done for me when I was 15 years old.

"This is an opportunity to be extremely proactive, especially when it comes to anti-drugs. I visit with a lot of youth shelters and kids in detox and halfway houses and after-care programs. Those kids keep me going. Meeting with those kids and watching their struggle and the strength that they have, the honesty they have to have to recover from what they're suffering, it makes me go, 'If they can handle that, I can handle what I'm going through.'

"My goal is to open halfway houses when money and time permits it. I want to do a lot of lobbying for government funds for programs for kids trying to get off drugs. That's the big picture for me."

Katsoudas' heightened awareness dates back to age 15 when she joined the straight-edge movement, but she quit last year after the movement strayed from its initial tenets.

"Originally, that whole concept, that term 'straight edge' meant you didn't do drugs, you didn't drink and you didn't have promiscuous sex," she said. "It was all about respecting yourself. It was started because there was a band called Minor Threat, a punk band, and it was retaliation against all the assumptions that this person, Ian McKay, was caught up in drugs and alcohol and wild sex just because he was a punk musician and not getting the respect he deserved as a musician because he automatically got pegged for being a drug addict. He was the first straight-edge and wrote a song about it, and it caught on. There was this movement that came out of it.

"For a long time, that was my identity; it kept me from ever doing drugs or drinking. Basically, what often happens with movements, they just never stop changing; they never stay constant, it never stays what it was originally about. It gets militant, and that's when I bailed out. There was violence and other issues involved, like pro-life and veganism. They don't belong in the straight-edge movement.

"I'm not the kind of person that gets up on a soap box and says 'Don't do drugs,' because I think everything is a choice, and it should be an individual choice. Nobody has the right to tell somebody else what not to do. People are intelligent enough to make their own decisions."

That philosophy has suited Katsoudas well, especially when it came to recording "Soularium," a musical chameleon of textures and emotions.

"All I know is how happy I am with the album," Katsoudas said. "I did everything on this record that I intended on doing. It was an experiment, an idea I had years ago. It took me two years to develop the idea and to get on a label that would allow me to do it, that would believe in me enough to give me the freedom and the autonomy to put it together by myself without any interference.

"It was a real catharsis for me. So many good things came out of it, as far as me growing as a person. 'Soularium,' the title itself, that explains what I'm talking about, places where souls grow. I feel like I've grown so much as a person just doing this record. Even if nothing happened from this point now, I'm still a happy person."

BWF (before we forget): For more on Sister Soleil on the Web, visit www.katharsisrecords.com.

Sizing up Size 14

(Oct. 30, 1997)

Lead singer Linus makes no apologies; his band, Size 14, has a sense of humor and it's not afraid to use it.

"I think we're a little different and a little above being considered a novelty act," Linus said recently of the Hollywood, Calif.-based group's tongue-in-cheek obsession song "Claire Danes Poster." "We're more than just funny; we're honest, rather than pulling things out of the air and trying to make people laugh. It's also very melodic."

True enough, but reality is stranger (and funnier) than fiction on Size 14's self-titled debut Freeworld Recordings album. There's "Claire Danes Poster" - "I'm going to pick up some beer, stay at home and stare at my Claire Danes poster" - and "Formula Guy," "Sleeping in the Wet Spot," "People Get Really Drunk in Las Vegas" and "I Touched Her Ass." And it doesn't get any more comical than the album's closer, "Jimmy Whalen," an actual answering machine message from Linus' friend.

"It's totally for real," Linus said. "I love to listen to my answering machine, because he's just too damn funny. I thought that one would fit in with the rest of the record, mentioning all the elements of Hollywood, so it was perfect."

Also perfect was Size 14's collaboration with Daryl Dragon of The Captain & Tennille, who contributes his Moog synthesizer on five songs.

"The Captain is the hippest thing going," Linus said. "He's a pop legend. ... Anyway, he owns the studio where we recorded this and he came in to help set some keyboards. We started playing something and said, 'Why don't you play this part?' And he said okay. We didn't have the vocals down yet, so I don't think he really knew what we were singing about. He was on the 'Mark & Brian Show' the other day, and I called in and said, 'I can't believe you played on a song called 'I Touched Her Ass.' He didn't know what he was doing, but he was pretty cool."

Dragon even joined Size 14 - Linus, Kevin Danczak (guitar), Robt Ptak (bass) and Dave Armstrong (drums) - for a whole set Oct. 16 at the Dragonfly in Los Angeles.

BWF (before we forget): Try on Size 14 on the Web @ www.size14.com or send e-mail to Size4teen@aol.com.

Sebastian who? Skid Row rocks on

(April 16, 2000)

Skid Row bassist Rachel Bolan is in rock 'n' roll heaven. He and his band mates are opening for Kiss' farewell tour.

It's enough to take him back to his youth gone wild in New Jersey.

"I was a card-carrying member of the Kiss Army," Bolan said recently. "I had my 8-by-10s of each guy and the 8-by-10 group shot. I had the patch and everything. I'm sure I still have them. I even have the comic books. I also have all the solo albums by each guy that came out the same day, with the posters inside. A friend of mine's dad was a DJ and he got me a one-album thing where it had two songs from each solo record, it was just for a radio.

"I was telling (Kiss guitarist) Paul (Stanley) the other day - they were playing video clips when they were in the '70s - music's like a photograph in time, and you watch all this footage and it brings back the coolest memories. I tell them some stuff, how much they mean to me, but now that we know them better, I don't want to bombard them. They probably get it all day long. I mean, Gene (Simmons) knows he's the reason I picked up the bass. I've made that point clear."

As one era comes to a close, another has surprisingly continued.

Four years ago, Bolan and guitarists Snake Sabo and Scotti Hill fully expected it to be the end of the line for Skid Row after flamboyant lead singer Sebastian Bach and drummer Rob Affuso departed. It seemed the group's success - Top-10 hits "18 and Life" and "I Remember You"; an album ("Slave to the Grind") that debuted at No. 1; an American Music Award for favorite new artist, heavy metal/hard rock - were a thing of the past.

Bolan wondered if it was time to move on.

"Things were in such bad shape at the time," he said. "I always knew there'd be a Skid Row, but I didn't know in what capacity. Snake and I weren't ready to close the lid and put the dirt on top of the whole thing. We said, 'Let's do other stuff and see where it goes.' Then it came full circle, we decided to put the band back together and look for a singer."

After hiring Charlie Mills to replace Affuso, the band auditioned scores of singers. The very last one was Dallas native John Solinger.v "He was a friend of a friend," Bolan said. "My friend said, 'Check out this guy's Web site.' He had some audio and video stuff; I heard his voice and I called Snake and said, 'I think I just found our new lead singer.'

"When he came up for the audition, I was sold pretty much halfway into the first song. You always know when a person walks through a door that they have that X-factor to get onstage and for people to listen to what he's saying. You could just tell when he walked in. He sang his ass off.

"Then we let him stew down in Texas for like two weeks. We didn't call him; we wanted to see how bad he wanted it. I'd get a call about every three days from him, saying 'How's things going?' I'm like, 'Things are great. The weather's beautiful up here. Hey, I gotta go, I'll call you back.' Two weeks went by, and I called him. I said, 'I got bad news, and I got good news.' He said, 'What's the bad news?' I said, 'Dallas ain't gonna make it to the Super Bowl.' 'What's the good news?' 'You've got 20 songs to learn in a week.' I sent him the set list; within that week, we got the Kiss tour, and I called him back and said, 'The pressure just went up tenfold.' He said, 'Why?' I said, 'We're going out on tour with Kiss and (Ted) Nugent.' He was freaking out."

The rejuvenated Skid Row had less than two weeks to prepare for the massive Kiss farewell tour, but Bolan says they have never shied away from a challenge.

"This is like a brand new beginning for us," he said. "It's fun again to the point where we all actually eat dinner at the same restaurant. Everything's new, and we get along great. We hang out with each other, we talk to each other constantly when we're home.

"The addition of Johnny and Charlie, it's really done the band a lot of good. It's given us this new fuel. And now that we're on the Kiss tour, it feels like a torch is being passed. My manager said that to me last night; he goes, 'Look at this as the passing of a torch.' I'm like, 'I have no problem with that.' "

The true test is how fans react to the new faces in Skid Row. Bolan says he sees how quickly Solinger wins them over every night.

"In the Lubbock Times, I think, after we played Lubbock, they had put the tour on the front page," Bolan said. "They said there was a nostalgic feel to Kiss and Ted Nugent, but Skid Row still had raw energy that gave them the edge back in the '80s. That was a really good thing to hear because we do; we feel like a brand new band out of the box going out doing what we love to do. When that's translated to people who are watching us, that psyches us up.

"You still have your small percentage of naysayers who want to see us fall flat on our asses, but that ain't gonna happen. It's their choice if they want to come along for the ride or not. We hope they do."

After the end of the tour, Skid Row expects to go into the studio for the first time since the 1995 album "Subhuman Race."

"Fans can expect that we'll have pretty much the same mindset we've always had," Bolan said. "We write songs that get us off, because we know it'll get the Skid Row fan off. It's going to be non-thinking rock 'n' roll, like we used to do. You're not supposed to think when you're listening to rock 'n' roll; it's supposed to be fun. Big dumb rock is back. That's what we're all about. Low IQ, high RPM."

THE FIRST RECORD I EVER BOUGHT: "Rolling Stones' 'Sticky Fingers' on 8-track. I'm the fourth out of four kids and there was always music in the house. Obviously my brother was a big Rolling Stones fan so he took me to a record store and I ended up with 'Sticky Fingers.' I was probably 5 or 6. When I heard 'Bitch,' I thought I was going to get punished. I'm like, 'Oh, my god, he keeps saying bitch. I better turn that song down.' "

THE FIRST CONCERT I EVER WENT TO: "Kiss. It was Dec. 22, 1978; Kiss with Piper, Billy Squier's old band opening at the Philadelphia Spectrum. It was general admission. I went with a friend of mine and convinced my big sister to take us. It was freezing out. I remember my sister not being happy at all about the whole thing, then she came out of the show and she was a Kiss fan. I remember it like it was yesterday."

THE LAST CD I BOUGHT: "Just the other day, I bought Blink-182's 'Enema of the State.' I like them a lot. As far as the so-called new punk movement, Green Day and Blink-182 are the definitive standouts."

BWF (before we forget): Skid Row's a slave to the grind on the Web @ www.atlantic-records.com. ... The Skid Row album discography - "Skid Row" (Atlantic, 1989); "Slave to the Grind" (1991); "B-Side Ourselves" (1992); "Subhuman Race" (1995); "40 Seasons - The Best of Skid Row" (1998).

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