Ron Young of Little Caesar Interview
RON YOUNG (LITTLE CAESAR) INTERVIEW:
June 28, 2010
Websites: www.myspace.com/littlecaesarband – littlecaesarband.blogspot.com
Interviewer: Skid
It took 17 long years, but Little Caesar has finally got their ‘Redemption’. Free from record labels, free from corporations looking for a hit single, and free from those that never understood the band in the first place, Ron Young and Little Caesar have finally been able to do things their way. The result was last year’s Redemption CD, an album that proved time couldn’t slow Little Caesar down, and an album that is about to get it’s ‘official’ release through Rock Candy Records. In this interview lead singer Ron Young talks about how it all came together and takes a light-hearted look at the music scene in general.
Sleaze Roxx: It’s been 17 years since Little Caesar last put out an album. After all that time how were you able to recapture the classic sound so well on Redemption?
Ron Young: The thing is, the band has always done what the band has done. It was really the same guys and the same sensibilities and the same values — the weird thing is, we’ve always just done what we’ve done and all the commotion that might go around that, depending how it’s produced and how it’s recorded, is really the only thing that could ever change. It’s just a bunch of guys getting together with the same old sensibilities, only making music to make music. Not, what do we think people want to hear? What’s popular now? How do we record something to get it on the radio? There was none of that. So it was really easy to continue the same chemistry and it just wound up being another Little Caesar record.
Sleaze Roxx: Without a major record label to interfere I’m sure the recording of Redemption was much easier.
Ron Young: Much easier and actually really, really pleasurable. We had a great engineer/co-producer in this guy Robin Holden, he’s a really funny guy so he’s great to be with. He’s got great musical sensibilities, is really good behind the board and gave really good input, so it was great working with him. It was nice without someone standing there going, ‘what does the corporation think that we should do’ (laughs). None of that. It was like standing out there naked and saying, ‘this is what we do, this is what it sounds like, this is what happens, here it is’, and keeping all the other bullshit out of the way. It was really a pleasurable experience. It’s really the first time that we ever got to do it.
Sleaze Roxx: What was it like writing and recording with the old guys once again?
Ron Young: It was great. We’ve been really close and throughout the years we would get together just to make music and never really did anything further with it. The way the whole thing came about was like, ‘you know man, I’m really getting sick of playing these old songs — we really should write some new ones’ (laughs). Then it was like, ‘we’ve got all these new songs — we really should go and record them’. So that is the way it came about. Unlike a lot of other bands who are, ‘well I lost my job at the shoe shop so let’s put a record out and take it on the road’ (laughs). There wasn’t any of that going on, it was just, ‘shit, may as well record this stuff’.
Sleaze Roxx: Is it fair to say that the title of Redemption is sort of a fuck you to people like David Geffen who essentially killed the band?
Ron Young: Yeah that kind of kept coming up with all of our lives on a personal level, as well as on a musical level. When so much time goes by, and you have the benefit of hindsight in these situations, you get to go listen and wonder what could we do this time and do differently to make it more pure. There is definitely an element of that, and we have the benefit of getting all these assholes out of the way. So let’s go make music and not worry about, ‘well we made this decision because this producer is working with some other band at the label and we have to be diplomatic’. Well who gives a shit? This is my career! What do I care if you guys are getting on with this guy or that guy? What do I care if you owe a favor to so and so? What do I care if some band down the street is having success or looking some way or sounding some way? I don’t give a shit about any of that! We are just a band doing what we do, we thought you guys understood what we were about. We thought you understood what made this band interesting enough for you to want to get involved with us. So why are you getting in the way now?
Part of that whole recording process of not having anybody but the band in the room, and somebody to really help facilitate what we are doing on a creative level… ‘oh that’s why we’re making music, oh that’s why making the record can be fun’. That’s why the chemistry of, ‘that was the most fucked up solo I ever heard! Don’t erase it, we won’t use it, but God Almighty that was bad’ or ‘oh my God listen to that note I sang. Oh my God that was terrible! Let’s listen to that again’ (laughs). Let’s just laugh and have fun with it and at the end of the day just go, ‘man, here we are, I’m standing here naked’. You can say I’m fat, you can say I’ve got a small dick, you can say I’m ugly, you can say I’m pretty… I really don’t care, but here it is. This is the honest, unfiltered, unpolitical, unadulterated stuff that we do, and for us that in itself had a redemption because we never got the opportunity to do that.
Sleaze Roxx: Little Caesar has always been one of the most misunderstood bands out there haven’t they?
Ron Young: Yeah it’s so funny because what is there to understand (laughs)? It’s not like we were making progressive rock. It’s not like we had some sort of different look. It’s just so funny because it was just one of those things, we were always just a rock and roll band. Just because we came from a town that had all this other kind of music, which really is nothing like what we do. It cracks me up when I read on some of these forums where guys will make a posting and list who their favorite bands are and it’s like Dokken, Poison and then they go, ‘Little Caesar’s record is wimpy’ or ‘it sucks’. It’s like, well dude I don’t really care what you think! That’s great that you like this other music, but we are nothing like that and I wouldn’t expect you to like us. If a guy’s favorite band is Poison, or D’Molls or Dokken I wouldn’t go, ‘here dude, here’s a Caesar record, if you like that you’ll like this’. I don’t expect people like that to get it. Just because we played on the Sunset Strip in the late ’80s and early ’90s doesn’t make us one of those bands. It was always so fun for us because — and even at the label it was like, ‘wait a minute why are you trying to produce us to make us sound like a band like this’ or ‘why are you trying to make us look like a band like this. Just because that’s selling’? Well honestly, Guns N’ Roses isn’t really like that. Then you hear, ‘well, we didn’t understand them much either’ (laughs). Well ok, thanks for the honesty.
It’s like Nirvana. I remember having a conversation with the head of the label and going, ‘so what’s coming out on the label’? ‘Well we’ve got this little indie college band named Nirvana. They will probably sell 70-80,000 records so they won’t take up much of our time, and then there are you guys and then there is Nelson’. Well great. It’s like this little indie band, and I listened to this record and was, ‘oh my God these guys aren’t like some indie band’. It’s just a really rough raunchy honest band. They are fucking great, why do you think something like this couldn’t sell? ‘Well it doesn’t sound like Warrant’. Well exactly!! That is what makes it great. Finally you guys aren’t putting out something that sounds like the last mediocre thing you just keep pushing out because it keeps selling or because MTV keeps playing it.
Sleaze Roxx: I’ve always thought it was funny with bands like Nirvana — when they first came out even the rock fans embraced them, but now there is so much hatred between old ’80s rock fans and grunge fans. I wonder where it all came from?
Ron Young: I don’t know. It’s funny. I think a lot of these people that actually take the time to go and post their opinions are either frustrated musicians or they are almost like Trekkies. It’s like, ‘dude get a life’. There is a lot of music out there, some of it is great and some of it maybe isn’t. But just because something gets really popular, and it speaks so powerfully to a lot of people… it’s like ok, I never got The Doors, I never got Bob Dylan, but I respect all of that stuff. It’s not my cup of tea, but it changed music. It did a lot and had a lot of influence on a lot of people. I don’t necessarily get it but I’m not supposed to get everything. But there is this hatred that seems to come out in people and I don’t really know where that comes from.
Sleaze Roxx: Back to the CD. By releasing it independently are you happy with the response to it so far?
Ron Young: Well, the funny thing is we are all so out of the loop and things have changed so much in the so called music business. So it was like we did the record, now what are we going to do with it? I don’t know, we will stick it up on our myspace page, we’ll send it out to a couple of people we know and if someone wants to distribute it great. But nowadays with the internet I can get it up on iTunes and people can get it if they find out about it and if certain people hear about it and write about it on a website and other people want to look into it they will find it somewhere. All of a sudden we started getting interest from Derek over at Classic Rock saying they would like to put it out in Europe. So great, as a lot of these things happen it’s like seven months later and they are starting to gear up for their release. And we are sitting around going, ‘well I guess we’ll just hang out in the meantime’ (laughs). We don’t have a manager over here. We have an old friend who was our tour manager over in England talking to Derek and trying to set stuff up over there.
Over here it is just so funny because the only thing worse than trying to make a living in the music business is trying to commission somebody trying to make a living in the music business. So it’s not very easy to get a good manager, and if you get an agent they want to put you in a van and stick you on the road in every shit hole from here to Alabama and back — and that’s not what we are about. I don’t want to put on a wig and spandex pants and sing the songs from 25 years ago and ask, ‘how ya’ll doin’ tonight’ and go from town to town to do that because it’s the only thing left that makes me feel like my life is worth anything. All the other guys agree and are like, ‘that is depressing’. So we will stick it out on these outlets and when a publicist actually gets on the internet and starts doing press releases and setting up some interviews maybe we can bring the profile up a little bit. The funny thing is, we didn’t have much of a profile back in our so called heyday. So it is even harder now to get people to give a shit about a band that disappeared for 20 years. So far the responses that I’ve seen… people generally like the record. If I was a fan of the band then I can be just as into it now. If we are only pleasing the people that like us and know about us now, well great. If it gets out to a wider audience and more people hear about it, and for some reason it goes viral as all the kids say, then great. But that wasn’t any part of why we are putting out a record.
Sleaze Roxx: It was a pretty quiet release. I had a guy email me about it and I hadn’t heard anything. It was almost as if you were putting the music out there and if somebody listens ok, but if they don’t that is fine too.
Ron Young: Exactly. If you should come across it great. I’m sure we can get hold of somebody to start plugging it, mentioning it on the websites and on blogs and on the forums and all that. I guess that is what you are supposed to do with a record, but we figure at this point let’s just lay low. The funniest thing is we got a much better response in Europe than we ever did in the US and I think that is the roots of the kind of music that we do stayed a lot stronger through the years, through the ’80s and stuff. Really, when you think about it rock ‘n’ roll is basically distorted rhythm and blues. White guys took rhythm and blues and they distorted it. The great English invasion — The Who, Led Zeppelin, Rod Stewart, Bad Company and all those bands — to me Little Caesar is just a progression of that style of music. Some bands became like a pop version of that kind of stuff. Some guys became like a progressive version of that. I never understood a lot of that stuff and it seems that guys in Europe understand more of the traditionalist approach to hard rock. We were never a heavy metal band, we were just a rock band. So we figure now we have a company that is into putting it out over there and we think it will be better received over there. So let’s just let those guys do their thing and hopefully the profile level will come up and we can start doing more of this, playing more and doing more interviews and talking about it.
Sleaze Roxx: What differences will there be between the original release and this reissue on Rock Candy Records?
Ron Young: There is actually one extra track. We did the record originally with Apache, he was back in the band. Then about 8 songs into it he had another meltdown — it was like his third melt down and said, ‘I can’t do this’! OK dude whatever! We were hoping we could sell some records so he could get some more therapy or something, but whatever (laughs). So we brought in another buddy of ours, Joey Brasler, to finish off the record. Then we did another track with him so it winded up being 11 tracks total, two of which he plays on. So there will be one extra on that, but it’s the same record. It’s not really a reissue, it is kind of like finally checking it out of the closest. I think just sticking something on iTunes is not really a release.
Sleaze Roxx: It’s hard to say. When Redemption came out that was probably the first album I ever bought through MP3. I usually try and keep away from them but that was the only way to get it at first.
Ron Young: Well thanks for doing that (laughs).
Sleaze Roxx: Then I bought it on Amazon too, so it looks like I have a third edition to buy.
Ron Young: Exactly. Actually that was all part of our plan, make it so people have to keep buying the latest incarnation (laughs). It’s funny because originally we used this artwork of a buddy of ours who designed the Little Caesar logo and had this great painting that we loved that we wanted to use. Then we realized that when you shrink it down to a thumbnail on the internet you can’t even see what it is. So we totally redesigned the artwork and the funny thing is I’m going to a couple of websites and I see they are still listing that original artwork which never got printed, which never got used. That was out for all of a week. So it’s kind of weird, kind of funny. Maybe someday it will be a collector’s item, I don’t know.
Sleaze Roxx: Is the new CD going to have the original artwork or the other one that you sold through Amazon?
Ron Young: No it’s going to be more like that purpley religious looking dude, the crazy skull — the original artwork. That was out for a week and then disappeared because we realized that it didn’t translate the way we wanted it to.
Sleaze Roxx: When Apache had his melt down did you have any thoughts of trying to get Earl Slick back?
Ron Young: No, Slick is real tied up with the David Bowie stuff, he’s still doing that. He’s a real professional musician, he couldn’t do anything with us (laughs). He’s got a real day job of actually playing music for a living and going out and doing that. Plus we want to stay on a friendly basis. There is nothing like asking a guy, ‘come in and play on this stuff. We are going to ruin your life like we did the last time’ (laughs).
Sleaze Roxx: I don’t think it went too bad for him last time.
Ron Young: He came in at a really bad time. We knew it was over and we tried to mend some of those last few heartbeats with Geffen. But it was not a good time and I told him, ‘I feel bad for putting you through that dude, sorry. We told you that you might have a career with this and it might get some life back in it and it just got worse’. We tried to keep the damage to a minimum but it didn’t happen.
Sleaze Roxx: Do you plan on doing any touring to promote the CD?
Ron Young: We are hoping and we were really kind of bummed because we were wanting to get this record out in the spring and try and get on some of the big festivals in Europe, but that just didn’t happen. So we are keeping our fingers crossed that the response gets good enough that we are going to be able to get over there. As far as touring the States, I doubt it. I still have a lot of friends that are still in the ‘real’ music business and the stories I’m hearing about tours getting canceled, shows tanking and the economy is so bad and it’s so expensive to get out there on the road. It’s hard enough for bands where people actually remember and give a shit (laughs). We’re not opposed to it but it’s a wait and see on that one.
Sleaze Roxx: Can you envision Little Caesar working on another album in the near future or will we have to wait another 17 years?
Ron Young: No I don’t think it will be 17 years. By that point we’ll have Alzheimer’s and we won’t even remember what the deal is. We have been getting together and rehearsing every week, mostly because it’s fun and we enjoy doing it. Especially now that Joey is in the band there is a new energy going on. So I’m hoping this will be less of the same cycle, that is too much.
Sleaze Roxx: The Little Caesar odds and ends CD This Time It’s Different is pretty hard to find these days. Is there any chance of releasing something like that again?
Ron Young: That was pretty much all of our old demos and everything else. Earl Slick put that out on his label and I really don’t think there are any more odds and ends floating around. It’s really weird what comes out of the woodwork. I get emails from people going, ‘I bought this DVD in Japan of some of your live shows’ and I’m like, ‘what live shows’? I’m sure there is stuff floating around out there that people have. There was some live stuff, like two live tracks from a Westwood One thing we did, I’d love to hear the rest of that so I’ve been trying to contact them and see what other little odds and sods we can find. But I think it would be better for us to write some new songs and just put out another new record.
Sleaze Roxx: Speaking of things like that. Last time I spoke to Dave Lizmi he said he had lots of video footage of you playing with The Four Horsemen. Would you ever like to see something like that get released?
Ron Young: Oh sure. It’s funny because the thing with Dave, I tried to hook up with him a bunch of times and we talked about trying to make some music together because he gets it. He’s a great guitar player and a great guy. He comes from the same school that we all come from. Like totally being reverent from the roots of great hard rock ‘n’ roll. We talked about it, but he is on the East Coast and I’m out here. So we never seem to get together to do it.
Sleaze Roxx: Nowadays through the internet you can almost record an album without ever seeing each other.
Ron Young: I know, we talked about that. It’s like, ‘hey man throw some stuff on some MP3 files and I could lay some tracks on it’. We keep talking about it but it never seems to come to pass. Maybe someday.
Sleaze Roxx: Last time I talked to you, you mentioned recording demos with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and I’ve always wondered whatever became of those?
Ron Young: I used to have a cassette of that stuff and when I got divorced I think my wife took it because I could never find it. But I’m sure that would be interesting to people, not people that care about me, but more people who care about the Chili Peppers to hear some weird versions of their songs.
Sleaze Roxx: Yeah that would be interesting to hear. I really can’t picture it myself. It seems like two different sounds.
Ron Young: It is, but the interesting thing about it is me being a big lover of ’50s/’60s rhythm and blues and the Chili Peppers being big fans of funk — that was the common ground. The common ground was soul based blues orientated stuff. It definitely stretched me into a different realm of what people might be used to hearing me do. If I had my way I could put a Ray Charles cover band together and go out there with a bunch of horns and do some real groove, some real rhythm and blues kind of stuff with classic instrumentation. It’s not really hard for me to dig into my influences and do anything that is groove orientated and funky. But it certainly was a far departure from the stuff they were doing with Anthony Kiedis, which I think eventually was what made them go, ‘we can’t do this, Anthony is doing much better now so time to bring him back in the band’, and I totally respected that. Anthony and Flea really are the core of that band and they have been friends since grade school or whatever. It becomes more than the music. I’m sure the rest of the world was very happy I didn’t do that because the 10 records that came after that wouldn’t have been able to come out.
Sleaze Roxx: Having auditioned for Slash in the past have you ever thought about trying to get the Velvet Revolver gig?
Ron Young: You know I get these phone calls from people that are still the music business going, ‘oh we got your name doing this’ and we ‘got your name for doing that’. I’m sure if I got on the phone and made some calls I could get in the room to do that. Quite honestly I look at some of these projects and go, ‘I don’t want that drama in my life’. I just can’t be around guys that need to go to rehab anymore (laughs). I’ve matured too much to deal with it. Go see Get Him To The Greek because it was a really funny movie about a self destructive rock god, and I watch it and I’m like, ‘wow this used to be my life!’ Maybe that is why it’s so funny because I’m not in the middle of it. I always felt it was funny we went on tour with KISS and Gene Simmons would come on the bus and we were peeing our pants watching Spinal Tap for the sixth thousandth time and he’s like, ‘turn that shit off that ain’t funny! This is my life, that’s not funny’. That’s exactly why it’s funny! Our life is comedy dude don’t you get it? He was really offended and upset that we were watching Spinal Tap. He thought it was totally irreverent, it was like farting in a church. It was like you have to laugh at this, this is so real and true and it’s our life. You can’t take it too seriously, but he did.
Sleaze Roxx: I always get the feeling that music is more of a hobby for you these days. Would you even want to be part of something on a grand scale like Velvet Revolver anymore?
Ron Young: I would if the energy within the band is like what it is with me and Caesar. Guys who have their heads screwed on straight, guys who understand that this is only music — it isn’t a cure for cancer. Guys who understand they’ve got to be balanced with everything in life. If you are going to start getting all bent out of shape because somebody missed a sound check or if the lights didn’t go off at the right time and all this kind of stuff in the big scheme of things, it has to be balanced, you can’t take it so seriously. I tell people on one hand I’m actually grateful that the band didn’t explode and become this huge thing.
I was at a Dodgers game last week with a buddy of mine and Slash comes out and plays the national anthem. He was wearing his leather pants and his hat and he’s got his little Marshall stack, and he’s got his roadie who is dressed in black with the laminates running back and forth checking his connections and I’m like wow! I wouldn’t want to have to be dressed in that rock get up in the evening playing the Star Spangled Banner to Dodger fans. I don’t want to have to do that anymore. I’d rather be eating a hotdog and laughing about it than actually doing it. I’m sure somebody came and rounded him up and put him in a limo and the whole thing and it’s like, at some point in life you just go, ‘well thank them for the opportunity, but no… I’ve got better things to do on a Thursday night than to rush down to the Dodgers Stadium and play the Star Spangled Banner with my guitar and in my whole get up and my top hat’. I don’t know, maybe I’m just becoming an old cynical fart?
I know some of the guys from Bon Jovi, and they get it. They are so grateful that they get to make music for a living. They are so grateful that they have the blessing of being even more popular throughout the world than when they were exploding in the Slippery When Wet days. They are incredibly grateful that they get to play with their friends, and their family gets to hang out, and it really comes across. If I was going to be doing this, that is the way I would do it. Who cares about the after party, we are going to Lego Land with our kids before the show because it’s going to be a lot of fun (laughs). It’s stuff like that and there are not many guys that I know that are still doing this that get it. Hey man it’s only rock ‘n’ roll. They are trying really hard to keep up their image and not letting anybody know they are actually 47. Dude we know you are 47, the hair dye’s not fooling anybody (laughs). There really is nothing wrong with that. You don’t just have to be making music for 16 year olds because you still think you are 22 or something. It’s like the 16 year olds are going to dig your music because they dig your music, it’s not because you are fooling them that you are only 32 rather than 47. Everyone sees through that and you look kind of silly in the clothes you are wearing. But you can’t really tell that to a lot of them, at least I don’t tell my friends that (laughs). One day hopefully they will figure it out but you have to do a lot of work trying to keep up that impression.
Sleaze Roxx: What are your thoughts on some of these other bands that came from the same scene as Little Caesar where there is two or three different versions of them on the road with one original member or something like that?
Ron Young: I kind of feel sorry for these people. I know what kind of life they are having out there. I know that they are traveling in a van and they are staying in Motel 6’s and maybe one show a week is actually a really nice place and they are actually getting a good night’s sleep and actually having a decent meal. It’s a really rough life. For whatever reason people are coming to their shows, and they are convincing somebody to give a guarantee that they can do it, that’s great. But I didn’t think there were three versions of this band and I guess there is (laughs).
Sleaze Roxx: I guess if music is all you know that is what you have to do.
Ron Young: That’s basically it, but to go out there and say that this is this band when it really isn’t that band? Again it’s my opinion but it’s just kind of pathetic, you know what I mean? I don’t mean only pathetic for the band, I think it is kind of pathetic for the state of music that the only way you get somebody to come and see your show is to think it is so and so band. It just looks weird because you’ve got like five guys on stage and four of them are 19 years old and they don’t give a shit as long as they get fried chicken every night — they will throw their shit in the van and go. Then there is other dude that is like, ‘woo grandpa what are you doing up there’? Again they didn’t spend their authoritative years opening up a book and getting a degree and getting a job, so this is all they know. It’s all they can do, so that’s what they do.
Sleaze Roxx: I guess the name of the band means everything because it seems like people don’t want to go out and find new music anymore. Even if someone like Poison go out and played a lesser known song everybody is going to the bathroom.
Ron Young: Exactly. When they go up there and go, ‘here’s our new song of the so and so record’ fans are like, ‘no dude, I want to hear Something to Believe In and Every Rose Has its Thorn. Don’t give me this new shit, I don’t care about the new shit. I came to recapture high school. I came here to have a few beers and hear this band that was part of the landscape of my youth’. That is why they are there and a lot of these bands forget that. They are not there to try and fuck you, they are not there to hear the next great piece of music that you’ve written, they’re laying down $50 and they want to have one night with a couple of beers and get to hear the songs played by the band that really strikes a strong chord in them from 20 years ago — and there is nothing wrong with that. But the guys in the band don’t see it that way. They think people are coming out like this is what they do every day, just like the band does. No dude, probably 80% of these people have a babysitter at home watching their kids while dad puts on his Harley Davidson shirt and is going to get all strung out back like he was in his 20s and bring his wife to the show because it’s a little piece of their youth and their history. So don’t take it so seriously.
Sleaze Roxx: How would that make you feel if you go on the road to promote the new CD and everyone just wants to hear Chain of Fools?
Ron Young: Well that would happen and you know it would be a blessing and an honor. Like, ‘wow you guys remember that? Cool’ (laughs). It’s funny, we put the record out on iTunes and you aren’t going to be selling a lot of records but we are doing shit loads of downloads of Chain Of Fools and stuff off the first record and that’s because that is what people remember. Also because you couldn’t get the record for years and now you can get it in an MP3 and it’s a real honor. It’s very eye opening and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.
Sleaze Roxx: If somebody downloads Chain Of Fools and says maybe I’ll check out something off Redemption, all the better.
Ron Young: Exactly that’s the whole point. When we go out and play we do three, maybe four, songs off the new record because we know most people want to hear that old stuff. You can’t sit there and go, ‘no dammit we are a contemporary band and we wrote these songs and recorded them and you are going to sit there and listen to them god dammit! And take us seriously that we are an involved incredible continuing band’. They want to close their eyes and go, ‘fuck I remember this song — I got a blow job in the back of a car when I was 16. This is killer’! Ok great you know, there’s nothing wrong with it.
Sleaze Roxx: Do you have anything you want to say to the fans out there?
Ron Young: Just thanks — if you even care to read this interview (laughs). If you’ve got the time on your hands to find out a little bit more we are really grateful that you took whatever moments out of your time to listen to the music or find out a little bit more. That power is not lost upon us, especially with how inundated people get with new music on the internet and all that stuff. If somebody cares to look into this it is incredibly humbling for us and we are incredibly grateful for it. If people get half the passion, or half the emotion, out of listening to one of our songs as we do playing them, we just feel incredibly blessed.
Sleaze Roxx: I think the new CD is great. Then again I’ve always enjoyed your albums.
Ron Young: Thank you so much. You nailed it on the head. The guys in the band were so stoked when you wrote the Redemption review. That, ‘oh my God what we tried to do actually translated. At least one guy got it! This is an influential person who is obviously passionate about music — to continue to run a website like this and to continue to try and bring the news of bands and music out there to people’. The fact that you do that is a tremendous service, and on a daily basis the music that you hear from the bands making new music, and for you to have the response that you have to music, was incredibly powerful for us. We were like, ‘holy shit someone actually got it’. Whether it’s 17 years old, it had nothing to do with us trying to now sound like a U2 or Kings Of Leon or anything. We’re just making another Little Caesar record and that might be a blessing and it might be a curse for some (laughs). But here is what it is and for somebody to listen to it and hear that and get it and write about it, we are incredibly grateful for that. So thank you.
Sleaze Roxx: No problem and thanks for putting Sleaze Roxx in the song Real Rock Drive…that was a first.
Ron Young: You have to give some props and throw some stuff back. Little things you drop in the song, especially at the end of the song to see if people pay attention (laughs). It’s a little way for us to say thanks to people and give them props. It’s like this is cool, that’s cool, and thank you to them. If you want to find out the real deal these are the places you can go to. So it was a totally impromptu thing. When we were doing that song, talking about the people that get it and have said nice things to us, who have always been supportive, it got to the end of the song and when you record the band keep rolling the tape and I’m, ‘I don’t know what to do anymore!’ So you throw some of this shit out there and it’s, ‘no man, keep all this shit’. Got to give props to people.