melodylane

MELODY LANE: Tell us something about your first steps in the world of music and the beginning of your adventure... 
LES RIGGS: Well… I moved to California in 1986 with the idea of playing and joining a band. I moved together with my friend KELLY LeMIEUX who nowadays plays bass in BUCKCHERRY and who was one of the founding members of ELECTRIC LOVE HOGS, a band I played with a few times before they settled on a drummer. We started out in Orange County doing lousy, menial jobs to make money to move to Los Angeles, where there was a big movement of bands,  a lot of music business, there were people trying to start up bands everywhere. We were on the streets, hanging around in the several Rock'n' Roll venues where you could see bands like GUNS 'N' ROSES, L.A.GUNS, JETBOY... So I met some musicians and we started playing in various clubs even if without great results. But then I was noticed by this band called CATHOUSE, that were often headlining at venues like THE WHISKEY or THE ROXI and that were trying to get a record deal. I joined them and played with them for about a couple of years, but, again, we weren't going anywhere and I started getting a little frustrated about the situation. Anyway it was a really important experience for me, because I started to be noticed as a drummer due to the fact that I was reliable, I played pretty good and I had a pretty good look ...so you know ... I started getting attention and building my profile.  

MELODY LANE: Before talking about CHEAP & NASTY, I would have a curiosity to ask you ... You were part of the All-Star Cover band called "STRONZO"... What can you tell us about that experience and where did such a bizarre name come from? 
LES RIGGS: It was probably JIMMY ASHHURST who suggested that name. JIMMY is really a great guy, he was playing in THE BROKEN HOMES at the time and then he joined IZZY STRADLIN's JU JU HOUNDS. JIMMY... you know, JIMMY is Italian, I'm pretty sure he came up with that name. What a great band! There were a lot of musicians involved in STRONZO. The band had actually been around for a couple of years before I came along, and DONI GRAY, from BURNING TREE, had been the drummer for the band up until then. You know, there were shows where we literally shared the drum stool. I remember one night at THE ROXI, we were playing as support for SMACK, the Finnish band.... DONI and I switched in the middle of a song ah ah.... Good times, we had a lot of fun. We also opened for MICHAEL MONROE at WHISKY CLUB... Different musicians came and went in the STRONZO's line-up; the line-up I played with included TIMO and I who also played together in CHEAP & NASTY, SAMI YAFFA and MICKEY FINN who played together in JETBOY at the time, and CRAIG ROSS and MARC FORD on guitars...Playing with musicians of that caliber was an incredible and unique experience. Consider that I had been a fan of the HANOI ROCKS since I was a kid, so it was fantastic to have the chance to play with SAMI YAFFA. And then we had a couple of amazing guitarists like MARC FORD and CRAIG ROSS... Getting involved with each of those guys was a magic trip for me... 

MELODY LANE: Oh JIMMY ASHHURST is fantastic, he’s so kind, we had the pleasure of interviewing him not so long ago, really great guy. About JIMMY I have a question for you... some time ago a video of CHEAP & NASTY with JIMMY ASHHURST on bass was posted on the net and this video was shot by IZZY STRADLIN' from GUNS'N'ROSES... can you confirm that? And then I would like to know if JIMMY was a member of CHEAP & NASTY at that time or if he was one of the candidates for the role of bassist? 
LES RIGGS: No…JIMMY ASHHURST played with us just for that show... That night MIKE FINN, our bassist, couldn't come and play with us for some reason, but of course we didn't want to cancel the show because otherwise they wouldn't have paid us. So we played some Rock 'n' Roll and JIMMY joined us... JIMMY could play that stuff in his sleep. As for the video… yes, it's true... the video was shot by IZZY STRADLIN. IZZY and TIMO were really good friends and he wanted good things for TIMO. IZZY was a supporter of our band from the Los Angeles days. He’s just a supercool guy, really mellow… 

MELODY LANE: Tell us how you did you get the job as CHEAP & NASTY's drummer... 
LES RIGGS: I joined the band in an unexpected and also rather fortuitous way... The management of CHEAP & NASTY had made the decision to replace their bassist MIKE FINN, I can't tell you exactly why, but I remember that there was some problem with his look, because they wanted a uniform look for the band while MIKE FINN had this blond hair and then he was a little older than the others...Anyway…They called up a friend of mine, named WILL, for a bassist audition. WILL had been my bandmate in the CATHOUSE, the band I told you about before. He had these long straight black hair and he dressed in gypsy style clothes, perhaps according to the management of CHEAP & NASTY he could have better adapted to the look of the band... I do not know ... WILL told me about his audition for NASTY SUICIDE's new band and asked me to go with him. When we got to the studio, only NASTY and TIMO were there, so I sat on drums. NASTY started scrolling through some of his songs like MIND ACROSS THE OCEAN, MOONLIGHT and other things... So we made a pretty good noise for a couple of hours... Afterwards WILL packed his stuff together and left, while TIMO and NASTY asked me to go out with them and we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant. At the end of the day, WILL did not pass the audition while NASTY and TIMO asked me to join the band as their new drummer. I was quite surprised but I accepted and so I joined the band. So it ended up with MIKE FINN staying in the band and the four of us started playing gigs in Los Angeles and in the surrounding areas...I loved MIKE, he had a great stage presence, he wrote good stuff, he had a fantastic style of playing bass and I never quite understood what the problem was with the management... 

MELODY LANE: So that audition was the first meeting between you NASTY and TIMO right? 
LES RIGGS: No...I actually met TIMO for the first time in 1986, here in Oregon, while he was working as a roadie for THE CHERRY BOMBZ.... I went to the show with a friend of mine, you know we were fans of THE CLASH, HANOI ROCKS, LORDS OF THE NEW CHURCH, so we were really happy to see musicians who had been part of those bands down here... We arrived at the club very early, because we wanted to go to the sound-check and meet the band. Timo came out of a back-stage door and because of his look and resemblance we started shouting "ANDY! ANDY!" ... He turned around and shouted "I'm not your fucking ANDY!". It often happened to him that people confused him for ANDY McCOY, but he was nice to us, we talked a bit, he was setting the guitars and then he gave us back-stage passes. So we had the chance to meet NASTY, ANITA and the guys in the band... and we got autographs and they were super-cool with us. Unfortunately the audience was not numerous, there were very few people, and at the time I thought it was a real shame considering the caliber of the musicians and the bands they came from ... but I can assure you that they knocked down the club and that they played as if they were playing in front of a full stadium. One of the most beautiful concerts I have ever attended.... 

MELODY LANE: Going back to MIKE FINN... In any case he would have left the band shortly after, right? 
LES RIGGS: Yes, NASTY had problems with his residence permit and stuff like that and he was forced to return to London and shortly after TIMO and I decided to move there... MIKE did not follow us, he preferred to stay in Los Angeles. He had a good job, he was already teaching, and besides that he was involved in a very serious relationship, so he didn't want to move to London with us. 

MELODY LANE: And then once you were all in London ALVIN GIBBS joined the band as a bassist completing what would have become the official line-up of CHEAP & NASTY... what can you tell me about the first period of the band? 
LES RIGGS: Yes, at that point ALVIN joined the band. The four of us lived in London, rehearsing, writing stuff and we also did a national tour in small clubs, trying to make a name out there and looking for a record deal. COLUMBIA RECORDS gave us an advance to record some demos for them. We recorded four songs but after some time we got the demos back from them… They didn't want them, they weren't interested and they told us that we were free and that we could do whatever we wanted…Shortly after we signed with China Records... 

MELODY LANE: Talking about those tours... if I'm not wrong CHEAP & NASTY played with the ENUFF Z' NUFF and THE ALMIGHTY, two bands that at the time were on the crest of a wave ... what memories do you have of those shows? 
LES RIGGS: We were support band for both of those tours. Have you read ALVIN's latest book "Deminished Responsibility"? In the book he talks about those tours in quite detail. They were great tours. With Enuff z' Nuff we had a lot of fun, they were great guys, we really got along. The shows went very well. One in particular was amazing, it was at the end of the tour, we played at the Town & Country Club and we just blew the roof out of the place, it was such a special show. As for the ALMIGHTY what to say... CHEAP & NASTY and THE ALMIGHTY were two pretty different bands, but they were great with us. ... and things on tour with them went so well that we actually ended up being managed by their own manager, TOMMY TEE, who unfortunately passed away some years ago... He was the one who helped us to get a record deal with PONY CANYON RECORDS for the release of COOL TALK INJECTION. 

MELODY LANE: Did you also play headlining shows? 
LES RIGGS: Oh yes, we headlined clubs, we did really well on our own too…We sold out THE MARQUEE and we headlined THE ASTORIA, it was a homecoming show, that was great, really well attended. And we also went to Japan twice. The first experience over there was a sort of a showcase organized by our label. It was when BEAUTIFUL DISASTER was coming out; The record company arranged radio and TV interviews and organized kind of a fan club show. The second time in Japan was after COOL TALK INJECTION was released. It was released only in Japan, so we flew over there to support the album, and we did like five shows that were really well received. 

MELODY LANE: Reading a couple of setlists of your concerts, I noticed that you played a song titled TOO HARD A NIGHT, which was not included in any of the CHEAP & NASTY's albums but that was published on VINEGAR BLOOD, the solo album of NASTY SUICIDE... what can you tell us about it?
LES RIGGS: Oh yes, TOO HARD A NIGHT, well… NASTY and ALVIN co-wrote that song and we demoed it and we played it live, but I don’t know, I don’t remember why it was not included on any of our albums or singles. It is a mistery to me but I really like that song. 

MELODY LANE: On VINEGAR BLOOD, apart from TOO HARD A NIGHT, there are also two songs co-written by you and NASTY that I personally find fantastic, the title-track and COLD WIND... In the end that record could almost be considered the third CHEAP & NASTY album, what can you tell us about? 
LES RIGGS: Oh yes those two songs. I remember recording the demos of those songs with NASTY and DAVE TREGUNNA on bass... DAVE is great, he's really a great and interesting guy. We were friends and he was part of our world... you know, he had played with NASTY in THE CHERRY BOMBZ and DAVE, TIMO and I also had a couple of side projects going on... Anyway...I had written some verses, a couple of things...like poems. NASTY read them, liked them and said he would have tried to turn them into songs...and that's what he really did. Years later I got this letter from the publishing company saying that they had released NASTY's album and that there were a couple of songs written with me and so I received a check with a little bit of money, that kind of thing, and that's all. I think he did a good job with those songs and I think he recorded a great album... VINEGAR BLOOD is a great album. I think that was what he really needed to do in that moment of his life, more than CHEAP&NASTY. That album was really important to him, his brother played drums on the record, SAMI YAFFA played bass on all the tracks...That album was really “his thing” from start to finish...Instead in CHEAP&NASTY the situation was different, we were four strong personalities, I was a song-writer, Alvin was a song-writer, TIMO wrote songs too...You know…we were all bringing stuff to the table all the time so... I really think that he needed to put out a thing like that, even if there were some collaborations with me and ALVIN on there, it was really his album...and that was what he really needed do to at that time... 

MELODY LANE: Who is JOHNNY in COLD WIND? 
LES RIGGS: Thunders…The song is based on a true story. I was struggling with an heroin addiction myself at that time, and that's what that song is about…Get out of that stuff or the COLD WIND is gonna take you away...  

MELODY LANE: One of the songs that I have always liked the most on BEAUTIFUL DISASTER is LIVE IN A LIE, song of which you wrote music and lyrics ... What is the message behind that song ... 
LES RIGGS: I've always wanted to write music and play but I never wanted to have anything to do with everything related to the music business, and that's why I left this world years ago... and I never really looked back. I've never had patience for all the things that run in the music business...I've never been a pretender... there are people in the world of music who can put on a persona, people who in their private life are in a way but that in public or on stage pretend to be someone else ... well I've never done it, I always just wanted to be myself... That's what that song is about... if you want to pretend, if you want to be a clown with all that rockstar bullshit do it, but I don't have time for this ..."It's ok if you want to live in a lie". 

MELODY LANE:Talking about BEAUTIFUL DISASTER, when I interviewed ALVIN and TIMO they both said that they were not satisfied at all with the sound and production of the album... Unquestionably it is a record that contains fantastic songs but it sounds like it's been recorded in the mid-80s, what is your opinion about it? 
LES RIGGS: I agree with you and with them. My first choice would have been DAVE EDMUNDS who is an amazing producer, a great songwriter, but that didn't happen ... If you listen to some of the first songs before they were re-produced, before the intervention of the record company, they sounded much better. On those tracks you could hear just an hard blues rock'n'roll band, playing music with great harmonies and great solos and all that stuff. But we ended up working with ROBIN BLACK, who owned the Black Barn studio, where we recorded the album, and he was a great engineer but I don't know...it didn't work... The record company decided to bring the stuff to this guy who put all this shit into it. At that moment we were under pressure, we had to release the record, we had spent a lot of money on it…and in the end, the production killed that record. But at least we learned. When we did COOL TALK INJECTION, we did that album for 10.000 pounds, and if you listen to the album, the sound is better, the production is better, everything 's so much improved...I think the difference between the two albums is also due to the fact that when we did BEAUTIFUL DISASTER we recorded in a residential studio, so we lived there, we were very well rested, very well fed, nobody was really drinking, it was a very calm period. While during the recording of COOL TALK INJECTION, I think three of us were going through divorces...it's a 'downtown city' record, a dark vibe on it...d' you know what I mean? ... We converged in downtown London to make that record, we recorded at night and that's what it sounds like as opposed to that kind of 'idyllic country calm' ...No real attitude. I remember at the time I was playing a 4-piece Yamaha drums, a Charlie Watts drum set, pure rock'n'roll style ... when I heard the final result on BEAUTIFUL DISASTER I couldn't believe it, I remember saying "What the hell is this?". So many great songs on BEAUTIFUL DISASTER but the production really killed that record ... 

MELODY LANE: As a CHEAP & NASTY fan, one thing I've never accepted was that the band didn't get what actually deserved considering the high quality of the albums. Of course in those years the grunge bands and alternative music dominated the world, but if I think of bands like AEROSMITH, THE BLACK CROWES, GUNS & ROSES, BON JOVI, AC/DC, IZZY STRADLIN '& JU JU HOUNDS, CINDERELLA. ... well ... in those years there was still a lot of attention and interest towards bands that played Hard Rock contaminated with blues like you. In short...you had videos, 3/4 great singles, you were expert musicians with great pedigree ... What did you miss to be able to stay in the wake of those great bands and get through those difficult years? 
LES RIGGS: Grunge came, sweeping everything away and replacing genres that had been most popular until then. I think the reason bands like THE BLACK CROWES or the others you mentioned could weather that storm, was that they had a truly powerful organizational machine behind them. Those bands made great records during that time, great songs, they had the right look, the right front-men and all that, but what kept them going were the important and powerful labels that managed to support them adequately. In CHEAP & NASTY we never had that kind of "support" behind us ... Maybe if we could have come back here in the States, if we had had a distribution deal here, a record company that could have really taken care of us, things probably would have worked out, we probably would have been ok. But legally NASTY couldn't go back to the United States, not at that time, not during that period. He had to stay out for a while, now I don't remember exactly how long, but he couldn't go back to the States. Plus, when we signed with CHINA RECORDS, they told us they had a distribution agreement with Polygram, but as soon as we signed with them, they lost their worldwide distribution agreement, which was why our album wasn't easy to find in many countries or even impossible to find, apart from import copies. If a band like FASTER PUSSYCAT managed to sell half a million records here in the US during that time, well I think even a band like CHEAP & NASTY could have sold a couple of records ... It's about having that 'machine' behind you that can take you out there, can bring you in front of people ... do you know what I mean? They screwed us but if we had had that world-wide distribution deal we would be talking about a complete different story. 

MELODY LANE: Can you tell me about the last period of the band which was for what I know quite confused and troubled ... When COOL TALK INJECTION came out it seemed that the band had already broken up and then came the news that NASTY had joined MICHAEL MONROE's DEMOLITION23... Can you tell us something about it... and what was the cause that led to the dissolution of the band? 
LES RIGGS: I think there was no one particular reason but there were different causes that lead the band to the end. Maybe NASTY at that time was a bit doubtful about songs and band's quality, and I really think there was also someone around him who put poison in his ears fueling that doubt, but then, apart from that, there were some NASTY’s private and personal matters that kept him a bit away from the band and also on the writing side he was not producing that much, and the band was stuck in a rather stagnant situation. In addition to this, I don’t think NASTY ever really loved being the center of the attention, I think he felt some sort of pressure being the frontman. Everyone was focusing on him, it was a completely different situation than the one he had experienced with HANOI ROCKS, and I think it was becoming a kind of burden for him. We also considered the idea of removing some stress from NASTY, taking a singer, a new focal point, so that NASTY could focus only on playing the guitar. KEITH SPARROW, who had sung the backing vocals on a couple of songs included in COOL TALK INJECTION, was considered to join the band as lead singer, we even thought about changing the band's name... but then nothing came of it. So it was quite frustrating, we were at the point that the band wasn't working very much, we didn't do a lot, so the band was kind of stand still and NASTY's decision to join DEMOLITION23's tour pretty much killed the band... 

MELODY LANE:  ...So I guess that, at the time, that period of indecision must not have been easy for the band to deal with... 
LES RIGGS: Well you know...I just wanted to play drums in a rock 'n' roll band and so I was always writing, I was always creating and I needed an outlet for that. So TIMO and I had several side projects with different singers and with different bass players that kind of thing…We played clubs and pubs and stuff like that. We were all busy looking for other things to do while NASTY wasn't around. And I even joined THE GODFATHERS tours and I loved that band, I had the priviledge to play with them and see the world with them…and they were really good guys and I had really a great time with them even if it wasn’t something that I wanted to do forever… 

MELODY LANE: Present and future... We knew that something was boiling in the pot but then came the dramatic news of TIMO's death... What's in the air today for CHEAP & NASTY?
LES RIGGS: Well some time ago I wrote a song with NASTY, at that time TIMO was still with us, and then we started to talk and to consider the idea of recording something new. Then we thought about recording a cover that we had in mind, as a tribute to Timo, and we have a couple of other things on the burner that I can't talk too much about now, because it’s label stuff, that kind of stuff, but I don't really know what is going on. The plan is to release some new CHEAP & NASTY's music, hopefully in the near future compatibly with the commitments of each of us. NASTY is currently promoting his new album "THE FAMILY ALBUM", the first single has just come out, so he's busy with his stuff going on, and ALVIN is always busy with the UK SUBS and his solo project, so I'm the only one who probably has more free time. We also talked a little bit about the release of the demos and some bonus tracks. We would like also to re-record some stuff, but I don't know if that will happen now that TIMO is gone, because we absolutely wanted his contribution in that sense. So we will see what happens, but there is something on the horizon, and I think that even MEL WESSON, who played keyboards in the album 'BEAUTIFUL DISASTER, will be involved ... 

MELODY LANE:Oh also MEL WESSON, this is a surprise! I've always wondered how he joined the band or how he got involved at the time... 
LES RIGGS: Well...He and ALVIN were friends from the seventies, they've known each other for a long time, I think they grew up in the same neighborhood. MEL came down to the studio and played the piano on our first single MIND ACROSS THE OCEAN and we immediately said "Wow this guy is amazing!". So we started hearing the keyboards for all the other songs, it was a natural thing, and MEL even came to Japan with us the first time we went. 

MELODY LANE: But did MEL also play on COOL TALK INJECTION? 
LES RIGGS: No MEL didn't play on our second album. WILLIE DOWLING from the band THE GRIP came into the studio with us. He was an amazing piano and keyboards player, he came down and put some really cool piano on COOL TALK INJECTION. WILLIE played also with THE QUIREBOYS and THE WILDHEARTS... 

MELODY LANE: Now let's talk about another band you were part of, another band that we can define a 'cult-band': THE CRYBABYS, the project of DARRELL BATH and HONEST JOHN PLAIN... How did you join the band and what can you tell me about that? 
LES RIGGS: Well...My girlfriend at the time played bass in this really great band called THE MOTHER MACHINE and KEITH SPARROW, the guy I told you about before, was the singer of that band. They were playing a show in a club called the MOONLIGHT CLUB in London and THE CRYBABYS were playing too, but their drummer didn’t show up, and so DARREL started to ask aloud "Hey any drummer in the house?". So I got up on stage and I ended up playing their set with them. DARRELL and I started writing songs together, and then I recorded on the album ROCK ON SESSIONS that for me, personally, is the best thing that I have ever done. I love both CHEAP & NASTY's albums but that album it’s really great. It was recorded by JEAN CATALDO (aka JOHNNY CAT) at his home studio in Annecy, France, in something like four or five days. It was such a wine-souped fun time, I really enjoyed playing on that record and doing the live shows, it was a great band with a really great sense of humor …You know...one of the times that NASTY and I were homeless, DARRELL let us come and stay with him for a while; he was a great guy. Recently also DARRELL passed away and it was awful. 

MELODY LANE:DARRELL had also joined THE DOGS D'AMOUR around the same time that CHEAP & NASTY and THE DOGS D'AMOUR were both signed to CHINA RECORDS... Was your friendship dating back to that period? 
LES RIGGS: No, we were already friends with DARRELL when he joined THE DOGS D'AMOUR. Yes, both we and THE DOGS D'AMOUR were signed with CHINA RECORDS and honestly I think that in the beginning CHINA RECORDS thought that CHEAP & NASTY were going to be another kind of DOGS D'AMOUR, but as much as I loved them, we didn't have much in common musically. I think what they did they did it really well, but it's pretty clear that sonically we were quite different. I really remember with pleasure the night when with CHEAP & NASTY we played at the TYLA birthday party, it was always at the MOONLIGHT CLUB ... We went on stage and played and had a great time... what an explosion!

MELODY LANE:Do you have a 'big regret' about your career? Maybe something that in hindsight you wish you had done differently? Something that maybe could have changed things about your band or your career ...? 
LES RIGGS:I really don't regret anything ... but I wish we had been more communicative at the time with my band mates in CHEAP & NASTY. If we all had just sat around a table pulling out what we had inside and talking about it, maybe things would have turned out differently. Maybe we just had to take a break, focusing for a period on our own different side projects, like NASTY did with his solo album...and maybe we could have saved the day, maybe we could have done something more as a band ... 

MELODY LANE: Thank you very much LES, thank you for your availability and kindness ... 
LES RIGGS: Thank you MELODY LANE!  Thank you for your attention to our music.Stay safe and hope to hear from you soon! 

 

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ARTICLE BY: MIKE MATTY