The Smithereens To Play The Canyon Club on April 5th

The Smithereens with John Cowsill

The Smithereens To Play The Canyon Club on April 5th

The Smithereens remain one of America’s musical treasures. Formed in New Jersey in 1980, the band’s timeless power-pop sound – rife with strong, catchy melodies, meaningful lyrics and walls of layered guitar, bass and drums – remains intact. Signature songs like Blood and Roses, A Girl Like You, Only a Memory, Behind the Wall of Sleep and a raft of critically acclaimed albums (Especially For You, Green Thoughts, 11, A Date With The Smithereens, and many others) have cemented the band’s place in the hearts, minds and ears of their devoted worldwide fan-base. The band continues to tour with three original members (guitarist Jim Babjak, drummer Dennis Diken and bassist Mike Mesaros) despite the unfortunate death in 2017 of founding lead singer, songwriter, guitarist Pat DiNizio.

The Smithereens will be playing The Canyon Club in Agoura Hills on April 5th, featuring special guest vocalist John Cowsill of The Cowsills. Highwire Daze recently interviewed drummer Dennis Diken to discuss highlights from a brilliant career with The Smithereens and beyond…

We’re here with Dennis from The Smithereens, and we’re going to ask a few questions. First of all, what are you looking forward to the most about your upcoming show at The Canyon Club over here in Agoura Hills?
The Smithereens have always loved playing California, in particular the greater L.A. area, ever since our first national tour in 1986. We’ve been very, very lucky that we’ve found a wonderful fan base in that neck of the woods. So we know that we’re always going to have a cool group of people, a great audience coming out to see us. So it’s just a gift to be able to do this, number one, and to be able to look forward to what you know is going to be a good show.

John Cowsill With The Smithereens

How did John Cowsill of The Cowsills, become involved with the Smithereens?
Jimmy and I, when we were in Los Angeles working on our Blow Up album for Capitol Records in 1991, we saw an ad for a show at the Henry Fonda Theater featuring Screaming Trees, Red Cross, and The Cowsills. At the time, I believe The Cowsills had just released their album, Global, which recently was reissued on vinyl. Wonderful record. So, we thought it was an interesting bill, and we’d always been great fans of The Cowsills, going back to when we were kids listening to them in the 60s on the radio. So we had a night off, and we were rehearsing, I think, and then getting ready to record the album in, I think it was March or April of 1991. Anyway, so we went to the show, and The Cowsills just bowled us over. They were a great performing band, but more than anything, their harmonies were so intact, and as you know, they’re siblings, so there’s nothing that can replace a genetic blend of singers that you hear in the groups, like the Everly Brothers, the Beach Boys, the Bee Gees, on and on. There’s just nothing like it.

So, we went back to introduce ourselves after the show and asked them if they would like to sing on a tune on our record, Jimmy’s song, Now and Then. They were kind of shocked that we would ask them. It seemed funny to us, because we just thought, it’s a natural assumption that we would be fans of yours, but they thought that, “Oh.” Because at the time, we were riding kind of high. MTV was really playing us a lot, we were touring, and radio was playing us, and we were touring a lot. So they thought that, “Wow,” they were gobsmacked to be asked. They came down and did just an incredible job on that song, and we stayed in touch. I maintained a good friendship with John Cowsill. He had played drums with the Beach Boys for many years. Just as an aside, perhaps, he and I bonded also over our great respect for a New York session drummer called Buddy Saltzman, who played on so many hit records that came out of New York in the 60s and 70s, most notably for me, the Four Seasons records. But he also happened to play on Cowsills’ record. I was writing liner notes for a Four Seasons box set for Rhino at the time, and I had a phone number on Buddy.

Again, his rhythms on those Four Seasons records were so inspiring to me and to John. So John and I got together and interviewed Buddy for an article we were putting together for Modern Drummer. So, John and I really became tight, and he offered his services. He said, “I would love to have the opportunity to sing with the band.” Lo and behold, the opportunity arised. We had some dates booked, and we asked, and he sang with us twice already, and it just clicked. It really made sense. He has a passion for the music. He’s a great frontman. He’s a great singer. It’s just very organic that way.

Dennis Diken of The Smithereens

Outside of The Smithereens, you played with Dave Davies of The Kinks. You played with Ronnie Spector. Tell me what that was like.
I did a few tours with Dave. We initially met The Kinks, it was November of 91, I think. We were sharing the bill at a big benefit show with a bunch of artists in Boston, at Boston Gardens. Ray and Dave at that time were out, just as a duo, promoting the album called Phobia at the time. So we got wind of they were going to be on the bill without a band. We offered our services. Long story short, we got to play with them and back them up that night and stayed in touch with Dave. There was talk of us working with him on a solo tour. It never really materialized. But flash forward to, I think, 2013 or 14, I met up with him again through a mutual friend in New Jersey. He asked me to do some tours with him. So I gladly did. It was so much fun playing with him. He’s a really swell guy.

There was that one show booked in December of 2015 in Islington in London. It was right around Christmas time. We were on stage and there were rumblings that Ray might show up. Nobody was really sure until he in fact did come to the theater. He came on stage and did an encore with us. We did You Really Got Me. My wife happened to be in the audience and snapped the picture and posted it on Facebook immediately. The internet just exploded. Because that’s the first time that they had played together in 19 years. It was just beautiful seeing them together, especially from where I sat behind the drums. It really was a magical moment, and I’m so happy that I got to be there for that.

Ronnie Spector, of course, I mean, my goodness, grew up learning how to play drums, listening to The Ronettes records. Hal Blaine, who was the drummer on the studio session guy from The Wrecking Crew who played on those records, inspired me so much. So, when I got to play with Ronnie, it was a dream come true getting to tap into all that great inspiration I had as a kid. Ronnie, until the day she died, was the real deal. She never, in my experience with her, never put on what a “Oldies show.” She was really still vital and relevant doing new material. Her spirit was so right on. I mean, I just never took her for granted. When I stepped on the drum riser and was going to do a gig with her, it was always very special to me and had great meaning to me. She was a very cool person. I’ll always treasure that experience.

A Date With The Smithereens celebrated its 30th anniversary last year. When you look on that album, and the fact that it’s been 30 years, what do you think of it now in retrospect?
Thirty years. It seems like yesterday. It really does. It’s funny. I think a lot of times when you ask an artist to reflect on a record that they’ve made, most of the time the memories center around the making of the record. So I have very fond memories of the sessions for that. Our first album, Especially For You, was recorded in New York City at The Record Plant, which was a legendary studio where so many classic records were cut, including a number of John Lennon records.  The Raspberries recorded there, and Bruce Springsteen, and so many others. Anyway, we were always really into working in New York City. It’s close to home, number one, and there’s just an energy there like no other place. So, after we did Especially For You in New York, and we signed with Capitol, they had it in their minds to bring us to LA to record our subsequent albums. The Green Thoughts was done at the Capitol Tower. 11 was done in Los Angeles, as was Blow Up. Blow Up was done at A&M.  When it came to doing A Date, we returned to New York, and I don’t know if it’s something that listeners can grab onto, but to us, it feels like a New York album. It’s a little grittier. It’s a little edgier, perhaps, than the albums that preceded it.

I really remember fondly working at the Magic Shop down in Soho for that record with Don Dixon producing and Lou Giordano as the engineer. We cut it like we did most of our albums, just playing live as a band and keeping it pretty fresh in the media. I do think that the songs on that album reflect a New York state of mind and a New Jersey state of mind. I think perhaps some of the themes and some of the songs portended of changes to come in our culture and society and country. I think it stands up as an interesting, cohesive statement of where we were at at the time.

What do you think has kept you so passionate about The Smithereens after all this time, for 45 years now?
I think a big part of it is friendship. Jimmy and I both knew Mike Mesaros, our bassist, since we were kids. Actually, I didn’t meet Jimmy until high school, but Jimmy attended the same church as Mike, so he knew him from going to church since they were little since eight years old. But I met Jimmy Babjack at first day of high school in 1971. Literally, it was the first day of high school, it was the first period, earth science, and he was sitting in the first row in the first seat. When I went into high school, my thinking was, I really want to form a band with somebody that could play I Can’t Explain by The Who. That was my criteria. If I can meet a guitarist who can play I Can’t Explain, that would be a great starting point. There was going to be a lot more kids in high school than in grammar school. So I was really looking forward to seeing if there’s somebody in the student body that I could click with. That first day of school, he opened up his loose sleeve. I was in the second row, he’s in the first row. He’s got color pictures of The Who pasted inside his loose sleeve binder, and so I introduced myself, and I asked him if he played guitar, and he said he did. We started playing together that week. Mike learned to play bass right after high school, and we were really good. We’re still very good friends, and of course, when we met Pat, that put everything together.

There was a real brotherhood was born when The Smithereens finally became a band. Well, there was always, prior to that, there already was the brotherhood with the three of us. But we were like a band of soul brothers and blood brothers. Even though Pat’s not here anymore, sadly, that friendship still exists, and there’s a certain sound that we forge when we play together, and it could only exist when we’re on stage together. So we treasure that. We still love what we do. So it’s all those things. When we hit the stage, all our troubles and our tribulations age brings along, just fall by the wayside. We really feel and play like we’re teenagers again. So in a way, it keeps us young. So there’s a lot of good reasons.

But really, here’s the thing that keeps us going. I mean this in all sincerity, we could never do this and keep it going for 45 years, if there wasn’t an audience out there that wants to hear us and comes out there and buys our music. You just can’t do anything without an audience. So that is something we don’t take lightly. We have great appreciation for our fans. We have some folks that travel great distances to see us. It’s so heartwarming. Plus, it’s the only thing we know how to do…

(Interview by Ken Morton)

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