Interview Conducted by - Alex Richter of Hard N' Fast

Q: Since your guys last album, ROXX GANG has had some turnover. Can you tell us who is in the band now?

KEVIN STEELE: I have a whole new band. It's weird like, it's been formed over the past five years, it didn't all happen at once. Slowly one by one over time this band took shape. I got Stacy Blades on guitar, he's from Toronto, I had to go to Canada to find somebody who wasn't wearing a goatee and Dr. Martens. Then I got two local guys from right here in the Tampa Bay area. Bassist, Dorian Sage, and on drums I got Tommy Weider.

Q: Can you tell us how this has affected your sound?

KS: With the old line up, I had really good guitar players but they were from a different school. I was more into rhythm and blues, and trashy glam bands and all the English glam bands like MOTT THE HOOPLE. Which were really blues based. Wade, he was a fantastic guitar player but he was a totally metal guitar player. Stacy and I are more from the same school. The first song we wrote together was 'TIME BOMB,' which is the first single on the CD. We hit it off right away. I would write a song like 'BALL AND CHAIN,' off the first album, which is kind of bluesy and I would feel it getting tugged off in a different direction, whereas now we are all on the same track. It is a lot more focused.

Q: How have you kept together over the last four to five years, and not just said screw it, I'm gonna get a job in something else.

KS: Are you kidding me? I don't know, you know, I mean I imagine most people that do what I do, have a passion for it. I don't think there is anything that they don't feel too. This is what I want to do, this is all I think about. I'm consumed by it. I just keep going. Especially over the last few years with a band like us, you've seen how many bands have bitten the dust. When your growing up in a glam band, everyone was always calling you a poser. That is like a common insult they throw at you. I watched all my friends trade in their platform boots for Doc Martins and get funky hair cuts and weird facial hair, body parts pierced. If I would have switched my music or started writing in a different vein, I would have felt fake, this is the music that naturally comes out of me.

Q: Your sound and style is still full fledged glam, do you think that can sell these days?

KS: True glam rock was never popular. In the late 80's this weird thing mutated like glam metal and like everybody was wearing make-up and spandex and ruined it for the true glam bands like us. Which led to a backlash, after a while people just said look at these idiots. It ruined it for the true bands that could really carry it off, you know the bands that were genuine, like us. Look at a guy like Kurt Cobain, I can see he'd been influenced by BOWIE, IGGY POP and if you look at all the grandfathers of punk are all the same grandfathers of glam you know, Iggy, LOU REED, The NEW YORK DOLLS, that why I feel my music is relevant at anytime, it might be in a different package but it is still from the same mold. I didn't set out to have a corporate rock, glam metal band like WARRANT or something. I feel when Bo (Hill) produced our first album we kind of got pulled in a different direction, and that people misunderstood us the first time out.

Q: Virgin was a real corporate label too.

KS: I don't think your average person who goes out and buys your record is aware of shit like that. But I do think, if you listen to our new CD we produced ourselves, it is way more us, what we sound like live. Bo made a technically really good sounding record, it was kind of sterile sounding, to me it was too studio sounding.

Q: Perris Records are distributing your new album, but they are not a full fledged label in the sense of promotions and marketing, how are you guys compensating for that?

KS: Yeah, they are. Not on the scale we were previously used too. But yes they are definitely a full fledged label. It totally depends on the artist, what their deal is with them. There are bands that just have a distribution deal. He (Tom Mathers of Perris Records) shows different levels of support to different bands.

Q: Tell us about the new album? Where it was recorded, how long it took, and all that great stuff?

KS: Well some of those songs go back all the way to our Virgin days. We never stopped recording or doing demos ever since we got off of Virgin. Right away after we got off of Virgin we had a demo deal with CBS, Epic and that never materialized into an album but we had like a whole album of songs recorded then. Before we got off of Virgin we recorded a whole albums worth of demos. Plus we have done stuff on our own that we financed ourselves. So we have so many songs to pick from.

Q: So how long did the whole album take to record?

KS: Actually, the thing was done bits at a time and stuff. Not all that long, probably all adds up to three months.

Q: Do you have a favorite track or song that is close to you?

KS: I love "DADDY'S FARM," I think that is about my favorite.

Q: The title, 'THE VOODOO YOU LOVE,' does it hold any special meaning and who's idea was the album cover concept?

Q: You write really good stuff. Does it just come naturally?

KS: To tell you the truth, honestly? Between you and me it does and my best songs are the ones that come really easy, they flow, they're done in ten or fifteen minutes. If I go around and say hey man it comes easy, it's nothing. It really takes my life's blood.

Q: All these songs are different lengths. . KS: I try to keep a little variety going here. I hate bands when you have to buy an album for one or two songs or else every song on the album sounds the same.

KS: It was my idea.

Q: Is that little guy a relative of yours?

KS: The shrunken head? That was one of the old band mates. I think that was Jeff Taylor man. It's not like a major direction shift or nothing. I just feel there is a little bit more of my blues and R&B roots showing through on the songs and intros and stuff. That was the whole feeling as we were recording this thing was a real, reaction to the experience we had with Bo and feeling so "wow, were in the studio." We tried to make it home and dark, it's just what came through, that was the feeling.

Q: On the lead track 'DADDY'S FARM,' you guys have some real good piano work on there. How are you going to produce that live? Are you going to take the piano player with you?

KS: No we got a program going. All the horns, pianos, saxophones and all that stuff.

Q: That must have been an undertaking?

KS: It's not really. Actually I don't know i don't do it myself. Brett (Steele Kevin's brother and ROXX GANG manager) and Tommy Weder usually go do it.

Q: I know you have a video for 'TIME BOMB,' do you guys have any video plans and do you think you have a snowballs chance in hell to be played on MTV and do you care?

KS: I would certainly love to be played on MTV. I don't think it is going to happen right now. I don't see any bands anywhere near what we are doing on MTV. It is mostly like, if it's not rap or alternative you know. It's getting a lot of play in a lot of different places on local video shows across the country. We are shooting another video but it looks like it is going to be early April, for 'HOT FOR LOVE.' Were gonna have two versions of that one. We'll send you the un-edited version. I'm actually involved in the editing now, so it is no big deal for me to do this. And we feel if we are not going to be played on MTV, then we are going to make a video the kind of video they wouldn't be allowed to show anyway.

Q: So you guys are hitting the road with former MOTLEY CRUE front man VINCE NEIL, how did you guys get those dates?

KS: I don't know. Tom says his booking agent called up and was checking on the availability of us and the BULLET BOYS, and I don't think they are a functioning band at the moment. In the past ROXX GANG has suffered really bad from ill timing. We came out right at the end of the 80's. I admit it may have been the reason Virgin was looking for a band that looked like us and stuff. But at the same time we came out with all this crap. I'm telling you a true glam rock band like us, we've never been in style. POISON ain't like us. The only band anywhere near I think, that was comparable in style was L.A.GUNS or FASTER PUSSYCAT. L.A. GUNS really wasn't a glam band, but their music was kind of similar to ours. We came out with the idea of being a dark glam band and people just lumped us with bands like WARRANT and all that crap. And real corporate commercial glam metal and that was not what we were about.

Q: After the VINCE NEIL dates, what are your tour plans then?

KS: Who knows at this stage. We pretty much have to take it one day at a time. If we could swing a Japanese record deal which we are working on at the moment, we might be able to go over to Japan. I don't know. After this video we don't have any plans for like, the next two months. We have to stay in the area because we have to do this video.

Q: Being a Florida based band, what's the rock scene like in your area? Are there places to go play and a lot of places for kids to go see shows?

KS: There are more and more like small venues and all the big rock bars that were popular in the last few years are slowly dying or are gone. It is everywhere. I don't know what it is, these kids want to go to some little hole in the wall place and see some ridiculously hip, alternative band that sucks, instead of going to see a good rock band. We have such a following right here that it doesn't matter to our band in particular what is going on, we will always draw a crowd. All the other rock bands, there are only a hand full still going in this area.

Q: What do you foresee for the bands future?

KS: Well I see we are trying to sell enough records obviously for a major to take a look again. And if not we are going to do at least one more record with Tom over at Perris. With the way the music scene is today all we can do is go out there and do what we have been doing for the last five or six years just keep slugging away. We love playing, there is never a shortage of new songs. We are pretty prolific in that department. We are doing what we love so we just keep slugging away.

Q: In closing, is there something you fans?

KS: Just you know people need to, if they don't hear the kind of music that they love on the radio and they don't see it on MTV, then they like just need to say something. They shouldn't just sit back and let it happen. I think radio in particular might listen a little bit. Most people are like sheep, they like whatever they are told to like. I've been doing a lot of press in support of this album and the response everywhere people say "Oh man we are glad there is a band like you still doing it out there". There's like all this grunge and alternative crap. I just want to say to them also like speak up, don't let yourself be told what to like and also for the people who kept the interest over the years just thanks a lot.

Copyright 1996, Perris Records