Personal Photos Provided By Shelly Harris
It may have been more than 35 years since I last chatted with CONEY HATCH co-founder/bassist/vocalist/songwriter Andy Curran, but his outgoing amiability made it seem like just a few months.
On the line from his home base in Toronto, Curran was ready to elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the limited release of CONEY HATCH's new vinyl album, Live at the El Mocambo (“El Mo”) - actually the band's first-ever live album – as well as the many other highlights of his remarkable and illustrious career, whether in the spotlight with the revered Canadian muscle rockers or his solo projects, or behind the scenes in production and in A&R working for other Canadian rock royalty that includes RUSH, TRIUMPH, and MAX WEBSTER.
KNAC.COM: We first met at Alpine Valley, when CONEY HATCH was opening for IRON MAIDEN throughout America in the Summer of '83, but you had done a tour with JUDAS PRIEST before that, and you later went on to extensively tour in the US and around Chicago for a few more years.
CURRAN: You're right, '83 was the Piece of Mind Tour and '82 was PRIEST. My god, we're going quite a long way back...[laughs]
KNAC.COM: Yeah, but, you know, I think those memories stick a lot, just because of the whirlwind times they were ... Are you doing okay now?
CURRAN: Yes, thank you for asking, and really nice to reconnect with you. Well things were a little bit, um, crazy here in Canada. Like we were quite far behind with rolling out the vaccine and then within the greater Toronto area...they ended up even tightening the restrictions more, so we've actually gone backwards...but I've had my first vaccination shot, the same with my family members. I was even talking to a couple of friends of mine and they were saying it's almost bordering on...they're starting to feel anti-social and a little bit paranoid about interaction with the public because it's just got everybody a little freaked out, you know?
KNAC.COM: Definitely
CURRAN: So that's...I mean, I wouldn't call the CONEY HATCH live record a make-work project, but it certainly helped fill some of the time, that's for sure. [Laughs]
KNAC.COM: But you guys slipped in that El Mocambo show during Covid; that was probably when there was a lull in October of last year, right?
CURRAN: Yeah. That's exactly what happened. I'll tell you, the El Mocambo, it's very well known in Canada, but people in the US and Europe kind of know the El Mocambo because the ROLLING STONES played a secret show there, and I would say it's sort of on an equivalent to maybe the Cavern Club in the UK where THE BEATLES played, or CBGBs or the Roxy. It's got that sort of pedigree. What happened was a friend of mine is a local sort of Toronto financial Bay Street guy, equivalent to like a Wall Street entrepreneur, and he bought the venue and completely renovated it and it's absolutely beautiful. There's a state of the art recording studio in there and they got 4k cameras and so he called me up and said, “Andy, I've always been a really big CONEY HATCH fan and I saw you guys play at the El Mocambo in 1983, any chance we can convince you to come back? We're allowed to have like a small audience of 50 people in there but we were thinking it would be cool to do a live stream show with you” - so we agreed to it. We thought it would be a lot of fun, and we hadn't played the El Mocambo since 1983. And we cut a deal with them. We said, “How about if we give you a little bit of a discount on the actual guarantee for the band, but we can use the audio for a live record?” - because we'd never had a live record - and he said, “Deal!” So, that was part of the exercise for us, not only was it fun to get out and play a show during Covid, but to be able to walk away with a world class recording out of that facility, that was definitely something that really was enticing for us.
KNAC.COM: Mm-hmm. I know that you guys had gotten back together in 2018, wasn't it? Well, you toured with Steve Harris' band, BRITISH LION?
CURRAN: We did, yeah.
KNAC.COM: I saw them, BRITISH LION, as well, over here, but I had read that doing those gigs in Canada had caused CONEY HATCH to kind of quickly reassemble, and so, I guess it hadn't been a really long break for this El Mocambo show to come together, right? I mean, how difficult was it?
CURRAN: No. Yeah. It hadn't, you're absolutely right, because of the friendship that we had formed with Steve Harris. Steve Harris and I had been friends since back in 1983 and our friendship was sort of based on playing tennis on the days off when we were on the road with IRON MAIDEN, right? But, anyway, we kept in touch over all these years and he called me up and said that BRITISH LION - and I'm going back to - I think it was 2019 or maybe '18 as you said - and he said, “Hey, I haven't brought BRITISH LION over to Canada and I really wanna play there. I just thought it would be fun to rekindle our old friendship with the bands, would CONEY HATCH be interested in opening up?” And I said, “Absolutely, when are you thinking?” And he said, “Well I wanna do five shows in six days.” And I said, “Steve, we haven't done that since we were teenagers.” [laughs] And I had to call the rest of the guys in the band and find out if they could do that, right? Anyway, long story short, we played three shows in Ontario and two in Quebec. The Montreal and Quebec City shows with BRITISH LION were arguably one of the best shows that we'd done in a really long time and it was a very good matching with BRITISH LION and CONEY HATCH because CONEY HATCH aren't as heavy as MAIDEN. I think we're very complementary. We'd considered doing Western Canada or maybe some U.S. dates but everything ever since Covid has sort of been put on pause. We had a blast, and like I said, we hadn't played that many shows in a row in a long time in such a short period of time, right?
KNAC.COM: Well that got you sharpened again!. I did see BRITISH LION here around Chicago, in January, like a month before Covid hit, so I know they definitely have a complimentary sound to CONEY HATCH. But, I was just thinking that you were therefore already in the groove again when you did this live stream and live album. It is kind of amazing you didn't have a live album before!
CURRAN: Yes, and one thing I'd like to say Shelly, in truth, a few of my friends have asked that, they said, “Oh man, you're just doing a one off at the El Mocambo for a live stream, aren't you guys concerned that your gonna be a bit rusty?” And I have to tell you that we have played so many shows together as a unit that it's almost, and I'm not trying to boast about this, but if we get together for two rehearsals and do like two four-hour sessions, it's like putting on a pair of old tennis sneakers because everything just seems to gel, and a lot of it is muscle memory because we played so many shows together. So, ironically, with us, it's not a lot of rehearsing before we look at each other and go, “Wow, that sounds good! Nobody made any mistakes here.” So it was pretty easy to get things back together.
KNAC.COM: So, I have a couple of questions springing from that. First of all, the live stream itself, you know the video part of it - I think I've only seen one song. Is it ever going to be possible to view the whole show that was live-steamed in its entirety?
CURRAN: The answer is yes. When we did the initial show on October 3rd of last year, it was a one and done. So I think the stream stayed up for 48 hours, and then it was taken down. We worked with a really cool company out of San Francisco called Mugs.net, they spell it M-U-G-S.net and they do GRATEFUL DEAD, and METALLICA, and SPRINGSTEEN and PEARL JAM - and they're just a really great organization - but they said to us the same thing: A lot of your fans probably missed this. So, now we're talking to the El Mocambo and Michael, their CEO, because we sort of co-own that content and we're talking about putting that show back up again for anybody that missed it.
KNAC.COM: Okay. That's good to know, because I did miss it, too! [laughs] And I wanted to see it!
CURRAN: And we'll put something up on our website that says, Hey we're gonna put the live stream back up” - and we'll give people lots of notice for it. We haven't got a date in mind yet, but we thought: Let's just get the album finished and mixed and get it out there. And now we're talking about putting the video portion of it back up.
KNAC.COM: Yes, so, it is really a “Best-Of” - as it has been stated. Right now, it can only be ordered on your website, is that right? What do people need to do to get a copy of this?
CURRAN: Yes. Okay, well, first and foremost, what we did is we limited the pressing to 300. So there's only 300 vinyl and I think we, and if I recall, I think we did 100 CDs. We signed some of them, so I think out of the 300 vinyl there's 100 that are signed and they're available on the CONEY HATCH website in our store. But it's interesting, like you said, that when the word kind of got out we had some interest, our merch company started getting calls from stores, retail, saying, “We're interested in the non-signed version.” So, there's another 200 that are going to go out to record stores hopefully in the Canada, US, and the UK and we've got a really cool company called Isotope here in Toronto that are helping us get those copies out to different territories. But if you wanted it quick, the website is probably the best place to get it. But I spoke with our merch company and they said I think that it's moving pretty fast and they anticipated selling out soon, so, I guess, be careful what you wish for! [Laughs]
KNAC.COM: [Laughs] Yeah, I wondered. And I did read that there's two new CONEY HATCH studio tracks recorded over lockdown?
CURRAN: Okay, well yes, you're right, and it's funny, like not to mix apples and oranges here, but before we did that show at the El Mocambo,when we released Coney Hatch 4, there was a renewed interest in Europe about the band and we had always got a lot of great press coverage there mostly with Kerrang Magazine...and so when we reunited and put out Coney Hatch 4, we started to get offers in places like Germany, and the UK, and France, and Italy, and Belgium and stuff, so we played a show in Germany a couple of years ago and we recorded that. We thought, “Hey, man, this is cool - this is one of our first ever European shows and let's record it!”
So we had that in the can. It's a bit of a different set-list and our original intention was to release that live in Germany with a couple new studio tracks. We have two new tracks that are literally being mixed right now, and all of a sudden the opportunity came with the El Mocambo and nudged it in front of the Germany project. We're talking to a couple labels, one of them out of Los Angeles and another one out of Japan, that are interested in putting out the Live in Germany with these two new studio tracks, so that's like a TBD right now. But we went from having no live albums, to potentially two live albums with two studio tracks, so we've been trying to keep busy over Covid and we did finish these two tracks off and I think they sound pretty darn good! And if we don't get a deal or if there's no label we'll probably just release them independently through our website.
KNAC.COM: Carl Dixon (singer/songwriter/guitarist) and Dave Ketchum (drummer) have been back with the band quite a few years, despite doing other projects, but I was wondering if there is any particular reason why Steve Shelski (lead guitarist) did not rejoin for the latest projects?
CURRAN: Yeah, so with Steve, - obviously the original lineup includes Steve - he was part of the Coney Hatch 4 record, and he's a very, very busy dude. He writes a lot of music for film and television in Canada here and that keeps him pretty busy, and right around the time that we were deciding to go out and play some shows after we recorded Coney Hatch 4, life got really busy for him, and, in addition his father was a really good carpenter, and Steve took some of those attributes and decided that he was going to renovate his home single-handedly...So, all of a sudden his availability was next to nothing, so, that was difficult. Carl [Dixon] had been playing some shows with his solo band with Sean Kelly and Sean's quite a gifted guitarist and has played with HELIX, LEE AARON and NELLY FURTADO, and he's a big CONEY HATCH fan, so we, we didn't want to delay playing live Shelly, so we enlisted Sean Kelly to play those dates with us. Steve and I are still very good friends, but it just wasn't in the cards for him to do touring.
KNAC.COM: Okay. Well that's a good kind of busy. I was just wondering about how he was and why he wasn't involved, so you really did answer that question. You said he's busy, but I see that you've been very busy yourself, with the behind the scenes aspect of the music busines. Pretty amazing stuff you've been doing, could you elaborate?
CURRAN: Well, yeah, I think what you're referring to is what I like to call my career on the other side of the desk.
KNAC.COM: Yes.
CURRAN: So I've had a nice long career as a musician touring, and producer, and working with a lot of other bands outside CONEY HATCH and then had subsequent releases on Geffen with my band CARAMEL and then another band called LEISURE WORLD which was on Artist Direct, and I recently just put those two albums up on Spotify, and Apple, and Amazon, and stuff, for anybody that's interested in my work outside of CONEY HATCH. I'm pretty proud of that LEISURE WORLD record, but right around the time that I released that LEISURE WORLD record, I got a call from my old manager and dear friend Ray Daniels, who is the long time manager of the band RUSH, and he said to me, “Andy,
we need an A&R guy for our label, would you be interested?” And I said , “Absolutely!” I always thought that it would be nice to continue my work in the music industry even if I'm not touring full time, so I went over there and then Ray immediately said, “Andy, I'd also like to groom you as a day-to-day manager” and I said, “Well, Ray, you know I've got two kids of my own, I don't know if I want to babysit grown adults at this point”, [laughs] but he said, “No, no stay with me, stay with me, and we can work on this.” So, long story short, I spent about 15 or 16 years with SRO Management working very closely with RUSH and BIG WRECK and a band called TEA PARTY, and Steven Page from the BARENAKED LADIES. These were all management clients, but I spent a lot of time on the road with RUSH and working with them on their live concerts and their DVDs and Rock Band and Guitar Hero. It was a bit of a “pinch me” moment because they've always...they were my friends, and one of my bands opened up for RUSH on their Roll The Bones Tour when I did my solo album. So, Geddy, Alex, and Neil were already friends, but to actually start working with them was like, What a rocket ride! I went all the way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with those boys and got to be there the night they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!
KNAC.COM: Wow, that's great!
CURRAN: So, I've been involved with project managing a lot of their box sets for their anniversary releases, 2112, Farewell to Kings, and Hemispheres. I've kind of eased off on that right now and I'm not working with Anthem records anymore, but ironically I'm working with another Canadian trio called TRIUMPH.
KNAC.COM: That “other” Canadian trio, too, then? [laughs]
CURRAN: Yeah. So I helped TRIUMPH with their box set for Allied Forces, and it's something that I really enjoy outside of being a musician. I love helping curate and going into the archives and dig up these gems, so that TRIUMPH Allied Forces anniversary box set is gonna come out in June and I'm pretty proud of the work that we did together on that. So, yeah, it's a totally different vibe from being a musician, but I kind of treat it like if it was my own record. Yeah, so I've really enjoyed that.
KNAC.COM: Is there a specific name for what you were doing with those recordings? Were you coordinating things or...?
CURRAN: Yeah, so the title they gave me was “Project Manager A&R”. And A&R really stands for artist and repertoire, so you work with the artist and you help them develop their repertoire. So I was curating a lot of those box sets and spending a lot of time going into the archives and trying to find material that the fans hadn't heard or seen before, because especially with RUSH, there was a lot sensitivity with their fans and not trying to just keep reselling them stuff that they had already bought before. And 2112 was the perfect example of that. How many times can you make a RUSH fan buy 2112, right? [Laughs] But we went into the archives and we found a lot of really cool things in there and we ended up doing a lot of interesting stuff with 2112. I mean we reached out to Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins and they did a cover version of one of the songs from 2112 and sang with ALICE AND CHAINS and a really cool Canadian band called BILLY TALENT. So, that was really fun to reach out to those bands and get them to add their own version of some of the RUSH songs, but it's really creative and a lot of it is studio work and a lot of it is just trying to uncover gems and say to the artist like, “Why did you never do anything with this?” And that can be anything from photos, to lyrics, to old recordings, so it's a really fun process and a cool project to be involved in.
KNAC.COM: Now, you said the most recent TRIUMPH project is done?
CURRAN: I just wrapped up the TRIUMPH box set, so I guess you could say I'm kind of a gun for hire. Luckily, I get calls from friends in bands, like the boys in TRIUMPH said 'hey, could you help us with what, similar to what you did with RUSH?' I've done box sets for another Canadian band called MAX WEBSTER, and so it's keeping me busy on both sides of the desk and I'm enjoying it ... Covid certainly really forced me to get back playing and recording and doing stuff that I love, and the other stuff really helps me pay the bills. [Laughs]
KNAC.COM: And you brought up MAX WEBSTER's Kim Mitchell, and he's one of a several people I was wanting to get your first impression, when I mention their name. I know he was involved with your first album and even produced it. I really loved his own solo album, Akimbo Alogo. I reviewed it many moons ago, and it became one of my favorites.
CURRAN: Well, Kim, as you said Shelly, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Kim because he literally was responsible for stumbling upon us and seeing CONEY HATCH in the very early days before we even had a record deal. And he took us under his wing, and brought us into the studio, and did a lot of work with us with demos and recording and eventually helped us get signed to our first record deal. And we remain, I still remain, very very close to Kim and I'm with you: I think he's one of the most underrated, certainly guitar players and composers, in Canada. He's not very well known in the US or Europe, but his band, MAX WEBSTER, did tour with RUSH, and a lot of people might remember Kim as the front man and lead guitarist in MAX WEBSTER. But, ironically, when you said, “What other projects am I involved in?” - Michael, the CEO of the El Mocambo venue, said to me, “ I'd like to start a record label called El Mocambo Records - would you help me with that?”- and we eventually signed Kim Mitchell, so Kim's new record, The Big Fantasize, is actually out on El Mocambo Records, and we're just talking about trying to get distribution into the US and Europe, because I think he's still one of the best kept secrets out there and I love the guy! He's such a talented dude.
KNAC.COM: I'm sure you know Tony Newton, too, don't you?
CURRAN: Oh, yes! Yes, I do know Tony.
KNAC.COM: He has a band VOODOO SIX, but he's been involved with IRON MAIDEN - some of the mixing and even production of some of the live albums, I believe. He's also the bassist in the new KK'S PRIEST project with KK Downing. But, not only do you two have mutual friends, you both are songwriters, bassists, and are involved behind the scenes in production.
CURRAN: Yes. Tony was out on the road with CONEY HATCH and BRITISH LION and one of the points that I forgot to mention to you is, you know, Steve [Harris] said, “We're coming an awfully long way and we're thinking that we'll just bring minimal stage gear … Are you guys okay if we sort of do like a 60s Motown thing and we share gear, and our crews can help each other out and we'll put our merch together?” So, we worked real closely with Tony. And it was a bit of a love-in with our road crew. I mean, we were sharing back line gear and merch guys and, you know, just traveling together, so it was a really nice little family vibe. Tony was mixing front of house for BRITISH LION. He's a great guy, and I think he's working with Explorer 1 on the label front, too, from what I understand.
KNAC.COM: I think so too, yeah. Also, I'm just curious, you know back in the day you toured with FASTWAY as well as IRON MAIDEN on that '83 tour, and I know you guys got to know [FASTWAY vocalist] Dave King well at the time. Have you ever seen Dave King in recent years with his band FLOGGING MOLLY?
CURRAN: No. It's interesting you said that because when CONEY HATCH was out on the road with FASTWAY and MAIDEN, Dave was a similar age group to us and, with all due respect, the other guys in FASTWAY were probably 10 years older than him, so he hung out a lot with CONEY HATCH and we hit it off really well. But there's been a few times that FLOGGING MOLLY have come to Toronto and I hadn't been in town. I always wanted to reconnect with him. I thought that he was a great vocalist but I haven't talked to him - we kind of lost touch - but next time FLOGGING MOLLY comes to town I'll definitely want to try to get out and say Hi to him.
KNAC.COM: Yeah. I was just curious, because I could recall even Carl [Dixon] saying that you guys hung around with Dave King back then, and what a sweet guy he was. So, I was just wondering considering it is kind of remarkable he has that other kind of band going on that is really excellent even though it's in a different type of sub genre.
CURRAN: Yes. Yeah, they were all great guys and if I recall, you know, Kevin Shirley was on drums. He was in, I think he was in bands with Frampton and Steve Marriott - HUMBLE PIE! That was definitely an amazing rhythm section, and Fast Eddie Clarke was also in that band, from MOTORHEAD...I keep bragging rights with bands we've played with, a lot of them I had posters of them up on my wall as a teenager… to get to play with PETER FRAMPTON and TED NUGENT, and EDGAR WINTER and CHEAP TRICK and EDDIE MONEY, FRANK MARINO, JOE PERRY, it's just like, “My god!” We played with so many great bands, Shelly.
KNAC.COM: Yeah, you've got a great story! I know, you lived an outstanding life! Switching gears again, the next name I'll put out there for your comment is Adrian Smith, specifically with regard to his new album with Richie Kotzen called Smith/Kotzen. I'm assuming you've heard it?
CURRAN: Yes I have and I was actually e-mailing back and forth with Adrian because you know he and I are also friends, although not as close as Steve and I, and I think his new record is great! And I wanna tell you an interesting story about Adrian Smith: After I left CONEY HATCH and Adrian had left IRON MAIDEN, I got a call from the management team and they said Adrian's gonna start a new band and he's thinking that maybe you two guys can collaborate. And I had just started my solo band Shelly, and so things were really connecting with me here and I got nominated for two Juno Awards and ended up winning one of them, which is kind of like close to the Canadian version of a Grammy award. So, anyway, they flew out and saw my band and said, “Hey, we think this would be cool. What do you think about moving to England and starting a band?” And it was a very tough decision for me because at that time I had just been married and had a young daughter and I thought, Oh my god! Am I gonna pick up and move to England and leave this all behind? So I had a real good heart to heart with Adrian, and said "I'm so flattered and honored that you would even wanna work with me again, but I'm gonna continue on here and stay in Canada." And so we never ended up collaborating, but I jokingly said to him a couple weeks ago, “Well, on your next record. if you still want to work with me, I'm available!” And he had a little chuckle with me on that! But I love his new record! I didn't know Adrian was such a great singer - you don't really think of Adrian as a singer - so between him and Richie, I think it's a really strong record.
KNAC.COM: Yeah. Even though I knew he sang lead on his other solo projects, and I had listened to them, somehow that's the number one thing that surprised me, too: how strong his voice was, bluesy, it almost sounds like a DEEP PURPLE voice, you know. [Laughs]
CURRAN: Totally. There's some really great blues elements on the record, I agree with you. The guitaring from both of them is exceptional, right?
KNAC.COM: For sure! But, the last couple things I'll ask you just to kind of tie things up ... First of all, I mean this is like CONEY HATCH's, it's almost your 40th, anniversary, isn't it?
CURRAN: It's getting pretty darn close when you think 1982. That was our first record, and you know, you said it just a couple of minutes ago there, I've had a pretty exceptional life, I think I've got some guardian angels upstairs and lightning has struck me many times. I don't know how I've been so lucky, but these memories with CONEY and all these tours and to still be friends with everybody and still have people interested in our music all these years later, it's pretty cool. I feel very lucky and fortunate, Shelly.
KNAC.COM: Yeah, you did have some serendipity, I mean, even with meeting some people at the right time, and so forth. So, that's pretty amazing. And just finally, as you've said, you've done a lot of things in your rock 'n' roll career, in different avenues of the rock music business, but is there anything that you haven't done yet that you still have a hankering to do?
CURRAN: [Laughs] That's an awesome question! You know what? My friends and I and my brothers joke around and they say to me, "Andy, if you got a call from any band right now and they said we need a bass player, who would it be?" Because I often think about okay, it's one thing to have your own band, but when I talk about some of the heroes that I really admire and worship that are still playing to this day, so if there's anything I haven't done yet, I'm going to tell you two of them that come to mind: I'd like to play one song with CHEAP TRICK one day because I have a 12 string bass and if Tom Petersson wants to just take a break I'll play one song. I'm already friends with Robin so all they need to do is call me, they have my number [Laughs]
KNAC.COM: [Laughs]
CURRAN: And then LYNYRD SKYNYRD, oh my god, I've loved LYNYRD SKYNYRD since day one. I often would fantasize...imagine if I got a call from one of the guys in SKYNYRD who plays guitar and he said, “Andy, we need a bass player” - I'd be there in a second! [laughs] So, I know it's a long shot, but if any of those bands ever needed help, you can help me get the word out, Shelly!
KNAC.COM: Well, I think that's great to still have little dreams unfulfilled that you can reach for!
CURRAN: Yeah. It's like the little man-crush that's still never ending, right? I would do that in a heartbeat. But still, I think I'm pretty lucky to still be doing this all these years later, but that would be pretty awesome to come out of the dugout to play for either one of those bands.
