Paul Dean

what it was like back back in eighty two. It was one dot per inch kind of definition of pretty low. And I somehow got hold of the film. There was something like fifteen cans of film, and I can't remember how I got them. And I carried them around and I lived in I lived in Calgary, and I lived it, I lived everywhere, and I carried these things around with me. Moved four or five houses. And what am I carrying?

These big can It was like three big cans, like massive cans with all these little guys inside I don't even think I looked inside them all. I thought I had three majrou you know, two inch. I didn't know what was in them. So anyway, I opened them up and I went, oh, that's cool. And I didn't really know what to do with it, but you know, I was keeping kept getting these messages on Facebook going, how come you guys don't have a you never released a live DVD or and I it was just that was

a great idea. I don't know why. So I took the film out and I found a place here in Vancouver and they transferred it. It took me two or three places to find the right place, and they took it and they transferred it. This is to It was

sixteen milimeter film to digital, and that was great. And the beauty of it was we recorded twenty four track at the same time and for the original recording, so and somehow I had that tape too, and I had that transferred to digital when I was in Calgary, not knowing what I was going to do it along with my other two hundred and thirty two inch tapes from the Lover, but I had the whole archive that I once again carried it around with these three tape cans from town to town, and so yeah, I found a

studio they gave me a great rate in Calgary and we bounced it or recorded it on the digital. So I had forty years of music, including fairly relative you know, the last what do you call it? The analog recordings I did on two track or two inches, and that was what year would I don't know, eighty something. So I had all those and I put them on one hard drive. So from two hundred and thirty tapes to one little hard drive. It's like insane and super high

deft as well. So I had that and I just had this idea says, you know, this is let me see what it looks like. I didn't even I had no idea what ook. I knew what was on it because I'd seen it before. Obviously it was I've seen the laser disc and it's pretty low deaf, and of course there was on It's still on YouTube and it's super low deaf. So I figured, let me see what I can do with this, and so I got brought it all home. I learned how to edit it. And the kicker was, there was no this is getting a

little high tech stuff. But there was no timecode on any of the songs, so I had to read Reno's lips to find out even what song we were in little you know, and then what section? And okay, there's a solo? What am I playing? What song is this? And there's Matt doing this amazing drum fill and I think that might be you know, it's your life or something. So that was a real that was a big job. It was during the pandemic, so by nothing but time anyway, So that was cool, but it was it was a

real mind burner. You know. I'd work on it for like twenty minutes at a time and I'd just get I'd get brainedd for it after twenty minutes agoing, Okay, what song is this? Where's it going? Nudget a little bit, get it in time with it with the try and it's a little bit slower. Now I got to just move it a little bit. And it was, it was, it was. It was a great learning experience, but man, it was a it was a brain frier. But it took me a long time to do it. It took me.

I don't know how many hours I put in it. But once again, like I said, I was the pandemic and I wasn't playing live, and I wasn't seeing any of my friends. We're homebound, house bound for like whatever. It was two years unreal. So I learned how to edit it in Da vinci uh and I uh also learned how to do a surround sound mix with in logic, So it was like a I was self taught. I

went back. I went back to school for a couple of years and learned all this high tech stuff how to do it, and I finally got it to where I thought it worked well. I got all the edits and give everybody in the band equal time as much as I could and uh uh. Then I found a couple of places here in town in Vancouver, one that that, like as I say, did the transfer. And then I took it to this studio and they did a thing

what they call color correction. They make the blacks black instead of gray, and the reds like everything really bright and and uh vibrants. So they did that and uh the same place they did the h I gave him

my what they call stamps. I gave him the six stamps, two surround tracks and the left right and then the center for Reno and me singing, and and then the sub for the kick drum, a little bit of bass, a little bit of synthesizer, and they they took all that, all the elements, all the the place called it is called the elemental Posts. It's a funny thing to be coincidentally called that. So I took all the elements there, and they put it together and gave me a reference.

Try a reference. Blu Ray finally had a blue ray, not just a DVD, but a blue ray, so full Death, and I just thought it was time to do it, and that we shopped it around and ear music out of Germany loves it. Then we're putting it out in June.

they don't want it to interfere with the dialogue. So I figured, let me see if anybody's interested, and and it plus, it's for our fans. It's all lover boys playing on it. The only one who's not on it, ironically is Reno, and he's totally he's done with it. He's totally cool with it. With their concept and some that's that's in the works. That's been in the works

for a while. I started recording it on the road last summer with Foreigner in my hotel room and I once again, it's took a lot of those tracks off that one hard drive from from a lot from our archives from way back. There's two or three tracks with Scott Smith playing bass on it, and uh so I'm doing that and I have a I have another band that I that.

friends play it and everybody has fun. And this you know, it comes with three hundred pieces of men and and maps and a rule book like like like the Bible. And he's basically he's written the rule book. And I'm you know, supporting them. And I'm saying, come on, if this, if these guys can put this box out, I look, I tell him. He says, you know, I started as a as a guitar player, but I started as a songwriter. I didn't have anything. I didn't know what I was doing.

I just started doing it. Eventually I figured it out, and this is a really good start. I said, I support this creative thing because either or do you know you want to work a Best Buy again? And no, Dad, So that's what he's doing.

And then in other words, if you make I won't throw any figures out, but whatever you make, if you multiply that times twenty or fifteen or whatever, that's the size of your check, and then you give a big chunk of that to the government, then well you do

that anyway, that's no big deal. But in twenty years from now, when my son is, you know, still going he's going to you're twenty one, he's still going to be making the same amount of money tax wise, it's a little different, but there's still going to be an income coming from that. So that's that's kind of how I look at it.

marriage and everything. That means you're on the road for more than half the year. And if it's if it's in the States, then then immigration doesn't smile too kindly if you're If you're more than half a year in the US, there it's not a good thing.

make sure it's different every night. For me, it's different every night, even though we play basically the same songs forever, you know, but there's little things and different different crowds and different mixes, and but I try to play it slightly different every day. There's certain things that you don't want to mess with, you know, don down down, down down down. You don't you know, you got to play the theme. But the rest of it it's pretty much open, open season, you know.

brand new jazz Master. I was. I was raised in the in the in the mountains of British Columbia, and we used to go into Calgary twice a year and one of those times I went, I was looking for a strat like the I wanted to get a salmon

colored strat like the Shadows played. At the time. I was ah still ambit was a huge Shadows fan, but they didn't have any so they had a jazz Matter which was kind of a Ventures guitar, and I was a big fan of the Adventures too, so I brought bought that guitar with my I the way I got paid working for my parents at this twenty two acre resort that they bought for forty thousand dollars in nineteen fifty three on the on the lake front, if you can imagine that forty grand but anyway, and we had

we had sixteen cabins and a campground and my job was to deliver They all had wood stove, so my job was to deliver paper and kindling and a little bit of wood and take the garbage out every day. That would be the thing. And I had this cart that I would carry around shard, I should say. And the and the way I got paid was I would collect all the beer bottles. And my dad said, you can

have all the money from the beer bottles. And so I was making, you know, through four hundred dollars a summer, just a kid, a kid, A seventeen year old kid, sixteen year old kid, you know, uh, throw out of money back then. Plus I was living at home or whatever. And I remember I brought that I had the jazz Master. Man I wanted to figure out how it worked, so I took it all apart complete.

she was freaking, what have you done. You've taken this five hundred and forty dollars guitar and you're completely apart? Are you insane? Well? And then I, I was working in an industrial arts and I painted it. I repainted it, I painted it. I don't know. I painted a baby blue to start with, and I went and I put it back together. I went, oh, that sucks. And then I painted it red and I went, yeah, that's the that's that's me, that's a that's a good good color

for me. So and that I had that guitar for for a long time.

for the weekend. He would be out selling this Johnson's wax and he would come home every weekend and he went Eventually, I guess we're speaking to continuing the marriage thing. I don't know whether my mom and he had a serious talk and my mom took him to task and say, look, look, pal, it's either you start staying home with the family or we're out of here. I really doubt it, but who knows. But they had this discussion unbeknownst to me, but they must have had it because we stayed at this resort.

We had two weeks. So we stayed at this resort in I think in fifty two and fifty three, and then I guess it was in fifty four. Maybe I can't remember. It was fifty three or fifty four that they said, let's see if this place is for sale where we always stayed these cabins. Let me let's see if we can if the guys would sell it, and they the guy says forty K and my dad somehow raised the down payment and made pay You know, I

what did I know. I was just a kid. I wasn't tuned into that stuff at all, So I just I had my daily chores of delivering kindling.

my fourteenth birthday. I missed the Boss because on my fourteenth birthday was my parents gave me an acoustic guitar, and I'm probably, I'm sure I missed the Boss that day. I was over the moon on this finally got a guitar. And Okay, well, let's let's stay on that topic. So was there music in the house. When did you become enamored of music?

But before that, I was just playing the records like the aforementioned Shadows and Ventures and Johnny the Hurricanes.

slower than that. But that's that's how where I started playing, and and then I then then on one of those trips to Calgary, I would I hit one of the music stores and I discovered the Ventures and the Shadows and the what was that other band? Oh man, it'll come to me there was an another band from I think sata Fe someplace. Anyway, it'll it'll spring into spring to mind, hopefully. And I just learned learned all those twos. I learned all the parts. I had a set of

drums set up. I learned how to how to play drums. Much to my parents' chagrin. They moved me out out of the house into the shed in the back. But at least I got the Actually I ended up playing one gig on drums. I only had one gig on drums as a drummer when I moved to Vancouver years later. But so I you know, I dissected these instrumental albums. There are two guitars, bass and drums, all of them, and maybe they one of them would have a sax, and one of them and they might have an organ.

But mainly my favorite get our favorite, I should say, bands two guitarist, bas and drums. And of course the Beatles said the same thing, and I learned the Beatles songs.

the twist or something like that. It's we're talking the Chubby Checker era. And uh so I played bass and I think I played sacks in one track on one cut too one one song, and that was that was And then then then we rebelled that the drummer was his son, and he we rebelled. We got we hired another guitar, got a whole of another guitar player, so we had two guitars and drums, and we started another band called the Twilighters because we wanted to do something

a little more current. Back in Chicks Kunter Gentlemen, we were playing red sales in the sun set that sleepy time. But we wanted a rock out, so we we got the two guitars and drums.

remember where it was a saw cop at noon. We'd have them every Thursday or every Friday in the gym for an hour and at noon. And so I remember, I can't remember what tune it was, but I remember playing the Beatles and I couldn't believe it. You know, you know how the Beatles would be playing along you you you'd be watching a video today, you watch a video and they'd be playing a long and then this this tension would build up with the girls and it would build and build and building. Then it was the

explode into a scream. Everybody would scream at the same time, and then I would kind of die die down on it. Then it would slowly build up again. So three or four times during the tune, whether it was Paul McCartney doing the high falsetto scream or or they can imagine, well I don't. I don't even know if they must have been on Ed Sullivan, so maybe they imagine it was Ringo shaking his head in this part. But so

I'm playing the record and there's no other reference. It's not live, there's no video to go by, and the tension is building, and I swear to god, all the girls screaming at the same time. I want what is going on here? And it's just just an observation. I just it was just blew me away. The psychology, I guess of it. How that can how how does that happen? You know?

it Frost week. So the big big community, the big hall at the UBC, and I'm there and uh, there's a band play and then they're you know, there are me band And I have no idea what rhythm and blues is. I don't have a clue about that. I'm a surf guy. I've been playing surf for three four years something like that. And uh, and I knew the sax player. He was a friend of the family of Brian Tansley, and he, you know, we started talking to me.

He said, he says, you know, I play guitar. Now he says, really, he says, we're actually looking for a guitar player or this guitar player. Our guitar players quitting next week. Would you want to check it out? So I joined that band, the band with the three Bryan's and and me and me and the drummer, and did that end try to figure out what R and B was, what that groove was, and how to play rhythm guitar.

I didn't really have a clue. I was into playing lead, you know, and just soul look, but I didn't know how to play a hold on a rhythm. But I figured it out, you know, and they were really patient with me. And we did that for a while, and then we got a singer, Kenny Steele, so we were called Kenny Steele and the Chantells. Jamaican guy. He funny, hilarious guy and a great He was a James Brown fan and he would do all James Brown steps and the splits and I'm sure he split his fans more

than once doing that on stage. And we were part of the R and B scene in Vancouver. There was probably eight of us or something eight of these bands, and we'd do the circuit. We'd play, we'd play at the UBC, at the frats and those were a blast. You'd get just ship faced at those. There was a lot of fun and and we played we played the arenas, uh with multi band things. I promoted one when I

was in with Candy Steel. I promoted it Kendy Soon I promoted it and we hired the other bands and we hired a hall and it's called Land of a Thousand Dances or something after the after the Wilson Pickett song. I can't remember what what they what they gig was called, but it caught on, and I think we might have even got a bet of radio radio stuff. And we hired it. Like I said, we hired this hall and we there was like four or five R and B bands,

and we probably I'm pretty sure we headlined it. I mean, why wouldn't we. We took a big chance. But and it worked out great. Yeah, So that was that was a fun thing to do. I've ember doing that.

about it's a really long time ago. But so I I did that, but it wasn't it wasn't happening. I my heart wasn't it. I just wanted to play music. And from there I went to UH. I went to b C i T, and I was I wanted to get into I wanted to get into into it's a British Columbia Institute Technology. I wanted to be a cameraman, like in a TV studio. That's kind of what I thought would be a really cool, cool show, cool gig dab.

But I couldn't. I couldn't get into b C I T because my marks weren't good enough in high school. I guess that's yeah. That was after after UBC, so I enrolled in a night class. Of the task was create a campaign to sell craft peanut butter and jel jam. So that was you know, me and my three partners. We came up with this this this I don't know thing to do, not a great story.

the Chantellas, there was. It was a splinter group from that, and I was playing. I got a gig playing six nights a week in a club in Vancouver, well Ken Harry's. We had a we had a trio, guitar, bass and drums, really great band. And I was doing that every night. And then I was driving home, uh, staying with my aunt uncles, and that was like a half hour drive or whatever. Get into bed at three, up at six.

You know how long that lasted. So I fell asleep in the cab and then the guy they fired me right there on the spot and I'm you're useless, get out here. That was my last gig. I went, you know what, I'm just gonna I'll be okay, I'm just going to play this, play these six nights a week, having a blast loving it. What do I want to have a street gig for? Okay, So what's the next band?

Well I got I got a job playing bass again in a in a band called Glasshouse, and we were playing the what was the name of it, I can't remember the name of the club, and six nights a week we had. There's no shortage of work in Vancouver at the time. There were so many clubs playing six nights a week, three sets. It was fantastic never you know,

and then Sunday off and then back at it. And so this this trio that I had it, uh, I don't really I can't remember the timeline if if the trio was before it, or I suspect it was probably after. But anyway, I had this gig, and now it's coming to me. I had this gig with the drummer and

I was playing bass with the guitar player. There's probably a key opener or something, and the guitar player wanted to go on holidays, so we went on holidays per week and I moved over to guitar and somebody else played bass and the guitar player came back, and unfortunately he didn't have a gig anymore, and it was his gig. So I feel a little bit bad about that, but

that's kind of how it works, you know. And I hooked up with the drummer, and so the drummer and I we moved from from that club to All Kind Harry's and we were we had a band called Fat Soul, and we had two big guys sitting up singing out front, and so we call ourselves Fat Soul. And then that didn't work out for whatever reason. I think one of the guys maybe went to jail and got deported or something, and so it's kind of it's a little bit gray

for me in that how that all came about. But suffice to say that, and this is going to lead me up to my original co about that other band. So we we were building back, the drummer and I were playing together, and then I guess for somehow Brian

Newcomb came onto the scene. He was the bass player and we had a different keyboard player, and then that keyboard player went away and we got we got this dude from Tacoma, Clyde Harvey, playing keyboards and singing, and all of a sudden we were doing we were really doing it. We started doing all original tunes we do. We did a couple of covers. We did a really cool combination of of day Tripper into Lickingstick James Brown song, and we did a we did a cover of sing

a simple song. But we had an albums with the stuff, so we rehearsed it and we ended up got together Maca. We ended up we toured across Canada. We played in calg We opened for Steppenwolf and we and we opened for the Get Sue, who were humongous at the time, and UH in Edmonton and UH we played the what's called the Festival Express in Calgary with Janis Joppelin and Grateful Dad. That was unreal, and then UH we we

moved to Toronto and we started playing around there. We had I was in charge of accommodations, so somehow I had a knack for finding houses that were either free or two hundred bucks a month or three hundred bucks a month. And we're there's five guys in the band. We had two ladies living with our manager Lou Blair, so we had to it had to be a pretty big house. But I found I found a condemned house that we all lived in. It was in Toronto, and uh so we're you know, we used to practice. We

set up in there and we'd played. We had a few gigs. We then one time we got a gig in in Ottawa. It was it was playing at the at the university there, and so we went up there. It was two nights, so we went up there and stayed overnight and did the two nights and we came back to our house that was free. And the reason it was free was because there was no plumbing, but

it had electricity for some reason. So we had a hot we had a hot plate, and we had a milk cooler you know where they put the big jugs and milk in for in a restaurant. That was our fridge. I don't know how we got that. And there was a this is pretty yeah, this this is really down. But yeah, I mean we were, we were. We didn't care. We really had no pride. We didn't care. And the only running water was at the gas station on the corner.

And we used to go down there every morning a night or whatever and get our get our water for our our coffee and stuff and so, and we would we would practice in there, and we would jam. We would jam for hours. And so we finally got this gig up and up and in Ottawa and Carl to the university. So we're up there and we come back and our house free house that we're not paying any rents, so we have absolutely no claim to has been taken over by four or five speed dealers and fetamine dealers.

And I was a little freaky if they'd taken all our stuff and moved it into one of the bedrooms and set up their their place. And Lou Blair, if if anybody knows Lou Blair, Lou is a wass his bless his heart. He's a big guy. He's like six three and he's a big guy and you don't mess

with Lou and a real he could bust balls. So anyway, I just remember him taking a mic stand, because we had everything in our in our van, taking a mic stand into the into the house, and that kind of solved the problem for us and we were able to move back in the house again. So and of course the irony is that we ended up driving these guys to their next house. They found another dilapidated place where

they could take over. So we ended up driving them and their gear back and then we were back in our free house.

that's that's going to come out shortly. So from there I joined a band called Scrubble Okaine and it was in that band for three years and we played Toronto in Winnipeg and that and also recorded an album for the same company RCA, which became Sony, And from that I then I moved to Then that band sort of fell apart, and then I met Matt for Nat Loveboy drummer. He's playing in a band called Great Canadian River Race

in Edmonton. And I had no no gigs. I was I was phoning all the agents around Canada wondering if any if they knew anybody that was looking for a guitar player, and they they said, the Great Canadian River it is is looking for guitar players. So I went and auditioned them as they auditioned me, and uh it was. The music was a bit of a stretch. There was a couple of the originals and was Stevie Wonder, which I'd never done to Steely Dan, which I'd never played

that kind of a little more jazzy. But I was up for the challenge. But the main thing is I wanted to play with Matt, because Matt. When I played with Matt, it was like an automatic thing. It was we locked into the groove, no question, like no other drummer I'd never played with. So I went, well, you know, let's see where it goes. So we rolled that for a couple of years and then I got a call late night from the Streetheart Guys and Matt and I joined that band for I guess a couple of years.

So I was fired from that band, but I was still working with Lou Blair, the manager. He was he was a huge support of me all through my whole career and he had this nightclub called the Refinery Club in Calgary, and behind it was a body an old body shop was It wasn't a body shopping, but it was a shell of a body shop. And he said, I was working on a solo album at the time. To be honest, I had been fed up with working the lead singers and have him quit or fire me

or do something, you know. So I said, you know what, I'm going to beat the singer hell with it. So I started working on tunes and singing them and doing demos for them. I got a hold of a four track in this warehouse, and then I got I had this gig once again, a bass player working for the

a CDC cover band. And we were rehearsing one night in this warehouse in the monkst you know, in between me working on my own stuff, and Mike Reno came by and he used to work with the guitar player and yeah, because he just left his band Moxie in Toronto, just just right right then, so he was he was at odds and so was I. We didn't have anything going on really, so he would he and uh. Then the guitar player were in the in the second room.

They were jamming, and I heard Mike sing and I said to myself, you know, this guy has got an amazing voice. Wow. I was like, he blew me away. It's kind of like when I played with Matt. It was like an automatic. This is amazing, This is like, this is where I'm at. And I heard him sing and I approached him and I says, you know, blah blah blah, you're what an amazing singer. We shouldn't you want to get together and see if we can you know, do something. He says, yeah, sir, he says, I'll come

back tomorrow. So he came back tomorrow the next day, I should say, and we wrote two songs together on the first night, and that was That was the beginning of That was it. It's never never turned back and never looked back.

going to take me over the dog. And I typically I would give a band three years to arvich like the time, and if it didn't happen for whatever reason, because there's conflicts or we just couldn't get up, people didn't like it enough, they weren't really responding to it, or you know, and I would move on. And uh, and I was I guess I was probably thinking the same thing with working with Mike. We'll give it see

where it goes. And we we just we started playing together and we auditioning drummers, and uh, Doug Johnson was already I'd already done some of those demos before I met Mike. He and I Doug Johnson, the loved Boy keyboard player. He and I did some demos together, so I knew Doug and it was the same thing. Doug was it is It wasn't is the most amazing creator.

It's so creative and a great technician and great sounds and really good player, so you know, and then we we auditioned Mike and I. We auditioned a bunch of bass players, a bunch of drummers, and finally, just you know, Matt left Streetheart after I got the boot from it. He stayed around for a year, a year or two, and I guess he finally got disillusioned. Then he moved back to Vancouver, where he was from and where Mike

and I and Doug had moved to. We moved to be near Bruce Allen, who I think you might know who. He is pretty famous dude manager Michael Buble and Exit Bran Adams, and he was managing us, so we wanted to be near him, so we moved.

But Lou in his wish and said, you know, I got a lot of connections, but I don't have Bruce Allen's connections. I want to bring Bruce Allen in on this and co manage you guys. If you're cool with that, well, I don't know. You're the manager, dude, You need you think you should do?

drummer from Chilliwac uh and incredibly talented guy. He produced my first solo album, Actually Hardcore with and Uh taught me a lot of stuff. He had, he had a he had a great boat. He used to record on his boat, and he used to live on his boat, and he had his amplifier, his marshall amp in the hold of the boat with the with the cover over it, and he would record on this boat. Can't imagine his

neighbors at the you know, at the marina. McCleod shut up, you know, but so he was anyway, he decided, Brian decided that he didn't want to be a drummer. He didn't want to be our drummer. Or he didn't want to be a drummer, and he gave us his notice. But we weren't playing. We were just learning. Still, we were writing songs. I think we're probably up to maybe ten songs by then, and Brian Brian walked, so we didn't have a drummer. But right at that point, Matt

moved back to Vancouver. So Mike and I went and we wooed him back into you know, well let's try it. Come on, man, try it. You might try it, you might like it. And he was really, really reticent. He was like, I don't want to I don't know if I want to be in a band again. And I just got went through this street yard thing and it was a nightmare. I don't want but anyway, we well

what he got to lose. Plus he had a house that we could rehearse in, so that was a that's a real bonus force and uh we but before that, before we moved into his house to we had this rehearsal place in North Vancouver somewhere. And the bass player at the time, Vern Wills. He amazing singer and amazing bass player, but he wanted to be a guitar player and he wanted to front his own band, which he's

totally capable of doing. So that fell apart. So we didn't have a bass player or a drummer, but we still let the core, the writing core, Doug and Mike and me, and we wrote basically all the songs. We've done a couple of covers in our career, but mainly it's the three of us would do all the rating.

we just watched him. Yeah, this guy's cool. So we we called him up afterwards and invited him to come out to Calgary, and I just remember when I picked him up at the airport, and I remember meeting Scott uh dearly departed Scott Smith, and it was like a long lost brother meeting him with the right off the bat. It was like instant ease. Just couldn't have a better rapport with the guy. It was just magic. Same with all the other guys. It was just just magic, totally

on the same pH musically. So then we started rehearsing for real once we had We're all in Vancouver by this time, and we had some of that. We had every record company come up and come to our rehearsals. I remember a couple of guys that come up and they're in they're New York big for coats, and they're standing around and looking all ritzy and and stuck up and holier than now. And it passed and you know, they don't have any attitude. They suck or I don't know,

we don't get it. So that was that we we just we decided though, that we we figured we had what it. We had enough songs, we had definitely had the band. We had had had the songs. We had an offer from Capitol Records, and they said, here's X number of dollars, which was really not very much money, not enough to finish the album. Here's X number of dollars. And we figured it three albums, you'll probably be you know, you might get a hit, you might hopefully you'll have

a hit by three. And we said, excuse me, no, we were we were pretty cocky. You know, we figured we weren't going to wait on for three. So Columbia came to the party with some decent money, and but we hadn't signed the deal yet, and we were talking about we're going through negotiations back and forth, lawyer to lawyer or whatever, I don't know, or manager to lawyer, I have no idea, but we booked the studio and

we started recording before we had a contract. That's how cocky we were, how sure we were that we were had something going on. So that was the first album we recorded.

talk about contacts. He knew everybody, every promoter in every room to play, and he knew the promoter and he says, I got the perfect thing for it. We love her, boy? What okay? Whatever do you say? So Bruce and we that was our first show and after so that opened the door for us. It's like, here they are the band that opened for Kiss, playing at your local bar six nights a week. How can you how can you know? How can you miss this? You know? So that was

then we started playing. We played in a bunch of club shows, club dates. The night that we were auditioning for columb be A, the A and R guy Jeff Burns came out to see us in the he work he worked for Columbia Records in Toronto. He came out to see us, and he loved it. He basically signed us. And then, as I say, we had to work out the details. But I remember at that same show, or maybe the next night or something, I pulled all our fans. I said, here's the list of the songs we just played.

Pick your favorite ten and I gave it to everybody, I don't know, maybe thirty people and just random like and everybody was cool with it, and they ticked it off and I went, okay, well then this one, this one, there's our ten right there, and we that's the songs that we recorded.

I mean it was, you know, it was a live to guys singing and a little an electric guitar.

were you know, so they were, they were. Everybody was on board. Those three guys that you mentioned were we recorded the album with, and then we recorded the second album with him as well.

And we weren't far from that. Even though I was thirty three at the time, it still had that fourteen year old mentality, you know, and all of us were like that, cocky and disrespectful and just rock and roll guys and didn't want to hear from me, hear anything. But Bruce had this way of getting the best out of Matt. That was his main thing, you know. He would I don't know what he said to him, but he would go out and he would he would crank him out, just like he would crank up the forward

and the soccer team or whatever. I don't even know what if there are forwards in a soccer team, but he would. He would use that psychology, his his child psychology, honestly, and it worked great, and we would once we had the drums down, then it was it was and usually typically I would I would guess that Matt probably spent two days in the studio maybe three to get all that the nine tracks down, and of course I being a co producer, I would be in there for the

next two months every day, you know. But Matt did his three days and see you thanks suckers, and he'd be gone, which is fine because we had it down, and then we would then we would go and we would you know, patch up everything that if we screwed up. And to what degree did Bruce work with or change the material?

So we recorded it like like Bruce said, basically the that was that was a huge contribution.

and then on to the next one, you know. And if it's not going to be in the States, so be it. But we wanted to get it out. But we figured it's got to get it released in the States because Mike and I went to this the same the day before we went to Capitol Records with our little ghetto blass or cassette demo. We went to this big thing in La It was with Van Halen and and uh Oh Cheap Trick and Oh Addy Money, all these great bands at the coliseum I think it's called

with that big huge outdoor. M is it still called that? Yeah, okay, And we looked at each other half with you and she's, yeah, well, this is what we do. We're right in there with these guys. I mean, we have our own unique slant on it, but we're not We're not like a country band, We're not a we're not a ballad band. We're not an R and B band or a rock band. This is what we do. We could open play with these guys any day. When turns out we actually had but over the years.

and or Gramble and something long gone. Somebody painted the album cover on the outside wall. I went, what are they doing? This is what a huge honor for somebody to do this. And I don't know whether it was the record got the record promotion guys said let's do this, or if it's just some fan or the owner. They just they you know. So not only did we get front Rock, but we had a freaking album cover on the side of the like a billboard that somebody painted

on the side of their building. That blew me away.

was just blown away. And I swear probably the next week, Columbia was calling us up saying, we want you guys to do a video. We've got a storyline for it. We want you to come to New York. I think it was a Beacon theater. We want you to come to the theater and we're gonna shoot the video. So we we just we got the video and we got a lot of flak for the slapstick of it, but we didn't care. This this is our big chance. And

I knew who We all knew who MTV was. They'd all been out maybe for I don't know, maybe a month or something, but we were we were ready. I mean, we're crank to do that. So we were happy.

and I've been in the business. I was thirty three at the time, and I'd done so many recordings with different bands. I might have heard on a special show. I think they had a streetheart. They played a couple of days, but this was the first thing, the first lover by we'd heard and I was, this is it, baby, we're there, you know, And then we do and did our show and whatever. But that it was a great thing, no real landmark, you know.

But we were writing on the road. We were we were rehearsing as we're opening for probably opening for Easy Top, we're playing the arenas. I can remember setting up getting the crew accept all the drums and keyboards and guitars and amps and everything in the shower of the gig.

The shower room. You know, it's where the where the basketball players or whatever would would get chased, and we were rehearsing Lucky Ones and the Lucky Ones that the intro came from a jam on stage in Montreal when before, you know, when we were touring on the first album,

so we were writing on the road. We knew what we had to do and we were we had it down though, but you know, by the time we went in to the studio, we had three weeks to mix it, to record it, and mix it three weeks complete because we had a gig opening for Journey and we wanted it. We had to make that deadline. I mean, who wouldn't pass up a gig opening for Journey?

And uh then I took it and I was working at in my in my house on my ghetto blaster once again, and my I used a metronome for the drums, and I left to guitar through a tiny little lamp, and I would just sing the song, and I had dad they call the chords and the melody and and the and the and then the beast the beepart waiting for the weekend. And then, uh, I didn't know what the words were dead, and I had h and I

had a kind of roughed out. I had all the all the bits and pieces, but that I didn't have him in the proper order. And just speaking about that time in Montreal when I wrote that that the intro the Lucky Ones on stage, and remember of going to Doug and saying, what are these notes? I don't have my recorder, Dan, what are these notes? So he wrote it out on a napkin for my reference down the road.

So I had that part. But so it's either later that night or maybe the next night in Montreal, and I had I had my ghetto blaster around my guitar, my whatever, and I remember finally putting it together, the puzzle together, all the parts, all the key changes and the breakdowns and the little the little wah wah part in the in the middle, and all the parts Kiss came together. I still didn't have the lyrics, but I had all the music and most of the lyrics done.

It's so at that point I'd spring it on Reno. Then he goes, well, what about working for the weekend? And I went okay, not knowing, not thinking, what a brilliant line that was, what a great although I still think everybody's waiting for the weekend, which is also true, but working gives it a different, completely different slant. So uh, thank you, Reno. Good good one. And then we needed we needed We were recording it actually, and we had all the lyrics and we needed one more line. And

I remember sitting here at Mushroom Studios. I know earlier I said we recorded the second album at Little Mountain, But we recorded the album at Mushroom and mixed it at Little Mountain with that same team.

out of their pockets, out of their faith. And they we did that for over a year of writing the first and part of the second album, and and then they you know, they made they took care of us. They made sure that that we got paid and they and Bruce already knew all the promoters and he wasn't going to work with anybody shady. That said, we have had a couple of promoters bail on us, but in you know, not that many considering the thousands of shows

we done. I can remember two instances where the promoter was this, you know crook.

I was so proud of that. It was like thirteen thirteen thousand dollars on the barrel and I was like wow. And I think Reno bought the two of us bought Harley's on the same day from the same dealer cash.

because there was a bus coming up the lane. So we had a scooter around the corner and we got caught in a kind of a groove for somehow, and of course everybody, all the bikers are lined up waiting for their turn. They're all standing outside the store watching me dump the bike with my wife on the back. That that was pretty pretty humiliating, but whatever, you know, at least we didn't we didn't get hurt. I mean,

we got hurt, but I wasn't bad. You know, It's not like we broke anything that we had Bruce's and egos mainly, but that's really touchwood. That's the only time I've really, you know, dumped the bike a motor tircle.

and I went, yeah, I like that content. I'd like to make a more of a guitar album, more of a guitar riff album as opposed to do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do, some kind of guitar riff based album. And so we we started doing that and we figured who's the guy, who's the who's the guitar producer? Who would who could?

Actually this came it was Tom album, of course, but before that we wanted to do we still want to do a guitar album, and we wanted to who can we get to produce and engineer this album that is from that school, and we thought, why don't we see if we can get Mutt Lang And Mutt Lange went, no, I'm busy or whatnot interested not whatever reason, you know, but he somehow he said, but you could, you could use my engineer, Mike Shipley, who's also a producer in

his own right and an amazing engineer. And I went close enough, it's really really great. So we worked with Mike and we worked at the studio in Montreal, and we worked there for a month and it didn't work out. I won't get into any further, but it didn't have the groove, it didn't have the production. It had the sound, but we just couldn't get the groove going. There was something to do with the sampling of the dramas and it was too weird. So we took those demos as

it turned out to be demos, back to Vancouver. So we had all a bunch of the tunes ready to go written well at least, and then we went, okay, well, let's let's go here in Vancouver. Let's try somebody else. So we called up Tom l and he came and produce go produce the album and that's that's what happened there.

in ten minutes? I want to set up a recording for it with it throughout the tech here at the studio. So they set up and they could record off the phone onto a I don't know, some cassette player or something. So he did that. He called us back and so but it was a real crap because the telephone only goes down, so you don't get any low, low and low, and we couldn't hear what the base was doing. So we went all right, but at least we can cut it.

So we took that track that cassette and Matt and what we all we played along to that and cut the track playing along the Mutts demo. That was kind of our click track, just played along to that, but we still couldn't hear the bottom, so we waited. We put it in a request of Mike, can you please send us a quarter into the real tape, full frequency tape so we can hear what the hell's on the track,

so we can duplicate it. And he was very gracious and send it to us, And so that was one track we ended up re recording it, but at least we had we had the anchor for that album.

he said, yeah, come on out. So I I think I stayed at his place and where I was there for two or three days and we wrote Notorious and a couple other things didn't make the grade, but we we wrote it with Richie and Desmond Child came in on the second day. If you could imagine that being in the room with Desmond Child. That guy is a monster. He's had so many well, so it's towards John and Richie obviously, so you know, I was in a really

good company with those guys. But that's funny because Desmond gave me sword and Stone. He says, you should you should take this to the guys see if Brino wants to sing that. And I didn't know that Kiss had written it, or or that it had all been already been released, but didn't matter. I thought it was a great song. And I took it to Mic and he went out, it's too something. I can't remember what he said, but it just wasn't it wasn't up his up his alley,

you know. So anyway, I've recorded it myself on hardcore.

I'm sure that's what I was. So probably Bruce and Lou, Bruce, Allen and Lou are going, We're not going to spend that kind of money, are we please? And yeah, okay, So I'm sure that's why we went because we knew that Bruce could do it on time and on budget, and Bruce agreed. But the one cavity he says, you don't have the songs, but once again, you don't have the anchor, So come up with one more song. So I wrote Hometown Hero and that was that was enough for Bruce to commit.

not into that. They're into there in the grunge you guys are You don't. They're not going to play your stuff, So why why bother? I guess it's like you're wasting your time. You're not going to get any airplay. I kept writing in that, but we never it just kind of I'm trying to think of the timeline on that. If we stopped touring, if we just I guess we did I guess we just it took the win out of completely out of ourselves. Oh well, I guess we'll hang it up then. And that's and then I went.

Mike did a couple of solo albums. I did, uh some solo stuff. I put a band together, played around Western Canada, Matt and played with Tom cochran and Kim Mitchell and Doug who is an amazing He does soundtracks, he always has done and still is. So he just did that. He didn't care. So we were basically finished. You know, we're all kind of like. It's not like we hate each other or we were broken heart at It was just like, okay, well that was a fantastic run.

And then Brian Adams called us up and he said, you know, Brian McLeod has cancer and he can't he needs some funds. He needs some help financially so he can get the treatment. And I want to throw a fundraiser for him at eighty six Street here in Vancouver, and would you guys play? And one time we hadn't played together in more than two years or three years, can't remember, and of course what a great idea. So

we put it back together again. I remember we didn't actually rehearse, but I got together with Doug to figure out just to kind of brush up on our parts, the guitar versus keyboards, what we were doing, what we did live, because it was a little bit different on the record. And that wait, so that was one after and I think we did maybe four songs and Bto

was there. I mean, I mean a member standing on stage with Fred Turner, who was one of my all time idols, and hearing him sing the hot those screaming ie notes and me standing right beside him and probably no louder than what I'm talking right now, and this blood curdling scream is coming out of him, and I went, Wow, such a great singer. And we raised a bunch of money. But the thing is, we had such a good time doing it. We went, well, that was dumb. What the

hell did we hang it? This is too much fun. We forgot it. We forgot about that aspect. Guys, this is really fun to do. What a great thing to go out and play music. Why don't we test the waters. Let's get a little tour. We'll play the interior of which is a Canadian way of saying what I don't know. Well, maybe you say it. Every time I say it, people

go the interior. Yeah, the interior British Columbia. That's Kamloops and Cologna and there's small towns and just you know, not make it, keep it low key and just feel it out. See how we feel about it, See if we enjoy it as much as we think we might. And we had a blast, and that was in ninety two and we never stopped. We just kept going, never stopped. Well, pandemic, we stopped.

whatever they had, mainly ice cubes. They hated it. But it just becomes it's like Kleenex, you know what, You got to know what the product is. Kleenex by itself is what is that? You've scrubbed your house with it? You know? And so it's it's just a brand. It's a pretty cool brand. It's because it does elicit you know, either they hate it or they love it, or they don't care. They just they just remember the music and they don't associate the name just with anything else.

Denise's younger brother. He was, I don't know, fifteen or whatever, and I said, so with your back off, and I went Dean Ring. Nobody went okay, complete like over whatever kind of name. I went, well, that ain't gonna fly. So I'm looking at my at at Denise's magazines, and she's got Chateolaine and all these Vogue and all these Girl Lady magazines. And on the back cover is a ad for cover girl. I want cover girl, cover cover boy,

cover boy. Oh that's a great wait cover we don't want to be doing Wait, obviously, what the next step is the lover boy? So I went, this is a good name. This is what my mommy used to tease me with when I was a kid. Hey, lover boy, let's go. I don't know why, but that's stuck in my head. And I sprung it on a Reno and Lou and everybody went, fine, now we know who we are.

business done, and that it was just it was. It was frustrating, but at the time, but I wasn't worthy, you know, all the other stuff I'd done wasn't worthy of of. We could barely get a recording deal in Canada, let alone breach the Great Divide and get into into the States or UK or wherever else. So I just remember our first show in the States was at the Tacoma Dome, opening for Sammy Hagar. It's funny, and here

we are. We're back playing with him again this summer, but opening for Sammy and Mike and me getting dressed and we're in the shower because they all they have this the best sound and we're singing, we're singing your national anthem. I mean, we probably didn't know the words for it. I still don't, but we're singing, we're singing your national anthem in the soul blown away that we're finally here, we are, we made it. We're playing the USA. Man. Wow, it was a big deal for us. It really was,

because we'd been stuck and not stuck. We were always doing what we wanted to do, and we're never tied down by being Canadian. There was always acceptance. Not I mean if we suck, we suck, but any of the good stuff we did, there was always acceptance. Far it.

sense to me. I mean, i'll score, I'll look for an album, i'll play, I'll whip through bam bam, bam bam bam. Oh there's one song that like and get rid of the rest of the playlist, you know. So it's really if you can get put out one song. What a great song. Wow.