Q: Lennex was your first band, right!? Any stories from those days?
RR: Yeah. .. It was a High School band. It was 5 guys that were the first guys in the neighborhood that had instruments. Johnny Dee was there, prior to HoneyMoon Suite. It was fun for like 5, 6, 7 years, and then songwriting came into play, and we had to figure out who was going to be the main songwriter. When that wasn't going - it was great; it was just a good ole fashioned bar band, that had fun. We played Canada, did 5 tours. Then when we started writing songs and making a career out of it everything changed ... which happened to a lot of bands.

Rick and his manager Dee Anthony Q: You just had a couple of singles, right ?
RR: Yes. We did a tour of Japan. After that me and John went out separate ways.

Q: A few years later there was 'Perfect Affair' - was there anything before that?
RR: No, '81 was Japan, and that's when me and John separated because of the songwriting thing.

Q: Amicably?
RR: Yeah, we reached a point where we did that one single, we did an album that never got released, called "Midnight In Niagara". They shelved it, so we just decided to part ways. He went and did the HoneyMoon Suite thing, and I brought in Greg Fraser for a year, and he went to Brighton Rock, and Perfect Affair was happening between all that; Mick Ronson produced that. It did OK in Europe, but in Canada it was too ahead of it's time. The critics liked it, but the fans just didn't get it.

Q: The Lennex album -- Who has the tapes?
RR: I do.

Q: Will you ever release them?
RR: Yeah, it might get released on my own label now.

Q: Was there anything on it [songs] that came out anywhere, be it HoneyMoon Suite or your own stuff ?
RR: No. It was just 10 songs. Mick produced that too.

Q: How did you hook up with him ?
RR: I was in Connecticut, touring Connecticut. We did a show with Mick Ronson & The New York Yankees. That was a band out of Woodstock. It was kinda like a Janis Joplin band, and all those folks that live in Woodstock; and Mick was doing a solo thing after Mott The Hoople. We opened up for them in Hartford, and I passed him a tape and he called me a week later, said he dug my voice.

Q: Perfect Affair didn't work out past the first album!?
RR: No, it lasted probably about 8 months. The radio climate was just not on our side; everything was Duran Duran, Loverboy, Big Country; it was really high gloss, and real high singers, real polished, and we came out with something that nobody was getting. It was definitely influenced by Leonard Cohen, Dylan, Lou Reed,... Mick made a real original record. Europe liked it; we got a lot of attention in Sweden, Norway, England, Holland, Belgium - those markets. Europeans are more into that. It was just very original; just too off-side for Canadian radio at the time.

Q: In the years past that, was there any other album releases ? I know you had your solo band and that...
RR: Yeah I did a couple of singles as Rick Rose solo. Then I had a song in a movie that I'd wrote with Paul Rothchild and Jim Steinman - "Rude Awakening"; it was in an Orion film. Bill Medley sang it. The movie didn't do well, but the video did great. That was great writing with Rothchild and Steinman, that opened doors to the songwriting market that i got involved with from that point on.

Q: How about that whole period from 1984 up until a few years ago? Did anything else go on between then?
RR: We did a Rick Rose Band record, all ready to license, but then before we released it, my manager thought 'let's go to Nashville' because I was getting a lot of attention with writers; I was just starting to write with New York people. I was in New York for all those years - bouncing back and forth. So, the songwriting - I focused on that, and we just decided to try Nashville because that was the 'Hub' of songwriting. I went down for a month, moved in for a month, hung around, met some people, and I got signed.

Q: When was that?
RR: That was 4 years ago.

Q: How did that all evolve to what you're doing now?
RR: Well being a staff writer there for all those years, my job was to write songs for other artists, and they got me co-writing with all the big Nashville guys; not necessarily all Sony writers because I write Universal people, BMG, Polygram... I wrote with Desmond Child - who wrote with like Bon Jovi, Rickey Martin, Aerosmith, Anton Fig - David Letterman's drummer, Tom Douglas, Dave Gibson, Monte Pollo - who has the George Bush Republican theme song, the Billy Ray Cyrus song. Just been writing with them, and doing demos. I got 150 songs in my catalogue; I got a bunch of holds, and I just keep writing! And while I'm doing that we decided to put out my own CD from all the sessions that I've done, we've picked songs that suit what I'm doing. It's not really country; it's more like early Mellencamp - that's the style. There's no fiddle or pedal steel; it's just a good rock n roll record; very rootsy - John Hiatt, Warren Zevon ,... that kind of good singer/songwriter album, you know. The songs are all very strong; all co-written with monsters. "Rude Awakening" is on there; a version with me singing.

Q: So that's one of a couple of albums you've got coming out!?
RR: There's like 5 things coming out between now and Christmas time! There's the Rick Rose thing called "Songs From The Studio B Sessions", Perfect Affair - "Visions", and that's a re-release with 5 bonus tracks. We added 5 of the Sony songs that suited that record, like more of the experimental songs I have in my catalogue, and a live version of "Gene Jeanie" recorded at the El Mocombo on the CHUM Live simulcast. We added that. It's a great version, really dramatic. Robin Scott - a country girl from Toronto who cut one of my songs; a band from Rhode Island called "In Theory" - they got a song on their CD; Rick Rose Band - a Retrospective. The Rick Rose band had like a 100 songs demoed; and again we're going to pick 12 of the ones that sonically sound good, and call it "The Early Years". These are just sitting on a shelf in boxes.

Q: Who's going to be on the new project?
RR: It's all session players, all Nashville guys, nobody from here. It's all big Nashville guys that play on all the big records. Milton Sledge, and Garth Brook's drummer's on a few tracks. Just guys that have come in and played on my sessions.

Q: How long were you down there for?
RR: 4 years!

Q: Any stories ?
RR: It's hard....Nashville is like thousands of guys writing songs, trying to get that hit. You got to get lucky. On the songwriting side, I've had a lot of 'holds'. A 'hold' means that if a producer or somebody puts it on hold then the artist has 30 days to make up their mind if they're going to cut it, but the artist, producer, and A & R guy all have to like the song to be on the person's record. You can't have 2 out of 3; you got to have 3 out of 3, then it's 'bingo' - it's cut. It's real tough; they go through hundreds of songs and pick 10. And since I'm not your classic contemporary country writer, I come in with the Tom Petty, Jackson Brown, and Mellencamp influence. So for the artist who wants that type of a song then they'll look at the Rick Rose catalogue.

Q: What do you plan on doing with the releases as far as labels,.. ?
RR: It's on our own label. My manager and I started the label. My manager's like 72, managed everybody in the 70s, and he's always been asked to do his own label, but he's always been a personal manager, but now we decided to join on this and we're partners on the label - it's called 'Bandana Music'. He has his daughter at Sony, New York, and she's like Senior Vice-President, she's not involved in this label, but it's good to have her there on our side. But all the experience he's had, he's managed everybody - Ten Years After, Gary Wright, Frampton, Humble Pie, Mott The Hoople, T-Rex, Jethro Tull, Tony Bennett, his list goes through all the years, and we're best friends. I've been with him for 12 years. And we just thought now with the internet - with that tool, we'd take advantage of it because it's getting back to how it was in the 70s - if they like what they hear then they'll buy it. You don't rely on the machinery to convince them, like the Backstreet Boys or Christine Augier - that's total marketing, where they're force-feeding the public to like this. And with the internet, with all these different on-line distributors, they'll listen to a sample and if they dig it - they'll buy it. Who's-ever a fan of Dylan, Jackson Brown or Mellencamp, Lou Reed, John Hiatt - then they'll dig what I do, hands down! I'm in that company. If anyone's record collection consists of those guys, then I'm in.

Q: Meet anybody that gave you any comparisons?
RR: Desmond Child, when i met him in Nashville, he said with my kind of voice being so original ...you know it's not a real 'pop' voice, it's a 'stylist's' voice -- like Mellencamp, early Bruce Springsteen. And he said "you're going to be a singer / songwriter, like a Kris Kristoferson. A type of guy who walks his own walk. You're in a gendre, but you're not going to be the flavor of the month or anything, [where they forget about you 6 months down the road]." A John Prine type, or Shawn Mullins they compare me to.

Q: What do you got planned in the future?
RR: Well the CD will probably be out early October, and we're just going to market on-line. There'll be no land distribution, no retail, ... well locally because I'm from around here, but we're not going to bother with any distribution companies that put it in stores in America or in Europe; it's all amazon.com, and a bunch of other people that are going to help market it. It's going to be all on-line marketing. We'll do some virtual casting where they'll see me in an interview so they can see me speak, so for somebody sitting in Australia and doesn't know what this guy's all about - they just hear clips and see photos, so we'll do a lot of virtual casting, a live thing, we'll stream little clips of me talking to them, so that'll be simulcast to the internet, so they'll have an idea of what I look like and sound like as a person, rather than just relying on the media doing it. And when it gets to the next level, then we'll go in the territories and promote it.

Q: Do you have any tours lined up?
RR: No. I'm playing Connecticut once a month at Foxwood's Casino - the biggest Casino in the world. I've been there since '92. I'll do some openings.

Q: Any current listening favorites?
RR: I'm digging back in to the 70s. When I drive to Nashville, it's a 12 hour drive, so I listen to country radio, pop radio, and it just seems nothing gets me... and it's not that it's no good, it's just that something's missing that suit my taste buds; something's not there. So while I've been driving I've been bringing James Gang's Greatest Hits, Mott The Hoople, because that stuff's exciting, it's raw energy,... Uriah Heep, some old Guess Who, and it's stuff that just makes you feel great. I don't think it's because when I was a kid I was around it, I mean you listen to some of that Mott The Hoople stuff and it's just 'Wow'. It's like with the same spirit as with the Black Crowes when they came out. They kept doing that Humble Pie / Mott The Hoople something...I don't know what it is, it's just kind of edgy, a lot of real power; it's the way 70s records were made. And for me that's what works,...early Rod Stewart -- like "Maggie May", you can hear from the speakers there was 5 guys in the room just playing. That's what I've been tapping in to. There's a spirit there that missing in today's music. The guys that have it today are the grunge bands; they got that attitude, that same vibe of the 70s - like Pearl Jam, Creed, and all them, and that's probably why it's so big is because they're not polished, they're just guys that are full of passion. So history's just repeating itself, nothing new, just new names, and new kids doing it.

Q: Can you give me a few of your favorite albums growing up?
RR: "Every Picture Tells A Story" - Rod Stewart, "Don't Shoot Me ..." - Elton John, "Stickey Fingers" - Stones, Neil Diamond's Greatest Hits was a good one, Springsteen's "Born To Run", Dylan - "Blood On The Tracks", Alice Cooper - "Billion Dollar Babies" - a masterpiece!, "Demons And Wizards" - Uriah Heep, "Living In The Past" - Jethro Tull. There's tons of records that had good music, there's some that you can listen to over and over, and you know it's not just a 3 minute song, and then you forget about it. Those guys were on to something back then.... Allman Brothers - "Brothers And Sisters", Carol King - "Tapestry". And I can tell a lot now too by playing this solo thing, I get people - college students who are 20 years old asking for "Wish You Were Here", "American Pie", "You Got A Friend" -- songs that when i was growing up were on the radio, they were just released, and that's over 20 years ago, and they're tapping in to it because of their parents older brothers or sisters. So those great songs will never die, and when you listen to them, it's not just that they're great songs, but there's that spirit [that I was talking about earlier] - there's something about the track, an honesty that you'll hold as a part of you forever, i think. Even pop radio, I was a big fan of AM radio, 70s, 80s songs - "Hooked On A Feeling" and "Ride Captain Ride". AM pop radio in the 70s was great - "Joy To The World" - Three Dog Night ... there's an era there of great songs. There was something happening that hopefully I'll try to capture on my CD.

Interview conducted in person August 31 / 2000
Copyright - Kevin J. Julie