road warrior

Feb

2020

Cowboy Mach Bell

Cowboy Mach Bell Show Notes
Once A Rocker Always A Rocker, a Road Warrior, a Teacher and and Author

Tales of the Road Warriors! This is the first full-length interview of 2020 and my guest is Cowboy Mach Bell. Since this is a longish episode, I’ll just give you a brief rundown about who I’m talking to, and the rest, you’ll discover during our conversation.

During the early days of Aerosmith, (yes… THAT Aerosmith) Joe Perry, their notorious and much adored lead guitarist and Steve Tyler’s right hand man – left the band to start his own band, the Joe Perry Project. He put out three solo albums, each with a different lead singer, before ultimately, and inevitabley rejoining Aerosmith and taking his place one again alongside Steve Tyler.

The lead singer on the third Joe Perry Project album, containing the title song, Once a Rocker, Always a Rocker, is my guest on today’s episode… Cowboy Mach Bell. By the way, Once a Rocker, Always a Rocker – a Diary is also the name of Mach’s book; based on a journal he kept during his old road warrior days with the band. You’ll find a link on the show notes page to Mach’s website where you can get yourself a copy of Once a Rocker, Always a Rocker – a Diary, a well as links to some videos of his earlier live performances with the Joe Perry Project- and also with his first band called Thundertrain.

That’s all you really need to know going in – So, let’s join the conversation, already in progress…

TALKING POINTS:

Outskirts of Boston, Flutie, sports fans, rocks and jocks, team songs,

The 80’s transitions – Led Zeppelin, Joe Perry, Ted Nugget, Ozzy Osbourne, New Wave, The Cars, Elvis Costello, the Police, Van Halen.
The emergence of heavy metal and hair bands in 1984 – Quiet Riot, Motley Crue, Warrant, Guns & Roses, etc.
The cello, fuzz tone, was wah pedals, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix
First band Thundertrain in 1977
The song, Hot For Teacher and the David Lee Roth connection
CBGBs, Max’s Kansas City. Shared stage with Runaways, Mink DeVille, Thin Lizzy
Dealing with rejection. Work at Dad’s audio store. The call from Joe Perry’s people.
Joe Perry’s seizure. Hitting bottom. Helping through his recovery.
Venezuela Story
The Diary
The Truck Stop Story
My Michael Winslow Story
Aerosmith comes back for Joe.
The “Cowboy” Nickname Story
Working with the kids

Links and Media

Cowboy Mach Bell’s Website
Reviews, more interviews and purchase a copy of Once A Rocker, Always a Rocker – A Diary by Cowboy Mach Bell

Thundertrain Thundertrain Videos on Youtube

Once A Rocker Video – Joe Perry Project featuring Cowboy Mach Bell

Apr

2019

Tony Gamble

Tony Gamble and I go way back. He was coming into the Chimneysweep Lounge in Sherman Oaks, CA on my Sunday night open mic nights before the 1994 Northridge quake, so we’ve known each other at least that long. He’d sit in. Play some guitar. Try out his originals. On the other nights of the week, we’d often just hang out at the Chimneysweep and get shit-faced. I have a big box of pictures from those days, so I was able to include a couple of Tony and me on this page.

Tony was diagnosed a few years ago with Prothrombin factor 2, a rare blood clotting disorder. He goes into a little detail about it, and we discuss how shit like that can really slow you up, but we keep playing through it all. You know how it is. Anyway, I included a link to an organization called Stop the Clot in case you’d like to learn more about it or maybe contribute to finding a cure.

Tony first became know for his chops on the guitar. He’s what was known as a “shredder” – a guitarist with impeccable skills and playing speed. He taught guitar, wrote guitar instruction books and toured with rock bands throughout the world. Unfortunately, Tony didn’t really want to talk about the more decadent period of his rock and roll life life, which would have made for great podcast fodder. However, as a friend, I didn’t want to press him to talk about those days. We mostly discussed what Tony has been doing lately, which is writing and recording new material for his latest project… an as yet untitled, but soon to be released album of original acoustic music for Warner Brothers Latin division. This latest project has ignited new passion in Gamble and he is very excited to talk about his latest creation.

But this is Tales of the Road Warriors, so what I can do is give you a link to where you can read about some of Tony’s past experiences for yourself, in his own words. There’s a link below to the RARWRITER site which will take you there. It’s quite an interesting read, which is alluded to briefly in our conversation. L.A. in the 90’s… good times!