Briefly tell us about your latest CD and what your fans can expect from it.
“The Shakespeare Concert” is our newest album. It was recorded ‘live in the studio’. 15 of our greatest hits played concert style one after another. No overdubs. No fixes. Just as-is. I wanted to capture the band at the top of our game in a concert type setting. The album has been praised by a host of famous rock stars like Mark Farner (Grand Funk Railroad), Jim Peterik (Ides Of March), Joey Dee (Peppermint Twist) and Elliott Randall (Steely Dan), and also by the music reviewers who have called it “Perfection!”, “5 Stars!”, “Thrilling!”, and “A Masterpiece!” among other accolades.
We noticed Project Grand Slam writes music in a mix of genres, tell us about your ROCK music influences and how they play a role in your songwriting.
I grew up and came of age musically during the British Invasion era of the 1960s/70s, and all I played was rock until I discovered jazz around age 20. I adored all of the English bands. So rock is in my DNA and is a big part of Project Grand Slam’s music. One of my musical signatures on each of our albums is to take an iconic song of that era and “reimagine” it in PGS’s style. I’ve done this with The Kinks, The Who, Cream, Hendrix and The Beatles.
You have performed for some huge crowds, is there a venue you are eager to perform at in the near future?
I love performing at large Festivals and Concerts. Our music has gone over so well in those big venues. Perhaps my favorite experience was when we performed at a festival in Serbia in 2018 before a crowd of over 20,000. We got a standing ovation after our set, and the recording of that performance became our “live” album Greetings From Serbia. Much nearer our NYC home there is no venue bigger and more prestigious than Madison Square Garden. It would be a dream come true to play there one day.
New York, where the band is based is an awesome music city. Lot’s of late night shows, anyone in particular you would like to make an appearance on?
You’re correct that NYC is a music mecca, with bands and venues of all types and stripes. I think that one of our big hits, “New York City Groove”, would be perfect for any of the NYC based late night TV shows – or the daytime shows for that matter! A new “live” version of that song is on The Shakespeare Concert and is currently making waves in Great Britain.
Give us some famous musicians/acts you have performed alongside in various manners:
As a band we’ve had the pleasure to open for Edgar Winter, Blues Traveler, Boney James and Mindi Abair. And we played an after-show for YES. I’ve recently recorded with Jim Peterik (Ides Of March and formerly with Survivor), Elliott Randall (Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers) and Tony Carey (Rainbow, Mandoki Soulmates) and performed with Sonny Stitt and Jaki Byard. And my percussionist plays with Jose Feliciano.
Is there a country you are eager to tour?
We’ve played shows in many parts of the U.S. but a full tour of the country would be great. And Europe has been very kind to us and I’d love to perform there again.
PGS has released numerous CD’s and singles over the years, is there a particular original song that is close to your heart?
I’ve written and recorded about 100 songs at this point and they’re all like my babies so very hard to choose. But I have two new, as-yet-unreleased songs that I just love. The first, “The Fall Of Winter”, is a collaboration with Jim Peterik. Jim wrote and sang “Vehicle” for the Ides Of March and co-wrote “Eye Of The Tiger” for Survivor which became the theme song for Rocky III. I call the new song a Blue Collar anthem as it’s all about a working man from the midnight shift who dreams of a better life. The second one, called “All Of The Time”, is a gentle, lovely love song sung by Leslie Hunt, a semi-finalist on American Idol. I adore both of these songs and can’t wait to release them this spring.
What has the band learned to do during the Covid pandemic that they have never experimented with before?
The pandemic has whacked everyone and particularly musicians, as we could not perform live or even rehearse or record together for quite a long time. This caused me to get creative. We released an album called East Side Sessions in January 2020 just before the world closed down. When we couldn’t tour behind the album we did the next best thing and put together videos of 4 of the songs on the album. The first two were typical Zoom type videos with all the band members in their little box. But the third one was an animated video of a reimagined Beatles song called “I Wanna Be Your Girl”, and the fourth one was adapted from a 1968 Spaghetti Western to fit the song which I call the world’s first Cowboy Jazz song, “The Pardners”.
I then went on to record two new “solo” albums remotely, which for us was a totally new experience. The first is called Summer Of Love (2020) and the second is called Miller Rocks. Both were released and promoted on my Follow Your Dream Podcast, which I started in March 2021 and which is now ranked in the Top 3% with listeners in 189 countries.
If PGS could open for any band in the world past or present, who would that band be?
I’m a huge fan of Weather Report, The Police and Supertramp, so if I could wave a magic wand those would be the bands I’d want to open for – and play with!
Tell us, where you see PGS in the next 5 years?
I hope that 5 years down the line we’re still writing, recording and performing at the highest level!
URL: https://www.projectgrandslam.com/
End of Interview