Jeff is gonna ROCK THIS TOWN with Stray Cat Slim Jim Phantom

Stray Cats Summer 2024 Tour

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I'm Jeff Stevens. Thanks for listeningto my Eighties show podcast. I love
talking to your favorite stars from theeighties and my first chance to chat with
a stray Cat. Hey, JeffSlim, Jim Fanom. How you doing,
brother, I'm doing pretty good,buddy. How about you? I'm
doing really good. First time toever talk to you. Thanks so much
for spending a few moments with me. Here. Are you excited about the

(00:20):
return of the Stray Cats. I'mtotally excited. Man. It's what we
do and it's uh yeah, it'sthe first time we got to take this
out in a couple of years.Chomping at the bit, That's what I
was going to ask you, becauseit's been a minute since the three of
you have been back out as thestray Cats. Correct, it was twenty
nineteen, yes, and then youknow, I've bet everything you know.

(00:43):
I think everyone's schedule got changed fora couple of years, and now just
when it's when we managed to organizeit with everyone's schedule on the time scene
right, I'm ready, buddy,man, let let's go back for a
second. When did you guys feelas a band? Did you feel like
when Straycats was really going to startto take off. Did you feel it
because of MTV? Did you feelit when you were playing in the clubs.

(01:07):
What was the moment where you went, oh, something's happening, Well
we start I think it was prettymuch right away. This was in nineteen
seventy nine when we found that therewas three guys from school who would all
who were the musician guys around townand had found this music kind of at
the same time, whether you foundit through a bit of the oldest channel,

(01:29):
whether you found it a bit throughlike personally found it through like Beatles
and Rolling Stones record that my oldercousins had on the first Beatles record,
who c Perkins? Who's b Holly? And then to do a little you
know record bin diving at the storeand you know, oh Carl Perkins,
Oh Buddy Holly Old look at theseguys, well what is this sound?

(01:49):
Getting very affected by that, andthe others were the same. And so
we were the three guys around townwho all were musicians, and we got
really affected by the look of theseof the original American rock and rollers,
and we wanted to look that way, we wanted to sound that way.
So it was very clear to hookup with the other two guys in your

(02:09):
neighborhood who dressed that way, andwe kind of knew it was good right
away the first few times we played, we knew it was good, and
we just launched it to do andwe did like bar gigs every night,
four sets a night, five nightsa week for about a year or so,
and played in New York City atCBGB's in Maxis, Kansas City and

(02:30):
those kind of joints. And thenduring the week, every night of the
week we played a gig on LongIsland, and we just got good at
it and we knew that it wasgood. So and we really knew that
we had to we had to kindof turn everyone else onto this music because
not many people were really hip toour own culture. You know. Johnny

(02:52):
Burnette, Yes, you guys heardthat Aerosmith, did Johnny Burnett, and
so did the yard Burns. Well, we know Aerosmith. Well check this
out, Johnny Burnett. And wejust had like a bit of a cause
almost, you know, and weloved playing and we made a living at
it. So it was those wereall the ingredients into like wanting to keep
it going and to make it aswell known as we could Slim Jim Phantom

(03:15):
from Stray Cats. So I'm curiouswhen did you were you guys like peddling
your stuff around to the record companiesor did some smart exact at you know?
Was it em I that? Yes, it was first Aristo What what
happens? We went to London innineteen eighty. We started The Man nineteen

(03:35):
seventy nine, and then we wentto London about halfway through nineteen eighties.
We played two hundred gigs by then. Yeah, and we just started playing.
We you know, knocked on enoughdoors and we found some all those
rock pubs that they have in Londonwhere they have like five bands and nights
seven nights a week, and theyneed they need people. Yeah, And
when we found the right ones andknocked on the right combination of doors,

(03:59):
we managed to put together a fewweeks where the shows. We had a
buzz going around about us because wehad been homeless and we've been hanging around
at the parties and backstage doors forlike a lot of gigs. So there
was a little bit of who arethese guys? The same guys have been
hanging around you know all summer.They wear pink suits, that they look

(04:19):
slightly scruffy and you know they're veryyoung, and so I think out of
a certain curiosity the rock community aroundLondon came to see us. And we
had done our paid, our dues, done our homework. So when we
got a shot like here's half anhour, play the best you can,

(04:39):
or you got to go home becausethere's no more money left, you know.
So we we were good at it, and that I have to say,
we were very good. And thensomeone like Joe Strummer was there,
or Chrissy Hind or Ray Davies orCaptain Sensible or Glenn Mattlock or Lammy and
it was then they do interviews forthe for the weekly rock Papers, which

(05:00):
there was five weekly rock papers andEmmy and Melody Maker, Sounds, Record
Mirrors, Time Out. There wasall these rock magazines every week, so
someone like Lammy or Joe Summer woulddo an interview, Well what'd you do
last week? Well, I'm makinga new motor head out and I also
saw this great band from New York. Oh it looked like Eddie Cochran.

(05:24):
And so we kind of the recordcompanies by this point when they read something
like that. Over the course ofa few weeks in the rock magazines.
Then they started to come to seeus, and it was it was a
bit undeniable. At the time.We were very young, we were doing
something very different, and we couldall play very well, and it was

(05:44):
I think it was an undeniable thingthat someone was going to sign us.
So we first time with Arista andthen our contract got you know, traded
to EMI. Okay, Well,you know, it's kind of essentially what
you're explaining is basically the nineteen eightiesversion of going viral, because you know,
if you've got all of a suddenyou look up in the clash is
in your audience or the pretenders orin your audience or whatever, and the

(06:08):
word gets out. I mean,back then, we you know, you
couldn't go viral like you can gonow. But essentially you guys, you
guys were doing that. Yeah,and you know, London food still I
think, but like that summer forsure, this was the summer of nineteen
eighty. It definitely happened that waybecause you know, there were those weekly

(06:30):
rock magazines and it was still kindof a small scene, a small town
like you would go to these rockpubs and it'd be the same twenty thirty
forty people there. Ten of themwould be someone that you might recognize,
that might be in the paper themselves, like I said, the Clash and
Motorhead and Pretenders. And then thenRay Davies started to come see us.

(06:53):
He loved it. And then eventuallythe Rolling Stones came and then that wow
that made it go from the musicpapers to the national papers, like why
are the five Rolling Stones all ata table in a nightclub to see this
band? Average age, you know, eighteen and a half New York And
then that went to the national newspapersand then the labels really got excited about

(07:15):
it. Yeah. Yeah, Andwe were still homeless kind of and just
living in London kicking around. Youknow. We had all this excitement,
but we still didn't have any moneyright or future other than no money or
future. How are you guys doingright? Oh my gosh, we're doing

(07:35):
okay, you know, because webelieved in this cause we were the cause
we believed and it was also well, we better get a few gigs,
I mean, a record contract beyondwhat we thought of. You better make
make a couple of bucks playing agig, because in case you have to
go home you can buy a oneway ticket or eat something or it was

(07:55):
pretty basic at that point. Sothere was there a time when you got
to meet up with Mick and Keithand the guys and maybe even play a
show with them. Well, yeah, they loved it, and they wanted
us originally to sign to Rolling Stone'sRecords. They had a record label back
then, and it just proved veryhard to get everyone in the same room
again. So we would meet Nickone day, we would meet Keith one

(08:20):
day, and Bill's my friend tothis day. Bill Wyman. I still
stay in very close time with this, but on a business level, it
was very hard because for us,things were moving very quickly and to get
with them again into a business settingseemed to be very hard. Right,
They're doing a hundred things. Theyreally liked it, but we had to
sign with a different label. Andthen this would have been nineteen eighty And

(08:43):
then next year when they did aTattoo You tour, they took us out
on a couple of weeks or week'sworth of shows. That was great because
that was really the first time wehad traveled around in the States. Even
though we were from New York.I never really traveled the scene. Lewis
from Minneapolis or any place like that, how would you So when we did

(09:05):
with the Stones, that was thatwas kind of funny that that was the
first time we really traveled in MiddleAmerica. But it was because those guys
asked us to go. So yeah, you know, beautiful guys and they
they just played la maybe even lastnight at some stadium sodee like they're doing
okay, yeah, running up anddown that Mick is just running all over

(09:26):
the stage. It's it's amazing,it really is. That's what I hear
and see. That's beautiful. Yeah. Well, Slim Jim Phantom just got
just got another couple of minutes andI got to let you go here.
But I did want to talk aboutdid you notice a distinct jump in your
your poppul popularity people recognizing you whenRock This Town video hit MTV and all

(09:50):
of a sudden, you're in allof our living rooms. Yeah. Yeah,
m TV was very important because youcouldn't be everywhere at the same time,
right. And the fortune thing forus is we had made a few
videos in England because say you wereon tour in Spain and they wanted to
buck the Town was in the chartsin England, and you couldn't really go

(10:13):
to be on top of the pops, which would be like the English version
of like Solid Gold or American Bandsand one of those kind of shows.
You couldn't be in two places atonce. So you'd made a rock video
and not just us, like alot of people had made those kind of
rock videos to be there instead ofyou, yes, a certain thing that
showed the video instead. So whenMTV started, what a concept to have

(10:37):
those videos playing all the time.Believe it or not. In the beginning
of MTV, they needed content.They didn't have enough videos, so if
you had a video, then itgot played. So unbeknownst to us when
MTV started, we were getting playedin heavy rotation without really knowing it.
Now you would know if you wentviral. Back then it was harder to

(11:00):
tell. He didn't really know ifyou did or not. And so when
we came back to start doing showsin the States again and we were hearing
about MTV because we still lived inEngland and MTV broke, but they had
our video somehow, two of them, I think. So it was a
beautiful thing because you could reach alot more eyeballs than really without and a

(11:20):
lot of times back then classic radiowasn't really playing a lot of new bands.
So when MTV came and then theradio stations with their phone lines would
light up with the listeners requesting tohear some of these bands they heard on
MTV, and a lot of theradio world had to say, well,

(11:41):
let's catch up with these bands,let's find them, and that all coincided
with our first tour of America,so it was really MTV was very important,
as was radio, but they kindof worked together back then. All
Right, Jim, great talking toyou man. Can't wait to see you
guys on tour. Thank you somuch for the time. Got it, buddy,