Cloaca Melodia

My life in concerts, by Mike Sauter.

6/06/1997

Third Eye Blind/Coward

Tradewinds, Sea Bright, NJ

Goddamn, I wanted to hate Third Eye Blind live.

At WHTG, we were playing "Semi Charmed Life" quite a bit and listeners really dug it. Hell, I dug it. Before this show, we had set up a meet & greet with some contest winners. The opening act, Long Island rockers Coward, were terrific guys--very friendly and personable to us station people and our listeners. One of our contest winners was in a wheelchair, and the Coward boys took an extra minute to give this listener some attention.

post continues....

Kevin Cadogan of Third Eye Blind

By contrast, the members of Third Eye Blind looked and acted as if they just woke up and wanted to be elsewhere. Which may well have been true, but hey, guys: suck it up. Your duly-appointed representatives made a commitment for you to greet some listeners, so do your duty, if not with a smile, at least without a grimace.

They also ignored the listener in the wheelchair. Jackasses.

So I was all set to hate their performance. But, I had to admit, they put on a good show.

Shep of CowardI introduced the bands onstage, and the guys in Coward asked me to give them a big, old-fashioned ROCKSHOW introduction. While some bands only want a low-key introduction, the bigger the better for Coward.

Alas, Coward didn't last for more than one album (although frontman Sheppard moved into production and session work and drummer Billy Alemaghides was later in the band Diffuser).


Photos: top left, me with later ousted guitarist Kevin Cadogan. Bottom right, me with Coward singer Sheppard.




Here is an interview I did shortly afterwards with Billy from Coward:

It would be a gross understatement to say that New York City has produced some terrific rock 'n' roll bands throughout the years, in just about every style and certainly in all eras of rock. Coward is a new band to emerge from the City which attempts to infuse many different elements from rock history into a modern but straightahead sound.

Coward has a raw excitement and fun intertwined in their music which is primarily reminiscent of the era marked by The Cars and Cheap Trick, a time when bands and audience alike eschewed statements, seriousness, and pretension, and concentrated instead on enjoying the hell out of themselves.

Combine the above-mentioned bands, add some vocal tracks which sound like The Beatles by way of Too Much Joy, toss in some witty and deceptively light-hearted lyrics, and package the whole thing with a dose of arena rock, and you then have an impression of what music is going to blast out of your CD player when you jam Coward's self-titled debut disc into it.

The members of Coward--singer/guitarist Sheppard, lead guitarist Joey Sykes, bass player Pete Savad, and drummer Billy Alemaghides--are not only rock stars in-the-making, but they're also tremendously engaging and friendly people. Hanging out with the band members, you realize that they truly enjoy what they do, and their enthusiasm--whether on record or live--becomes contagious.

Coward has played New Jersey several times of late, and based on reactions from Jersey audiences for the band's catchy single "I Don't Care," these performances will almost certainly not be their last here. First, Coward opened for Third Eye Blind at the Tradewinds in Sea Bright, and, more recently, they appeared as one of the bands at FM 106.3's Surfstock (at the Surf Club in Ortley Beach on July 4th, 1997). It was the band's first time performing on the beach, and also the launch of another leg of their first tour. Such a momentous occasion seemed to demand a memorial, so Neo's Mike Sauter had a conversation with drummer Billy Alemaghides about the Coward's past, present, and future.

Mike: Not to make you guys sound like Joan Jett or anything, but you seem to love rock 'n' roll. You've got a picture of the lighter in the air on the cover...

Billy: Oh, that's cool! I'm glad you saw that and not someone searching for a fuse box. The first time those pictures came out, that's what I was afraid of.

Mike: Just looking at the cover I didn't automatically get it, but the inlay card has the hand making the devil sign.

Billy: Yeah, the whole package...

Mike: Yeah, that's total rock 'n' roll.

Billy: Except for the Scrabble thing [a picture in the CD booklet]. We just threw that in there.

Mike: For the Scrabble picture, did you have to pay off the Scrabble people?

Billy: No, but we did have to get their permission, and they were cool with it. There is, actually, a twist there. Joey--the guitar player--is a real Scrabble player. He's in tournaments and everything, and plays for money all over the country. He was really into having it somewhere in the package. I gotta tell you, I was like, "I don't know, man, it just doesn't go with the rest of the package." But out of everything on the package, I think we get the most complements for it: "Oh, man, that's really clever."

Mike: Well, Scrabble's pretty cool.

Billy: He tries to get us to play on the road. It's not a lot of fun, because he knows every two-letter word there is. There aren't just four, like you might think. There's, like, eighty, or something.

Mike: Must get kind of rough, if he's that good...

Billy: Well, he's fair about it. He'll look at our things and tell us if we've got words going, but then what's the point? He's playing himself.

Mike: [laughing] That's like when I was a kid, playing with my parents. My mom would keep doing that, and I'd think, "Wait a minute! She keeps looking at my stuff! How does that work?"

So, back to that whole rock thing. When you guys first started out, you, naturally, picture yourself at the top--when you envisioned yourself at the top of the rock 'n' roll world, what did you see yourself doing? What single image, or images, sum up to you what a rock star is all about?

Billy: The one thing that comes to mind is from the first concert I ever went to. I always wanted to bang on the drums--I thought it was cool when I saw people do it on TV--but it really didn't hit me until I went to this show, and they turned these spotlights on the crowd, the big floodlights. I just looked around, and I saw ten thousand people going nuts at once. It was the most insane thing I could picture. I guess that's the thing that keeps me going, that thought that hopefully we'll be doing arenas one day.

We played a show in Syracuse a few months ago, and it was the first time in my life--and, obviously, this is my first signed band; if we ever sold CDs before it was, like, twenty-five at a show--this was the first time people really went nuts and knew all of the words when we played the single. It was really tremendous for us.

Mike: How was the show for you at the Tradewinds here in Jersey when you opened up for Third Eye Blind?

Billy: It was good. Every show we've played--especially with Third Eye Blind, since we're on tour with them--the crowds have been pretty full. Being an opening band, we didn't know what to expect. But they've been more than generous with applause and whatever. It's been so much cooler than we could expect, so we now want to stay out all the time! If we're home, it's a bummer. It's cool to see the family for a days or two, but while the record's out there, we just really need to be out there making friends and fans.

Mike: Since we were already talking about the CD pictures, I wanted to ask about the group photo with the neon "Coward" sign. Did you guys get to keep the sign?

Billy: Actually, I kind of broke it.

Mike: [laughing] Really?

Billy: That's a weird story. We were doing the photo shoot. They delivered the sign. That was an idea we had since the band's inception: "We really need something to capture what the band's all about." I don't know if a neon sign does that, but for some reason we were like, "We've got to have a neon sign made someday." One of the first things we brought up when they wanted to do pictures was the neon sign, and the art director was like, "Oh, that's a great idea."

We actually had a couple of them made--a blue one with a different font, and the red one we used. We did all the shots one day indoors. We did all of the shots that are in the record, but those were just to take up film. We weren't going to use them. They really wanted to have that neon sign in a stage set-up, with some smoke and this and that. On the way to the second day of shooting, I went to move it--or something--and the thing just crumbled in my hand. I suspect it was already broken, but I can't prove it. The art director and photographer were right there with me, and they didn't flip out like I knew they wanted to. They were like, "Oh, these things happen," and smoke's coming out of their ears.

When we did it, it was like, "Why doesn't everyone just stand around the sign," and we were like, "Oh great, here's another stupid photo." But when we saw them they were pretty cool looking. And that whole side [of the CD booklet pages containing the photo] is just black--not having the words in. Which, by the way, I wasn't a big fan of that idea.

Mike: Of not having the words?

Billy: It was Elektra's call: "Well, we just want to keep your first record simple." I don't really agree with that.

Mike: Tell me about the history of the band. Have you guys been friends for a long time?

Billy: Shep and I have known each other for about ten years now. I lived in Bethpage, Long Island. He moved out to Plainview from Elmont, Long Island, and I met him through mutual friends. When I first met him, he played guitar and then he switched over to bass. Then me and him got into a band after knowing each for three or four years, a band called Scapegoat. We did that for maybe two or three years, and then somehow everybody just went their own way.

When the band broke up, Shep asked me to come with him, but I decided to go with the guitar player. We did our own thing for a few months. But it was really low-fi, and I wasn't very happy with that. Shep kept asking me to write with him, and I was always, "Well, I just don't know." I kind of put music on the backburner for a bit, because nothing was making me happy. I figured I'd try to get into acting, because I always wanted to try that.

So Shep was living in New York City, and he met and was writing with Joey at the time. Joey's day job was a cover band, playing the Long Island-New Jersey circuit. In his free time, he was writing with Shep. I was sleeping on Shep's couch, going to acting classes, and I kept hearing these songs they were writing and all of a sudden I was just kicking myself. I said to myself, "Wow! This stuff is really good. I can't believe I turned them down." Then their drummer quit one day--I'll never forget it--and before I even asked if I could fill in, he asked, "Could you fill in for a little bit?" And we never actually looked for another drummer after that. I just kept working.

Pete, our bass player, was working with Shep in a music store on 48th Street in Manhattan. He was also in a cover band. He had just gotten the job, and didn't want to blow off work. We had this big show at CBGB's, and the bass player we had kind of flaked out--he's still a really good friend of ours, actually, we still hang out all the time. But for whatever reason, it didn't work out, and we got Pete one night. He came down to audition. I think it's one of the weirdest things--Pete didn't even own a bass, didn't play bass. We just asked him if he thought he could handle a show or two, and he said, "Yeah!" And he came down and learned the songs. It's not like he just picked music up then and there--he's been playing since he was three or four. He's just really good like that.

We played about ten shows, and we started getting interest really, really quick. The band that I was in before--it took years before we even thought we'd get signed. This one just took off right away.

Mike: What time period was that?

Billy: I joined in March of '96. Our first show was, maybe, April of '96, and we signed the deal in the end of August or beginning of September.

Mike: That's pretty quick!

Billy: That's really quick! It's freaky. The first thing I did--which was probably stupid--I was waiting tables at the time in Manhattan, and I hated it so much, the first thing I did was quit my job. You know, I figured I'd be getting money right away--but the money didn't come for a month and a half. It doesn't sound like a long time, but I had to borrow a bunch of money from my friends!

Mike: [laughing] Yeah, that can get crazy. So how did the name "Coward" come about?

Billy: You know that Kenny Rogers song, "Coward of the County"? It's from that.

Mike: [laughing] Oh yeah?

Billy: And it's also a high scoring word in Scrabble.

Mike: With that "W," and especially if you get it on a triple-word score, right?

Billy: Yeah! To tell you the truth, it's something Shep came up with one day. Usually in interviews, we always try to make something up--something goofy. The truth is, Shep just came up with it one day and no one knew why. Shep said that the things that scare most people--I don't mean scary movies, but the things that most people are scared to do to go about getting what they want in life--he was never scared of. It was like an oxymoron.

Mike: You mentioned before about going to your first concert. What was that?

Billy: It was Ratt and Bon Jovi. It was at Nassau Coliseum on November 8th, 1985. I still have the ticket and everything. It was the biggest day in my life, just about. Jon Bon Jovi and the band kicked Ratt's ass.

Mike: Wow. And Ratt's on tour recently, too.

Billy: I know, and it's killing me. They were playing on the 4th of July out on Long Island.

Mike: The Coward album has a great sound to it--with the harmonies and the keyboards, it sounds like you're trying to evoke the late '70s/early '80s era of rock.

Billy: Absolutely.

Mike: So you guys are fans of that period?

Billy: Absolutely. One of the coolest things about the way Joey and Shep write--Shep, for as long as I've known him, has been writing like this--in other bands, we were always trying to hop on some bandwagon. I think one of the key reasons why we got a deal as quick as we did was everyone just said, "You know what? Let's just do what we do." We're not writing anything that hasn't been done before. It's just simple rock and roll--it's what we grew up on. And that's all that we really know, actually. If you don't get it right away, you're not going to get it at all. It's really kind of in-your-face.

The thing I told Shep months ago--and he really liked the way this sounded--the way I see the music is we took the best aspects of all of the eras of what we listen to. Shep grew up on doo-wop, and he sometimes has a doo-wop thing in his voice, I think. Joey's a total Beatles freak, so the harmonies are definitely from there. Shep's songwriting is influenced by The Cars and Cheap Trick. Joey likes Kiss a lot. And when people ask me about my influences--I'm looking at my CDs right now--I go from Zeppelin to Nirvana. I think anything that kicks ass, I like. If it doesn't kick ass, I don't like it as much. And Pete grew up with the heavier stuff as well.

It's a really weird mix. When we're in the car, we never get along with want we want to listen to. Unless it's stuff that sounds like what the band does, like The Cars or Cheap Trick--that late '70s/'80s stuff.

Mike: Definitely the keyboards help to shape your sound on the album. The liner notes say Roger Manning played keyboards for you. Is that the Roger Manning from Jellyfish?

Billy: Yeah.

Mike: Cool! How'd you guys hook up with him?

Billy: I guess it was our A&R guy, Josh Deutsch, who had worked with him before, or something. He knew his manager and gave him a call. Jellyfish was definitely one of my favorite bands, and Shep's also, so when we found out he was going to do keyboards, we were like, "Wow!" Especially since--I got to say--I wasn't keen on having keyboards on it. As much as I like The Cars, I didn't want to be in a band with a "Cars" sound. I never looked at The Cars as being a real rocking band--to me, they were new wave-ish. Everyone wanted to steer clear of that, but when I heard Roger do his thing, and the way that it was mixed in subtly and it wasn't too overpowering, I totally did a 180 on it. The only drawback--and we saw this when we were recording it--is live, we're not going to have it. We all talked about it, and we made sure we weren't going to have to get a new guy in the band to play keyboards. We wanted to make it so that it wasn't that prevalent. Actually, Joey incorporates a lot of the keyboard parts on his guitar.

Mike: When I compared your sound live with that on the album, the keyboards are the biggest difference. It's almost like you get the best of both worlds. On the album, it has more subtlety and a more carefully structured sound, but live, you guys just rock out. Yeah, it's different, but it's not so different that people are going to go "What the hell--?"

Billy: Yeah, that's a good point that I never really gave much thought to. The most feedback I get from people--the most common thing--is "I love your CD, it's really cool, but--don't take this the wrong way--but we just think you're a lot better live." To me, that's a total complement. If anything, I'd like to be great live. Well, actually, I don't know. A lot more people will probably hear the CD. [laughing] It's good that we have a good mix of both. But now that you mention it, the reason people probably think we're better live is it's probably a little more energy in the live show.

Mike: Well, it's not like anyone would get much of a mistaken impression of the band even if they only heard one track from the record.

Billy: That's why when we shot the video, it was really important that we have a lot of live footage. If anyone did have that thing in the back of their head, like "I like it, but they sound like pop music," at least they'll see the band and go, "Hey, those guys kick ass."

Mike: I haven't seen the video yet. Does it have a lot of live footage?

Billy: Yeah, it was really cool--probably one of the coolest things we've done yet with the band. They wanted to shoot it out in L.A. for budget reasons, and we wanted to totally capture the suburban feel. We all looked at each other and said, "Great! We'd all love to go out to L.A. But then isn't the suburban feel going to be a little weird with palm trees when we're from New York?" We talked them into doing here, and we actually shot it in my hometown. They found a location where there was a row of houses that all looked the same, and we shot it in the bedroom where I grew up in my parents' house. The night when I got back from that Ratt show, I went back there and stared in the mirror for an hour--that the same room where the video was shot. That was a lot of fun.

There's a weird story to it. The director had one of those Tiki dolls, like on The Brady Bunch, and it's just a story about how everything goes wrong to whoever has this thing in their possession. Not so much cracking your head on a rock while surfing, but some guy wipes out on his bike. Shep's dad is in it. On all the choruses, where we're screaming "I don't care!" we're just going all out, and you can see it.

Mike: You were mentioning before about wanting to be an actor. I guess making music videos will be a way for you to do some acting after all.

Billy: I just think it's freaky. As I was taking acting classes, you don't really realize how much you're probably interested in if you just give it a shot. I know that's something I would definitely like to take up if the band ever slows down. Hopefully it won't, of course. When we were signing the deal, that was a concern everyone had--being that I was getting into acting--they wanted to make sure I would never do a Saved By the Bell, or something.

Mike: [laughing] Or something weird, like a cookie commercial or something...

Billy: I'm like, "Give me some credit. Melrose, maybe, but not Saved By the Bell!

Mike: Something else about the CD. Where you have the devil hand sign on the inlay card, there's a roman numeral "one."

Billy: Yeah, that was my idea. It wasn't like there was a fight, it was just one of those things where everybody--including the guys in the band and the record company--eventually went "Fine! Just stop bugging me! All right, we'll put the 'one' on!" I wanted to call the album "Coward One" with a huge roman numeral. Van Halen and Led Zeppelin had their Ones, but they never actually wrote it out. They just made their second one "Two" and the first one became "One." I wanted to put out "One" to say, "Hey, we're not going anywhere!"

Mike: So is the next album going to have a "Two"?

Billy: [laughing] I guess we'll see. This one couldn't officially be called "One" because everyone thought it was stupid. I did manage to get it on the inside.

Mike: Well, it is kind of cool to have that. There's a lot of things in rock music to have some kind of continuity between albums, like Journey, or something, where the artwork of the albums all link them together. That kind of stuff is cool because not only do you have each individual album, but there's a larger identity to everything.

Billy: On the CD itself, there's also a "one" in parenthesis below "Coward."

Mike: Have you had people coming up to you, wanting your autograph yet?

Billy: Recently, we did a show in Syracuse, an outdoor festival, and afterwards, we went out to see the next band. And while we were standing there--it wasn't one or two--we had about fifty people come running over asking for autographs. I was like, "No way!" It was so weird how people were so nice, saying "Could you sign this?" I was, "Are you kidding? Even if you didn't want me to, I'm still signing it!" It's just so weird!

Mike: Do you ever feel funny signing autographs--not funny like in an obnoxious way, just surreal?

Billy: I got to tell you. It's just the first couple of weeks, and I'm just getting used to it. In a good way, not cocky. Like, "Wow! People are actually digging the music!" I haven't had anybody really notice me on the street or anything. It's just after shows, when people have really dug the set. It's just great right now. Being on the road with certain bands, and seeing how other bands deal with pressure of people coming up to them--I, and the whole band, look at it very differently than some other bands. They don't want to bother. For us, this is what we've worked for for the last ten years of our lives. We want to go out and meet people, and thank 'em for coming out. Hopefully we're not going to change. I really don't see that.

Mike: Maybe if it ever gets too big to handle.

Billy: Maybe, like an exhaustion thing....

Mike: Or there are some bands that are so big that if they try to hang out, they get attacked. That's not cool.

Billy: Well, hopefully we'll move to that level. Someday. For the time being, things are so cool.

Mike: Did you see T hat Thing You Do!?

Billy: Yeah! I saw it three times. I love it!

Mike: You know the scene where they're leaving the gig, and there's all the screaming fans at the top of the stairs. And Tom Hanks is like, "Hey, put on those shades and get up there, they're yelling for you!" That's the moment that, I think, most people who go into rock 'n' roll dream of.

Billy: That one scene is what we've been going through--for the past few weeks, anyway. We're still--every time someone asks for an autograph or I read some fan mail--I'm like, "Wow! That's so cool! I used to do this when I was a kid."

Mike: Is there anything in the rock world which makes you think, "No, that's wrong--it shouldn't be like that."

Billy: I want to say yeah, but who am I to tell people what's right and what's wrong? All I can say is--and it's not just a band but a movement--the grunge thing was cool, because it gave a new life. And I hated it at first, I got to say. I was out in L.A. in a band doing the whole glam metal scene, and it ended that real quick. The good thing about the grunge thing was that it added a new life to music. I think it got away from that. Lately, it's more about downplaying everything. The stages got lower, and it's almost not cool for people to lose their minds at shows anymore. I remember the last band I was in before I decided to go into that whole acting thing, we had a show--and I don't know if it's still like this--but I totally remember going to a show and the kids would come in and sit down on the floor with no chairs. I would go to the guys in the band, "What the fuck is happening? Are they going to get up?" And they'd go, "No, it's the vibe."

Mike: They didn't get up?

Billy: No, it's the thing to do. They just sit there and get into the vibe and pretend they're stoned, but they're all twelve years old. It's the whole skater thing. But I want people going nuts, or I can't play. It just bugs me. I don't know. The whole shoegazing thing with bands--they just stand in one place and look at their feet while they're playing. I can't say that it's wrong. They're just doing what they're doing, and maybe that's how they were brought up. I wasn't. I was brought up believing you go to a show, like Ratt--which, in retrospect, they probably sucked live--but they put on a show where I came home that night, and that's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Mike: Going to the opposite extreme, if you guys get huge and you're doing those arena shows, would you guys do basically a bigger version of the show you do now, or would you be like David Lee Roth flying on a surfboard over the audience?

Billy: I don't know, man, I always dug that stuff. You have singers who run around the stage and it's tough for them to get words out because they've just been running around. I would rather see that than somebody who's on every single note but stands in one place. Like Rush. I love listening to them. I don't think you'd catch me at a show, though. I don't think I could sit through it for two or three hours. Unless I was staring at [drummer] Neil Peart, which is a different story altogether. I feel like--especially with the ticket prices these days--give them something to write home about.

Mike: As long as you do it right. I saw the Rolling Stones Steel Wheels tour, and that was mind-blowing. It was so good. But if you don't do it right, you might wander into Spinal Tap territory.

Billy: There definitely is a fine line. When people ask us, "Do you want to bring back the whole arena rock thing?" We're definitely not looking to bring back hairspray and spandex, but we're looking to bring back fun. Even if you're talking the '50s, music was just about fun. People didn't write about depressing things. I'm not saying people shouldn't write about depressing things--if you're inspired to write about anything, by all means write it. We're about just having a good time with people. Hopefully that trend will pick up.

Mike: Well, I think the tide is turning somewhat in rock music. Angst-ridden bands and misery seems to be giving way to more fun bands. Maybe that's another reason why everything happened for you guys so fast.

Billy: People just need a change. I want to mention, though, that one of my favorite bands to this date is still Nirvana. Although they might have wrote about some miserable things, to me they just tore it up live. There was just something. It's weird where I'm coming from--I guess the only trend I don't like is boring.

Mike: You mentioned Neil Peart before. Who else has been an influence on your drumming?

Billy: I really started playing drums because of Tommy Lee from Motley Crue. Probably the coolest thing since we signed with Elektra was I had a chance to meet him about two months ago at Elektra. We were there doing interviews, and he was next door doing the same thing. I went in there, and was just, "Holy shit!" He was, "How are you doing?" He was really polite, and I said, "I feel like I owe you money." And he said, "Why?" "I feel like I owe you money for drum lessons. I used to put your albums on and beat the hell out the drums and drive the neighbors nuts." We just bullshitted for five minutes, and it was really cool. The other night I went to see them, and the Elektra guys got me backstage to meet the band afterwards. I didn't say a word, but he was like, "Hey, I remember you!" It really flipped me out.

Mike: That's cool, because you don't often get a chance to tell someone like that what they meant in your life.

Billy: Yeah, I don't know how I did it, actually. I walked out of the room after talking with him--I was totally calm, I was, "Nice to meet you! Great!"--then I was, "Can somebody get me a paper bag? I think I'm hyperventilating!"

Mike: [laughing] Well, as long as that's afterwards and not something from a movie where you're, "Hi, Billy? I'm Tommy! Nice to meet you!"

Billy: [laughing] Exactly! I was afraid of that.

Mike: Well, Billy, thanks for talking with me!

Billy: It was a total pleasure, man! Whenever--I'll tell you whatever you need to know!

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't feel like 3EB treated you differently than anyone else I know. I worked for Elektra at the time and we also did a meet and greet. They basically ignored anyone who didn't have a cute face, hot body, or big boobs.
Good or not live. They were asses. I was glad to see their later albums flop.

COWARD on the other hand were some of the nicest folks I worked with during my radio/label career. They deserved better than they got.

5:28 PM  

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