Rock Music Interviews

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Front Page Rock Interview Archive

_{_{_{Emily Zuzik - Age + Alchemy}}}

_{_{Singer,
songwriter and musician Emily Zuzik or as she likes to say, rhymes with
music, is a lot of things and has accomplished many things during her
life, some of which we talked about during a wide-ranging conversation
recently. Her current EP, Age + Alchemy, consists of three
co-writes with Ted Russell Kamp, two songs written solo and a cover of
John Lennon’s “I’m Losing You.” Referring to herself as a seeker is an
apt description and another might be a modern-day philosopher who
expresses her thoughts and experiences through music. Her musical
influences are just as eclectic as her other interests, with David
Bowie, John Lennon, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Elvis being among them.
A palette that spans eight decades, and no if you are wondering her life
has not spanned anywhere close to that many decades!
In talking about
what she means in describing herself as a seeker she says, “That could
mean many different things. To seek out adventures, to seek out
experiences, to seek out love, to seek out a way that doesn’t hurt
people, to seek out spiritual. To just be sensitive to where you are in
any given environment and your interactions with other people. I think
as you get older you understand or you seek out different ways to make
sense of things that happened in the past or people you have had past
relationships with, good, bad or whatever. Seeking is the process of
growth,” then she adds smiling, “I am a Pisces.}} _{_{_{_{When I was younger, I always felt out of sync you could (say) I was not
cut from}}

_{_{_{_{Read More}}}}}}

Poco - Rusty Young

“I really am pleased (with that album). It was a neat experience. I had never done a solo record. I had always focused on Poco records and in 2013 and 2014 I was thinking about retiring and just doing things that I enjoyed, fun shows with friends and that kind of stuff. Jimmy Messina called me, and he said I have five or six shows on the west coast, and it would be great if you came out and played with me. We did old Poco songs and it was a fun thing to do.

We were doing a show in California and this guy Kirk Pasich came up to me afterwards and he said have you ever thought of doing a solo record? I said not really. The opportunity has never presented itself. He said, I have a label Blue Élan and we would love to have you make a record for us. I thought about how everybody who has ever been in Poco have done solo records, Paul Cotton and Richie Furay, Timothy B Schmit and Randy Meisner. I thought it might be an interesting thing for me to do at the end of my career. It was the best way for me to illustrate my part in the sound of Poco. If you listen to Richie Furay’s records you can hear what he contributed to the band and the same with Paul Cotton (and the others). They all have their style and their songs. It was a chance for me to show what I brought to the scene. I thought it was a really good challenge at that point in my life.”

Continuing to talk about the album he says, “The first song that I wrote was “Waiting for the Sun.” After I wrote it, I called Kirk and I said listen let’s do this record.

We live in a cabin or a log home in Missouri in Read More

_{Tawny Ellis - Edge Of The World}

_{Tawny
Ellis is a lot of things and that is the most understated statement you
will ever hear anyone make. She is an accomplished actress, she is an
excellent singer, songwriter and musician, she has fashioned jewelry,
she is a critically acclaimed sculptor with her art appearing in
galleries in numerous countries, she is a painter and that is her art on
the front cover of her current album Edge Of The World.
She also works with her husband Gio Loria as the vice-president
of his company Black Volt Amplification, which acts both as a
luthier and builds amplifiers.
a We will stop there, because if we continue listing her other
talents and accomplishments you may be in for an even longer read than
you anticipated in this the first part of a two-part interview.
It has been five
years since Tawny Ellis released her last album and there can be many
reasons why, especially with someone this busy.
She opens up, “Honestly, I think I got really
gun shy. Something shut down on me, because I had worked on that album
for quite some time. I released it in 2020 and I had signed up to go on
tour in Europe and open for a really great artist over there. They shut
down the whole world (due to the COVID pandemic). The day that I
was supposed to get on the plane to go to the U.K.
to hook up and go on the tour and to play all of these shows they
shut everything down and nobody could go anywhere. I felt like I had
just flown a plane into the mountainside. It was horrible. We had packed
everything and promoted and all the gigs were laid out. I am a really
sensitive person and it was so hard.}

You can’t Read More

Maia Sharp and Reckless Thoughts

It is always great to sit down, (even if it is over the miles) and chat with Maia Sharp. The renowned singer, songwriter and musician, whose songs have been recorded by artists such as, Cher, Trisha Yearwood, Terri Clark, Bonnie Raitt and Art Garfunkel, will have just released her new album Reckless Thoughts by the time you are reading this. Maia Sharp is as candid, as she is thoughtful when talking about her life, career and songs. She breathes fresh air into the world of music. She is comfortable collaborating with other songwriters and she is quick to share the spotlight and credit with them, even though it is her name on the album for which the songs appear.

From her home in Nashville (yes, she did indeed move from California a few years ago), she talks about when the seeds for Reckless Thoughts were first planted.

“The first song that I knew was going to be the beginning of a new album project was “Kind.” I wrote that with Mindy Smith and Dean Fields in 2019. When we were finished with that one, I knew I needed to start thinking about another project, even though Mercy Rising (the previous album) wasn’t even out yet. I knew that one was already finished. I knew that “Kind,” wasn’t going to be on Mercy Rising. It already set the wheels in motion and I thought I guess I am going to be making another record.

“Too Far Now,” was the next one. Those two songs are so different from each other that they really presented a challenge. How am I going to write or look through my catalogue for a body of work that makes sense, so all of these songs can play together and sound like one animal. They are the most different genre wise. I think my production, the Read More

Raised On TV

On the last day of May this year (2024)the California Rock band with the funky name Raised On TV released their eight record Make Time To Make Time, and Keaton Rogers, who formed the band with his brother Kacey Greenwood in 2016, walked the walk, by making time to make time to sit down with Riveting Riffs Magazine.

The album opens with “Just Wanted To Tell You,” from whose lines the album takes its title, a song that will have you dancing from the first few beats. The brothers Rogers and Greenwood are joined on electric bass by Blaine Billingsley.

“(The song) is about my wife. The lyrics, particularly the chorus is a love letter to my wife. It is a sentiment that is good to get across and to say. It is not strictly on one narrow path the whole time. I wrote the verses, while we were on the road. I think we were pulled over at a coffee shop or something and we were taking a minute. I had the chorus about my wife, and I liked that. I wanted to say that, and it was truthful. The verses I was still trying to figure out and the words just came. The verses have a story behind them, but the chorus is about my wife,” says Keaton Rogers, providing us with some insight about the song.

Historically bands from California, going back to the 1950s, has had a distinct flavor and we talked about that, before digging deeper into the sound of Raised On TV, “I would say it still does (have a distinct California sound), maybe not as much as it once did, if you go back to the Beach Boys and Surf Rock and The Ventures or the Laurel Canyon scene in Read More

Katja Rieckermann - Double Release

You know the song “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy,” from when Rod Stewart recorded it on his 1978 album Blondes Have More Fun, but you have never heard it played like this before. Saxophonist, arranger and composer Katja Rieckermann and TMTQ turn in a stunning dance version of the song, with new vocals by Sir Rod Stewart. Rieckermann who toured with Stewart for fourteen years and during that time she began her solo career, which to date has produced three albums, the self-titled Katja (2007), Horn Star (2010) and Never Stand Still (2014). Katja Rieckermann has performed with a diverse group of artists, which include, Carole King, Brooks and Dunn, David Foster, Mary J. Blige, Al Green and Jeff Goldblum.

Katja Rieckerman first started thinking of recording “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy,” “about two and one-half years ago. Originally it was going to be an instrumental version of “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” and it was going to be very close to the original with the tempo and the vibe of it. I wrote a couple of horn sections for it and we recorded it.

I sent it to Rod for approval and said what do you think? I said hey Rod what do you think? I am thinking about releasing this version. Do you like it? He wrote back, yes I love it. How about I sing on it? I was like wow! That is crazy. Of course, that would be fantastic. He ended up singing over the original track that I sent to him.

I thought now I have these newly recorded vocals of Rod and it is too close to sounding like the original, so I should do Read More

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