Spotlight On...
The Smithereens
November 16, 2007
By Laurie Anne Smith
(SugarBuzz New Jersey)
Live & Interview Pixs by Tim Smith
SugarBuzz Magazine
The Smithereens are:
Pat Dinizio - Vocals, guitar
Jim Babjak - Guitars, Vocals
Severo "The Thrilla" Jornacion - Electric Bass Guitar, Vocals
Dennis Diken - Drums, Vocals, Percussion
I recently had the pleasure of meeting the Smithereens for a pre-show interview at the Strand Theater in Lakewood NJ on November 16, 2007. The New Jersey based band has been together for over twenty-seven years and are still going strong. I was impressed with their musical insight and knowledge, not to mention their hospitality and kindness.
Growing up as friends in NJ, when did all of you realize that you wanted to be musicians and start your own band? Were your families supportive of this idea?
Pat Dinizio- I didn't meet Dennis until I was about 22. Several years after that we started The Smithereens. We had a band doing new wave covers with songs from groups like Devo, Jam, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Rockpile, Buddy Holly and the Stones. We did things like that and unsuccessfully we were ahead of our time.
I wasn't writing songs yet, but when I began to write songs, I called Dennis and that was the beginning of the band. I was the missing piece of the puzzle. The three of them, Mike, Dennis and Jimmy grew up in Carteret NJ and they were a garage band, a fully formed band actually, that needed that fourth component , a lead singer that could write original material, that could front the band and play rhythm guitar. We all happened to love the same music and also as importantly be fans of the same pop culture things. We grew up watching Soupy Sales, Chuck McCann and The Monkees. We all grew up reading Mad Magazine and there was a shared background. So we agreed upon all of that.
How influential was the British Invasion to The Smithereens?
Pat Dinizo- Well it was very influential. It wasn't the entire thing but it was a huge component of it. I mean I would say we were talking about this last week. Besides the Beatles, an American group called the Beau Brummels and the group the Byrds were a big inspiration to us and both of those bands formed as a direct result of hearing the British Invasion. The Byrds formed as a result of those guys all going to see a "Hard Days Night" at a movie theater in Hollywood and Roger McGuinn went out and bought the same guitar that George Harrison played, a twelve string Rickerbacker.
So we were influenced by that, but we also grew up listening to WABC out of New York. That radio station played non stop in my home and in my parent's car. We heard Simon and Garfunkel, The Beatles, The Searchers, Sonny and Cher, Motown, The Beach Boys, you know, all that healthy music environment. And stuff came in , bands like Cream, The Who, certainly The Beatles were always the leaders and then after that, in the early 70s you could still hear brand new recordings of the Kinks, but you could also hear bands like Black Sabbath, Gilbert O Sullivan, King Crimson, Yes, British Progressive bands like Jethro Tull, Glam rock, David Bowie, T Rex, and you had Genesis, the Doobie and Allman brothers, It was literally everything.
You had Led Zepplin, Guns and Roses is nothing compared to Led Zepplin. Nothing in terms of the songwriting and the playing, and I've seen both and I've heard both and I know because I was there doing shows with them and having been to many Zepplin concerts. It was a higher quality of musicianship on many levels. You're hearing new players today and I don't want to mention any names specifically but while they are very good, there is a certain lack of soul and the quality of the songwriting that is it's a xerox of a xerox of a xerox of a copy of something whereby it sounds good, it's very pleasing but it's as though you ate some junk food and you are hungry an hour later.
How did you come up with the name, "The Smithereens"?
Dennis Diken- Well it came from old cartoons and pop culture when we were growing up. I think in particular Yosemite Sam. You ever hear him say things like, "I'll blow you varmints to smithereens.' I compiled a bunch of names for potential bands. As a matter of fact, I was rehearsing in a band here in Lakewood believe it or not, we were going to call that band the Smithereens but we ended up calling them the Coupons instead... Sensational Coupons. It's a name were kicking around for a few years before we used it. It's actually Irish or Gaelic word that means tiny fragments so they were really using it in true context.
What has kept the Smithereens together for almost three decades?
Pat Dinizio- There's nothing else any of us would enjoy better than this right? Except retirement! haha
What band member had the idea to create the Beatles Album "Meet the Smithereens"?
Pat Dinizo- I didn't come up with it, the fans suggested it, and then I saw a magazine, "American Heritage" and it said , I think this is what happened, I don't remember, but the year that changed everything was 1964. It talked about Linden Johnson the president and the great society, the wake of the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, but what the issue was mainly about was Beatlemania in the wake of the release of "Meet the Beatles" and how important it was.
We had played "Abby Road" on the river at the Beatles Festival with great success and we found that there was a crossover audience between hardcore Beatlemanics and Smithereens fans. I got a few emails saying that we should do a Beatles tribute record and then I put the word out that if we did it, what songs would they like to hear.
It was everything from "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" to "I am the Walrus" to stuff from "Let It Be" and none of the songs bore any relationship to each other in terms of production value. It would have been just another obvious album , nothing important, so we all agreed that the "Meet The Beatles" album was the most influential album on all of us, individually and collectively and that it was the album that started the counterculture. Within weeks of its release there was a band on every street corner, people started growing their hair long and it just tidal waved culturally. Anybody could do a greatest hits album. It's too easy. What does it matter you know The Beatles had a lot of hits. Dennis, tell them about your theory as to why their album was so good because they were touring.
Dennis Diken - Well it was their second album recorded in '63. I guess their first album came out earlier that spring and then all hell broke loose with Beatlemania swept Europe and they were touring constantly all over the place so basically I think they were just on fire as a band. They were playing so much and writing new material. They were in a crucible really. They were moving and playing everyday and had to come up with singles and new material to fuel the fire. They were feeding on their own energy, their own success and own talent. It was the album that captured them at their zenith as a band because of all that activity and all that energy.
Pat Dinizio - The songs are really sophisticated and they are not teeny bopper at all Everyone sees them in that period as the Bob Tops.
Dennis Diken- Right, the Bob Tops thing is that the verve, the energy and the vitality. It's all a big part of it too, but that's just on the surface. I think they really gelled as a band and as musicians.
You have claimed in the past that your band is strictly "pop" and that you have respect for any musician that can finish a song in three minutes. Can you elaborate on that?
Pat Dinizio- Well we've always like three chord melodic pop, where two minutes and twenty seconds "Be My Baby" songs like that, to try to be clever, I think it's more difficult to say what you have to say with less words and less notes. That's the trick. I just meant that as a general statement. Who's ever written a better song than "Tangled up in Blue" by Bob Dylan? How many verses does it have, like fourteen.
How do you feel about other bands that used you as their influence such as Nirvana, that in turn created the Grunge movement?
Pat Dinizio- Well it's a happy sad sort of thing because they kind of rendered us obsolete for a few years there. But the sad fact of it is, or let's rephrase that, the only truth I know is that Cobain is dead, grunge is dead and we're still here making records and working and they're not. Most of those bands from that scene, probably the only one left standing is Pearl Jam and they had a little something else. But that scene died a swift death so we're having the last laugh.
What living or deceased musician would you enjoy playing with today?
Pat- Buddy Holly
Dennis- Roger Miller, Billy Prima.
Severo "The Thrilla" Jornacion- Elvis Costello.
Jim Babjak- I had a chance once to meet Pete Townsend. The roadies came and said, "Pete Townsend is rehearsing next door, do you want to meet him?" I said, "No, I'm scared." He's one of my heroes, but I didn't want him to turn out to be an asshole so I figured I don't want to meet him because I don't want to be disappointed. I'm sure he's a great guy. It wasn't like the right circumstance. I think it would have been fun to play with John Lennon, but probably not. We know too much about all the stuff.
Pat- Yeah, Cheap Trick played with him and it wasn't fun.
Jim Babjak- Dave Davies from the Kinks and that was a dream for me. That kind of turned out weird. haha. Well, I like bands and I never really thought of who I wanted to play with. I played with other drummers and Dennis our drummer. We met when we were freshmen in high school. I learned how to play with him and I taught Mike had to play the bass.
Where is Mike now?
Jim- California somewhere. He just had a new daughter. She's three months-old.
Did you part on good terms?
Jim- Yeah, But the thing about Dennis is we all grew up together and we learned as we were going along. In 1973 we attempted to play the entire Tommy album. I played with a lot of drummers and Dennis is a world class drummer. I love playing with him. If I make a mistake he'll cover it up without us even talking about it. Severo here started coming to our shows in LA in probably 1987 or 1988. He used to give me presents and come by, we can't talk about what kind of presents they were, haha. And I didn't realize he actually played an instrument, I thought he was just a guy, and then when Mike decided to do his thing, he jumped in. How did you get involved with us? Who called you?
Severo- Pat called me.
Jim- I think Pat used to go out to LA and play with you guys or something and hang out. Pat knew he was a musician before I did because when he showed up one day, I was like, "You play bass?" He is actually a guitar player too.
When do you think the next original studio LP is coming out?
Jim- We're going to try to start recording in February of 2008. We're going to try and get something out by the spring.
Tell me about your new "Christmas with the Smithereens" release.
Jim- Dennis compiled a list of two and a half CDs, had like 30 songs on them each. We got together and talked about them and figured out what would be the best for us to do .We ended up with a good cross section of variety, a nice variety.
Dennis does this cool thing with "Twas the Night before Christmas" which Art Carney did in 1952. That was really odd. And when I heard that it was just drums and vocals reading the book in a kind of a humorous way. It's very cool. When I heard it I'm like this has to go on. It breaks up the album really nicely. You got some distorted guitars, clean Beach Boys stuff. We did The Ramones Christmas "I don't want to fight tonight." The hardest part about the damn thing was , damn thing, Christ, it was ninety degrees everyday we recorded it. We had to shut the air conditioning off at the studio because of the hum. So in between takes it was like, "Kurt turn the air conditioning on!" We decided to do The Who song "Christmas" which is not really a Christmas song, but we're the Smitheens so we could do quirky shit like that.
What are your thoughts on downloading?
Jim- What people don't understand is that the black and white of it is, we have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars to record this stuff and the reason why we're doing it is so that we can buy food, pay mortgages, rent and gas. So in theory we spend the money to record and we expect to make money in return. The money we make isn't that much. I don't talk about it much but I do have a day job for health insurance. It's really hard to juggle round. Severo works a day job too. I have three kids and I'm putting them though college, and it's tough.
The other side of downloading is everyone has their hands in the profits, the labels, the middleman, etc. I hear by the time the artist actually gets any money from that ninety nine cents it's very little. We're not getting as much money as people think. I think the whole thing sucks. Ideally it would be great if people would just send money to our website so we could keep recording.
Dennis- It's here to stay, there's no two ways about it. I don't do it because I still like to feel a record, look at a record, feel like I'm playing a record. I have nothing against it but I think an artist should be paid. I think kids are missing out on the experience of enjoying the graphics, looking at the label and having a physical connection instead of having it mysteriously come through a wire. So that's just my own personal feeling about it. I think it's here to stay. The good thing about it if you are a young person who is born into the world of the digital age you have the world of music at your fingertips.
Do you have memorable groupie stories?
Dennis- No I don't. We met the Plaster Casters. That's our groupie story.
Do you think major labels are as corrupt as they are reported?
Jim- That's a whole book. With us, and a lot of bands like us, labels don't want to sign us because they won't make any money. All we have to do is record low budget recordings. We actually made a profit on "Meet The Smithereens" so now they might give us an opportunity to record an original album.
Dennis- I suppose. I think it's always been and will never change.
Where do you think the band will be in 5-10 years from now and what do you hope to accomplish in the future?
Dennis- Our goals are to keep making records and I think we're on a bit of a roll.
What other work have you done independently?
Dennis- I did a record, it's called "Christmas in Memphis". It is all instrumentals. Live gigs, I've been playing with Mary Weiss the lead singer of The Shangralas. I did a recording project in NY with Bobby Cole, I worked with Nancy Sinatra, Tommy James. I am doing a Christmas show at Lincoln Center.
Do you think your fan base has changed through the years?
Dennis- It's funny because we see a lot of people that have come to see us through the years and other folks that have stopped for awhile because they graduated college, started careers, raised families and now that their kids are grown they are coming out again.
Jim- A little bit. What I am finding really interesting about now is that when Nirvana broke, I heard from Bruce their producer that Kurt loved my guitar playing. I wish I had met the guy because I really loved Nirvana. The odd thing about that is that Joey Ramone said the same thing because they asked him how do you feel about being the godfather of pop but he said great but these bands are making a lot more money than we are.
So basically that is what happened to us. When they broke, our career took a down slide , our record company dropped us and it was tough. We never recovered from that, but when we put out this Beatles record, somehow all this press we got, all the fans started coming out again, and I realized that all our fans then are now professional, ie, doctors, lawyers, CEOS, so I see people all the time at the shows that I haven't seen in twenty years. It has come full circle. We also meet with the fans after the show and sign autographs so it's the best way to connect with the audience.
Editors Note: I would like to personally thank The Smithereens and Laurie Anne Smith (SugarBuzz New Jersey) for making this all happen. What a thrill!