I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE NEW RECORD, HIGH WATER, BUT FIRST, JUNKYARD IS ON ACETATE RECORDS NOW, HOW DID YOU GET HOOKED UP WITH THEM?
We actually were talking to somebody who was starting a label a couple of years prior, but that didn’t pan out. So we had some songs that we were writing anyway in hopes to get some attention and to be able to put a record out. Rick Ballard from Acetate came to one of our shows and he already had some guys on his roster that were of our ilk like The Hangmen and Supersuckers, hard-to-categorize kinds of bands. It’s all rock and roll to me, but people like to put labels on bands. Junkyard, The Hangmen, Supersuckers, Rhino Bucket, they’re a little more difficult to slap a label on. You can’t call it Hair Metal or 90’s metal or anything like that, it’s just rock and roll. And Acetate understands that.
THERE IS A LOT OF POSITIVE REACTION TO THIS RECORD, HIGH WATER. IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU GUYS NEVER WENT AWAY. TO ME IT’S MORE LIKE SIXES, SEVENS AND NINES, I WOULD SAY, THAN THE FIRST RECORD. IT’S GOT A LOT OF GRITTY, BLUESY STUFF. HOW DID THE WRITING GO FOR THIS RECORD, DID IT TAKE PLACE OVER THE LONG PERIOD OF TIME BETWEEN YOUR SECOND RECORD AND THIS ONE?
Yeah, a couple of songs, like “The River” and “Styrofoam Cup” and “Wallet”, were things that I had written over the years that I just had in my notebook waiting for something to happen. And then, probably 70% of the record we made over the last two years. We started with a riff, an idea, a melody. There’s no pressure from the record company because we didn’t have a record deal. We wanted to have some material ready to go if and when that situation arose.
SO YOU WERE PLANNING TO MAKE A RECORD AFTER YOU HAD ALL THAT TIME SINCE SIXES, SEVENS AND NINES?
At that time, like I said, there was a guy that was flirting with the idea of putting an album out and he was going to get transferred to New York and have his own department and he wanted us to be the first band that he signed. Well, it all sounds great until reality sets in and he didn’t have as much power as he thought and he wasn’t able to do everything he thought so we ended up not getting a deal, but having all these songs written. So it was fortuitous in that regard.
THE SONG “TILL THE WHEELS FALL OFF” WAS CO-WRITTEN WITH CHARLIE STARR OF BLACKBERRY SMOKE?
Yeah, he wrote the words and he had the riff and them Tim Mosher kind of orchestrated it and made a song out of it, put a couple of parts in to make more sense out of it.
HOW DID YOU END UP COLLABORATING WITH CHARLIE STARR, DID YOU KNOW HIM BEFORE?
I didn’t know him from Adam. Brian Baker, he…I guess those guys in Blackberry Smoke were fans of Junkyard back when they were kids. We’re a few years older than them and they’re from the South and have some of the similar influences that we have. So Brian and Charlie were talking and Charlie said “I’ve got a song that might work great for you guys and we said “Sure.” And they have recorded the song for their new album. I haven’t heard it yet.
I WANT TO TOUCH ON SOMETHING YOU SAID EARLIER. YOU SAID YOURSELF THAT JUNKYARD IS HARD TO DEFINE…
Well, it’s easy for me to define, it’s fucking rock and roll.
EXACTLY. I’M WITH YOU. BUT THERE CAN BE GOOD AND BAD WITH LABELING. I THINK YOU GUYS GOT A LOT OF PLAY WITH THE SO-CALLED “HAIR METAL” CROWD AND YET YOU DON’T HAVE TO WAIT FOR THAT TO COME BACK IN STYLE AND BE COOL AGAIN BECAUSE YOU GUYS HAVE SOMETHING THAT’S PRETTY UNIQUE.
Well, I think our look and sound didn’t define us to a certain period. We’re lucky that way, we didn’t pigeonhole ourselves too much by surrounding our music and our ideology with material that was specific to, like, LA, the 1980’s, hot chicks and fast cars.
SO, WOULD YOU SAY IT WAS GOOD OR BAD FOR JUNKYARD TO BE THROWN IN WITH THAT TYPE OF LABELING?
It’s bad in the respect that people hear some of the more poppy stuff like “All the Time in the World” and they say “oh, they’re this kind of band” and then when they get us in person they’re like “Oh My God.” And then there are guys that are more into the punk and the harder stuff see us and expect something harder and we’re a little more melodic. So we’re not over-the-top hard enough for the hardcore metal people and we’re not punk enough for the punks and we’re not country enough for the country people. We’re just floating around somewhere in the middle. If people could just leave the labels aside and call it rock and roll the world would be a beautiful, peaceful place. [Laughs]
I THINK OF THE 1980’s THIS WAY: THERE WAS DEFINITELY ALL THE MAKE-UP AND HAIRSPRAY AND FLASHY OUTFITS, BUT AS THE DECADE WORE ON, AND I THINK GUNS N ROSES PROBABLY HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THIS, MOTLEY CRUE COMES OUT WITH JEANS AND LEATHER ON GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS. POISON HAS A RECORD WHERE THEY’RE PLAYING MORE BLUESY AND THEY’RE WEARING JEANS AND LEATHER. WHEN PEOPLE SAY “THE 80’s” THEY PUT IT ALL IN THE GLAM, FLASHY, POPPY CATEGORY. IT WAS THAT WAY FOR A WHILE, BUT I THOUGHT LATER ON, RIGHT UP UNTIL THE EARLY 90’s, I REMEMBER IT TURNING FOR THE BETTER. WE WEREN’T GETTING THE METAL-ANTHEM TYPE SONGS LATER ON. IT WAS COOL TO PLAY GRITTY, BLUESY HARD ROCK. AGREE OR DISAGREE? I THINK IT IS UNFAIR THAT PEOPLE SAY “THE 80’s” AND THAT MEANS “THIS.” I THINK THERE WAS A LOT OF GOOD SONG WRITING AND PLAYING.
Well, there was. It was an interesting time because after Guns N Roses got signed there were 400 other bands that quickly followed suit so the labels were not looking so much for content as they were for a look. And they were looking for the next Guns N Roses or the next Warrant or the next Poison and Guns N Roses is the grittiest and the dirtiest of that lot. So when they broke through the ceiling I think the Poisons and the Mötley Crües wanted to get a little more “street” and toughen up their image a little bit.
JUNKYARD, LIKE YOU SAID BEFORE, YOU GUYS HAD VIDEOS OUT THERE BUT THEN TO SEE YOU LIVE, YOU WERE DIFFERENT THAN THAT IMAGE.
We had to kind of….you had to have some sort of cohesiveness to the band. A look, of some kind. And we weren’t pretty enough to be a pretty-boy band. So we just had T-shirts and jeans and, you know, spiff it up with a vest or something and that’s as fancy as we got.
AFTER TONIGHT’S SHOW YOU GUYS ARE GOING ON THE MONSTERS OF ROCK CRUISE. HAS JUNKYARD DONE THAT BEFORE?
No, we haven’t.
I HEAR THAT THING IS JUST THE GREATEST PARTY EVER.
That’s what I hear too, and a lot of the bands that are playing on it have played multiple times so, hopefully, being fresh meat there we’ll get some people excited. We did something about a year ago where we got to play at the M3 Festival where we got an opportunity to play for people that are into the 80’s hair metal but never got a chance to see us back then but they see us now and they say “wow, these guys are kinda different.”
THE ONLY TIME I HAVE SEEN JUNKYARD LIVE BEFORE TONIGHT WAS AT CATHOUSE LIVE IN IRVINE, CA. YOU PLAYED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY AND IT WAS BLAZING HOT, WHAT WAS THAT LIKE?
Oh, yeah, I think it was like 120 degrees onstage. I thought I was going to die.
YOU JUST HAVE A FEW DATES LISTED AT THIS POINT, ARE YOU GOING TO DO MORE TOURING BEHIND THIS RECORD THIS YEAR?
Let’s see, what are we doing? We’re doing the Monsters of Rock then we’re doing 80’s In The Park that got postponed because of Hurricane Irma. We’re doing Atlanta and we’re doing the Viper Room in LA. We’re going to New York and doing shows with Circus of Power. New York, Philly. We’re doing something in proximity of M3 called Sleazy Sunday. We didn’t get invited back to M3 this year and we thought we would because we did really well last year. So some promoter got an idea to throw something together in the vicinity so we could pull some of that crowd.
Things are being booked and I think the Monsters of Rock is going to give us a lot of exposure, a lot of opportunities to start filling in the rest of the year. So we have kind of a fast, loose plan for what we want to do for the rest of the year and we’re going to wait and see where things fall into place. We’re going to go fishing on the Monsters of Rock cruise, no pun intended.
ARE YOU GOING TO DO ANY MORE RECORDING OR ARE YOU JUST TOURING BEHIND HIGH WATER?
For now. I mean, 26 years between records. I think we can ride this one for another six or eight months. But we’re always…Tim’s always, if he’s got a lick in his head he’ll write it down. If I’ve got a line in my head I’ll write it down. I’ve got a notebook full of ideas.
I READ THAT AFTER THE BAND BROKE UP IN THE 90’s THAT YOU, AT ONE POINT, WERE IN A HOMELESS SHELTER.
I was in Salvation Army for about three months. Not in the 90’s, about five or six years ago. The last 10 years or so I had some ups and downs, like everybody else. Maybe mine are a little more exaggerated and extreme but it’s part of life. You said we haven’t changed much from the album we did 26 years ago till today, but we haven’t been playing consistently. So we didn’t have that consistency.
First of all, we still like each other. We can still write and stay in the band without trying to kill each other. We didn’t go through different phases like “this isn’t working, let’s try a new sound, maybe we can be more alternative. Maybe we can be more this, more that.”
Naahh. You know, there was something different about us from the beginning. Why change the recipe now? Go with what you know. Money hasn’t spoiled us yet. There’s always a silver lining to having that much time off and still be living life for real. It’s not like we made a ton of money and I’m living off of royalties and I’ve been out of touch with what’s really been going on. The best of times, the worst of times.
HOW MUCH OF HIGH WATER ARE WE GOING TO HEAR TONIGHT?
Five songs. Probably, from the three albums we released a third of each. Four or five of the best songs on the three albums, depending on your opinion. [laughs]
IS ANYTHING GOING TO BE RELEASED FROM THE DEMOS YOU DID AFTER YOU LEFT GEFFEN?
We had 30-35 songs in anticipation of a third record and then Nirvana hit and everybody with hair past their shoulders got dropped. Our old guitar player, Chris Gates, released that by himself and he released EVERYTHING we did which was kinda…not cool, because it was literally scratch vocals and uncompleted songs. But there’s talk about condensing that and taking some of the best stuff from those and doing like a 10-song thing. It’s not written in stone.
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