| Rob: When and how did the band start?
Jeff: The band started out as the backup band to a female country rock singer back in 1973. The band was called `Carol Cruise and the Cruisers.` Terry was the guitar player, Paul was the bass player and I was the keyboard player, along with a drummer named Frank Infranca. Terry and Paul and I were very young and very poor. Carol was affluent and lived in a big mansion. She would cook dinner for the three of us before practice. After dinner, we would go into the practice room and jam while we waited for Frank the drummer to show up. Frank wasn�t poor like the rest of us and didn�t need a free meal like we did. I would play Frank�s drums during these jams. We immediately realized that something intense happened every time we jammed together. We actually had more fun doing our heavy power trio jams than we did practicing the country rock stuff with Carol. Terry, Paul and I, along with our sound man and recording engineer, Greg Gassman moved into a big old house on Manheim Rd. Which we named the Electric House. We lived in decaying splendor on the wrong side of the racial dividing line in Kansas City, Missouri. At some point, we quit playing with Carol and started playing and jamming a lot in the basement of the Electric House. We had a Sony TC-366 reel to reel tape recorder and we recorded our jams. In those days we always seemed to have a name for the places in which we lived. Later, Terry and I moved out to the country to a place we called the Boogie Barn and Paul moved to Parkville, Missouri into a house he called the Stone House on Crooked Road. We continued to jam and record and those recordings are the basis for the albums and CDs that our record company, Monster Record is releasing today.
Rob: Have you been playing non-stop over the years or off and on?
Paul: that depends on your meaning of non stop. I`ve kept playing the whole time just haven`t done a lot of gigs. Lots of recording and song writing but I tend to be a hermit rather than play club gigs. The Boulder scene is into blues and funk and stuff like that. When I come up with some loud ass distorted bass runs they look at me like I`m a fuckin alien. Oh well...
Rob: You guys have a long history I would guess since you started in the 70s... How has the overall band sound evolved?
Terry: I suppose we lack the truly manic edge we once had. But we`ve gained more wallop...sort of like trading an axe for a 20 pound sledgehammer.
Rob: How many songs have you written?
Jeff: The three of us decided a long time ago that we would give songwriting credit to all three of us on every Scare Band tune, no matter who actually wrote it. That�s because so many of our tunes are really just jams that the three of us made up as we went along. But there are a lot of regular tunes, as well. Terry is far and away the most talented and prolific songwriter. Paul actually wrote "It�s Too Late" when he was, like 14. It is one of my all time favorite songs. In that song, the singer tells about how he is so bummed out about breaking up with his girlfriend that he commits suicide by drowning himself. I used to write a lot of songs on the piano. I was like trying to write Beatle songs and I never really succeeded. I wrote one song for Prisoner called `Help Me` that is real early 1980s new wave pop and that one is probably my favorite tune that I ever wrote. It is nothing like any Scare Band stuff, though. I think that the best Scare Band tune is one called `Burn In Hell.` It is truly the result of input from all three of us. We don�t have a decent recording of that tune by the Scare Band. The best recorded version is from the Prisoner album, but it doesn�t have Paul playing bass on it. I have a reel to reel tape of the Scare Band playing that tune that was recorded at Big K Records in about 1975 or so. Monster Records must not like it though, because as far as I know, they have no plans on releasing that one. That is one that we will have to get into the studio and do again.
Rob: What are some of the guitar influences?
Terry: In alphabetical order: Jeff Beck, Joey Clyne, Bill Connors, Jimi Hendrix, Allan Holdsworth, Albert King
Rob: Are there any plans for you playing at all in the future?
Terry: I`m pretty sure we`ll do some recording in 2001.
Paul: That might be something to consider for sure. I think we need to do some more recording, get the label to consider some of the new stuff and maybe we could generate enough interest to do a few gigs.
Rob: Live gigs or tours?
Terry: There is always a possibility. Right now we`re involved in a bunch of other deals.
Paul: Yes, that sounds like fun...
Jeff: Dude, we need to get out and play before we are just too damned old to do it any more. We can all still play like crazy. I am a much better drummer now than I was when I was recording with the Scare Band. We want to get out and play, but no one is asking at the moment.
Rob: How would you describe your sound?
Jeff: Loud and very very heavy. All of the material on the Monster Records albums was pretty much home made. We got some incredible guitar and bass sounds. I challenge anyone to come up with a better guitar tone than the ones we got on `Sleeping Sickness` and `Time To Cry.` Paul had this incredible loud bass rig with these big folded horn `W` cabinets. He played a Rickenbacker bass through them turned up really loud. He used to call it a `melt` sound. Very very heavy, indeed.
Paul: To me it`s a telepo thing that happens when we get together. The 3 of us have some sort of connection and seem to work well with visual queues. So, I think it`s a melting crunchin kind of a heavy ride through honey. It is the most fun I`ve had cranking it up. We sort of did the turn it up to eleven thing whenever we played together. It does tend to kick up the intensity if you push a room to its limit.
Terry: It`s alive. When we play together we unhook our brains and plug in to the void. I call it `traveling music.`
Rob: How many different members has the band had over the years?
Jeff: The Scare Band has always been Terry and Paul and I. There was another guitar player named Joe Clyne who used to jam with us a lot. I have a couple of tapes of the Scare Band with Joe Clyne that are damned good. He was and is a great guitar player. Terry told me once that Joe Clyne was his hero. That�s pretty damned high praise, if you ask me. We also used to jam with a keyboard player named Dan Doran and another drummer named Bob Jolly. And of course, Frank Infranca. Those guys and Joe are definitely honorary members of the Scare Band. But the Scare Band itself has always been the trio of JPT.
Rob: Are there any recordings that haven`t been released over the years?
Jeff: Dude, I have boxes of reel to reel tapes of the Scare Band. Recorded by some very crazed musicians who didn�t quite know what we were doing most of the time. We recorded in the basement of the Electric House on Manheim in Kansas City and the dining room of the Stone House on Crooked Road outside of Parkville, Missouri. That is where the material comes from that Monster Records is releasing. Like I said, they won�t put out any of our newer stuff, they say it sounds too good, they like that raw garage band, recorded in the basement sound of the material from the 1970s. I also have many tapes of the Prisoner/Project 23 band. That is the band that Terry and I played in for several years after the Scare Band. Most of that stuff was done in recording studios. Then there is the Country and Western stuff. Terry and I worked in a C&W studio called Big K Records in the 1970s and early 1980s. Actually Paul did some work there with us as well. We were studio musicians and producers. I have a ton of stuff from that gig. Weird shit like "Pig Pen Boogie," "Bounty Hunter" and "Kiss The Dirt." I�ll tell you what, though. We had a pedal steel player at Big K named Jack Hensley. He was totally awesome on pedal steel. Had a nice Harley, too.
Rob: What are some of the best live bands that you have gigged with over the years?
Jeff: I�m not sure whether you mean bands that I actually played with or bands that we opened for. I�ll cover the bands that we opened for angle. During our first year at university, a band that Terry played with opened for Led Zeppelin in Kansas City. That was in 1969. I didn�t play with them, but I went to the concert to see Terry and that has to be the coolest opening act gig that any of us played. Terry and I played some pretty cool opening act gigs with the Prisoner/Project 23 band. We opened for Krokus, Alvin Lee, Savoy Brown, and REO Speedwagon. During the Carol Cruise and the Cruisers days, I moonlighted on keyboards with a very popular local band called the Chessmen. They only used a keyboard player for concert gigs so I got to play with them opening concerts for Spirit, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Chuck Berry, and probably some others that I don�t even remember. I later played drums with the singer from the Chessmen in a band called Missouri. We had a record out and d d a tour of Texas, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee where we opened for Canned Heat and a great heavy power trio called Budgie. Budgie could really rock, that�s for sure. Terry has us all beat with Zeppelin, though.
I forgot one classic little tour that Terry and I did soon after the Scare Band went into one of our recurring dormant periods when Paul was distracted by the mysteries of life. We were doing the power trio thing with different bass player, a guy named Alan Franklin. We somehow got a gig where we did a tour of small colleges in Missouri as the backup band for the Coasters!!! Some booking agency in Phoenix set up the tour. Why they had a power trio back up the Coasters, I�ll never know. I mean, you really need at least one sax to do Coasters tunes properly. It was totally cool hanging out with the Coasters and playing all those tunes, though. `Charlie Brown,` `Love Potion #9,` `Along Came Jones,` `Get A Job,` etc. Unbelievable.
Rob: And here is a list of questions that we ask all the bands we call it here at StonerRock.com 13 stupid questions... not too serious so don`t worry about making brief answers- just have fun with it!
If you weren`t a rocker, what would you most like to be?
Paul: a motivational speaker or a tele-evangelist
Jeff: Executive Director for the Council On Foreign Relations.
Terry: I could use several more lifetimes. One to travel, one to read, one to listen to music, one to play the guitar, one to freen and on and on.
Rob: What was your worst gig and why? What was your best gig and why?
Paul: There have been lots of weird gigs but none that I think of in that way. They all have their own charm. I do remember a gig in Kansas when I was playing with Curt Bartlett and Bobby Brown in a band called Snarky. We walk in this place and tripped over some guy on the way to the band stand that was passed out on the floor. When we got setup and crowd showed up I noticed that the big fan behind us was pulling clouds of smoke out of the building right past us. It was a smokers dream! Tons of nicotine. I think I got bronchitis after that gig.
Rob: Top 3 movies, books and albums of all time?
Jeff: Movies: Dr.Strangelove, Being There, Joe vs.the Volcano
Books: Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson, Showboat World - Jack Vance
Albums: Led Zeppelin II, Electric Ladyland - Jimi Hendrix, The White Album - The Beatles
Paul: Dr. Strangelove, Zachariah, Greasers Palace. Led Zepelin 1, Mountain - Climbing and The Wall
Terry: Movies: Dr. Stangelove, The Maltese Falcon, Fantasia
Books: Carlos Castenada `The Eagle`s Gift`, The Random House Dictionary, Roger Tory Peterson `A Field Guide to Birds East of the Rockies`
Albums: The Beatles `The White Album`, Mountain `Climbing`, Jeff Beck `Blow By Blow`, Kansas `Leftoverture`
Rob: How often do you surf the net and what do you mostly do while online?
Paul: About 5 nights a month. Check out music sites, WFMU to see if they`re still playing our stuff, Amsterdam sites and planet NASA type stuff is a gass late at night too. I do lots of downloads of boring shit like music software or patches for antivirus. Nothing too exotic.
Rob: What is your favourite city and venue to play, and why?
Jeff: That�s a tough one. Little Rock has the wildest groupies, that�s for sure. Believe it or not, Wichita, Kansas really rocks, too and Dodge City, Kansas is still very much in the wild wild west mode. I guess that my home town, Kansas City, Missouri is my favorite, though. There used to be a big old 1930s dance hall that was converted to a roller rink and then in the early 1970s it was a hippie rock palace. No seats in the place, everyone just crowded in on the old hardwood roller rink floor, with a big stage at one end. It was called Cowtown Ballroom and it was a great place to play. There is a venue in Kansas City, Kansas called Memorial Hall that is just a great place to play. It seats about 3500 and there isn�t a bad seat in the house. That�s where Terry opened for Led Zeppelin in 1969. I have played there several times and have attended many great concerts there. Besides Zeppelin, I saw Jefferson Airplane, Black Sabbath, Mountain, Jethro Tull (Aqualung Tour), Ted Nugent, Cactus, Captain Beyond, John Mayall, Mitch Ryder, Buddy Miles Express, Deep Purple, James Gang, Frank Zappa, Grateful Dead and many other classic shows in that hall. When I played that tour with the band Missouri, we played in Austin, Texas at the Armadillo World Headquarters. Another big old 1930s dance palace that reminded me of Cowtown Ballroom in KC. I had read about that place many times in Rolling Stone magazine and l consider it an honor to have played there. It is long gone, nothing left but memories. On that tour, we also played the Fox Theater in Atlanta. Totally gorgeous room with great acoustics.
Rob: What is the most Rock `n` Roll thing you`ve ever done? What`s the most Rock `n` Roll thing you`ve seen someone else do?
Terry: I played with my eyes open once...it scared the hell out of me!
Paul: I was usually too toasty to notice anything out of the ordinary. It all seemed okay to me at the time.
Jeff: Terry and I got booked into a club on the border between Kansas and Missouri and Oklahoma. It was the first place I ever played where they had strippers. There I was playing drums in a rock band and we had ladies stripping on stage with us while we played. I thought to myself that we had really made it to a new level. We went to a pawn shop in Joplin, MO and bought a Silvertone electric guitar for 15 bucks. It was one of those cool Danelectro jobs with the silver glitter on the body and lipstick case pickups.
On Saturday night, Terry did a big guitar solo with it and set it on fire with lighter fluid, a la Hendrix. He put lighter fluid on the neck and was playing it while the neck was on fire. He looked totally demonic and he got carried away and actually burned his fingers because, like the neck was on fire, but he couldn�t even feel it at the time. The bass player and I went into this tribal boogie kind of groove and people were dancing around Terry and his burning guitar and the strippers were dancing around and then Terry smashed the guitar to bits on a cement block we had put on stage. Everyone in the place went totally berserk. That was a rock and roll night I will never forget. Too bad about the Danelectro Silvertone guitar. We felt a little guilty about destroying such a cool guitar, but it was for a worthy cause. Another total rock & roll experience occurred when Joey Clyne�s country rock band, Backwood Memory, was the opening act at a concert at Cowtown Ballroom in the early 1970s. They had finished their set and we were all in their dressing room with some ladies and various refreshments. They had some little amps in there and some of the guys were jamming. We were partying and I mean we were really partying. The guy who was the manager of the hall comes in and tells us that our party is too damn loud. Now try to understand, the headline act is out on stage playing their set. I can�t remember exactly who it was, Poco or the Flying Burrito Brothers, some country rock act. I mean, the headliners were out there on stage playing full tilt with the big house PA blowing and going and the hall manager is telling us that our party in the dressing room is too loud and is distracting the band and the audience and could we please tone it the fuck down. That was Rock & Roll!!
The most rock and roll thing I saw someone else do occurred when Terry and I were playing in the blues band with Jerry Wood. We were playing at a pool hall in Wichita, Kansas and on the break a bunch of us were out back in an alley. It was a real "West Side Story" looking alley behind this pool hall. Jerry was spread eagled on the hood of a pick up truck with his britches down around his ankles and a lady was doing the oral sex thing on him with a big crowd of biker looking dudes and ladies cheering her on. I recall nodding to myself and knowing that I would never ever forget THAT scene. I can bring it up in my mind in full living color even today.
Rob: What`s your worst `bad trip` story?
Paul: you mean real bad `trip`??
Terry: That would take a book! I`ve nearly died from frostbite, evil cops, and highway hypnosis to name but a few.
Rob: What`s the most painful thing you have ever witnessed at a rock show?
Terry: People cheering for a bunch of no-talent musicians.
Rob: How old were you when you first realize you wanted to rock?
Paul: About 5, I got a violin for Christmas and started playing it like a guitar.
Terry: In the 7th grade me and three friends dressed up as the Beatles and lip-synched to a couple of their songs for a school assembly. The response amazed me.
Rob: What`s the most embarrassing job you`ve ever had?
Jeff: I worked as a security guard at the front gate to an automobile assembly plant that was under construction. It was the ultimate low rent gig. I wore a stupid brown security guard uniform and I didn�t tell anyone I knew that I had taken the job. I slipped up and told Wally Binney, the bass player for Prisoner/Project 23 about it and he gave me so much shit that I quit the next day. I really needed the money at the time, but I was just too embarrassed to go back after Wally ragged me so badly.
Terry: I was a lifeguard at a nude beach one summer.
Paul: I worked at some Kmart type store and they had a dress code. I had long hair and so I put it up under a wig my buddy Danny Hensley gave me. It was a fucked up wig that looked like some old lady platinum blonde. The greasers at the store in the stocking area got on my case really big. I had to eat a bunch of No-Doze to stay awake and I laste two days.
Rob: What`s your favourite ice cream flavor?
Paul: I like those Nutty Buddies. (spoken like Carl from Slingblade)...
Terry: Forget ice cream, it`s gotta be frozen custard to get my nipples hard.
Jeff: Ben and Jerry�s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. That�s the best, no question about it. When I was a kid, if my Mom or my Grandma baked chocolate chip cookies, I was always there with a spoon to scrape the leftover dough from the mixing bowl.
Rob: If you could date any rock/movie star who would it be?
Terry: People waste too much time on those geeks, although I admit I wouldn`t mind sharing a fruit salad with Carmen Miranda.
Jeff: Does Carly Simon count as a rock star? I always thought that she was a major babe. She had the sexiest mouth I have ever seen. Movie star would have to be Kim Bassinger. Did you ever see that weird movie she was in where she was a cartoon character that escaped from the toon universe and became a live human for a while? `Cool World` or something like that for the title. There�s a scene where she has this little white cheerleader uniform on. That really killed me. Major fantasy.
Paul: Tia Carrera would be a real treat on both counts, since she was a rock star in Wayne`s World.
Rob: What would be the ultimate dream gig of all time line-up be, with your band opening? Limit to 3 bands please (including your own...) and where?
Paul: JPT with Pink Floyd, We`d play for a couple hours and they`d play for 3 so we could hear lots of there stuff. I guess we could play just about anywhere, but the Vatican would be cool. We could blow some major smoke up the Church mob`s ass with that gig.
Jeff: JPT Scare Band, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix at Carnegie Hall in New York City
Terry: JPT Scare Band vs The Backstreet Boys in a cage match on Wrestlemania-2001.
|
