Q: Currently what have Mike and yourself been up to? Mike is in a new band, could you give me more information about that?
A: What have Mike and I been up to? Well, since he is the person you are interested in let's start w/him. Mike has been concentrating mostly of writing music for films and television programs. He wrote alot of the music you hear on Fox Sports on a Sunday afternoon. If you're a football or hocky fan and watch sports on Fox you will most likely have heard alot of his guitar work and music. He also has worked on a few films and is now scoring a television series with his partner Rich McHugh that airs on the Animal Planet channel. He and Rich will start yet another film in March. He spent the summer producing the Steelhouse Lane album, which I believe is being released in the next month or so. Through friends Mike found this amazing singer from Texas named Keith Slack, and so Keith became the lead singer for Steelhouse Lane. The band was named Steelhouse Lane for two reasons: It is a street in Birmingham England (where Mike and City Boy are from) and 2ndly, well basically Mike has always wanted a band with that name. I remember the first time I visited England to meet Mike's family and friends. He took me to the city centre and showed me the street sign, Steelhouse Lane and said, "I've always wanted to name a band "Steelhouse Lane," and so when the record company asked him what the band was called, he finally got his wish. The songs were written during the 1980's with several L.A. writers and friends, including Tom DeLuca, Mark Baker and Billy Trudel. They are, I think, great rock songs with excellent guitar work, of course. Chris Thompson (Manfred Mann, and also a friend), is singing background along with a new singer Tony Field, who I manage).
As for me, in brief I am a composer's agent and I also manage a few recording artists. (New artists, probably no one you would have heard of,...yet!)
Q: Where do you live? Any children?
A: Mike and I live north of Los Angeles and have been there for about 8 years or so, before that we lived down around the Glendale area, and of course before that in Atlanta during the Streets era. We have a daughter who is in her senior year of high school, and although she has amazing ears, she doesn't play an instrument, yet! She has recently expressed interest in learning how to play the piano, and her favorite instrument seems to be the bass guitar.
Q: Would you be able to give me a sort of time line of Mike's career since City Boy?
A: After City Boy Mike wasn't sure what he wanted to do, or where. We were visiting my family in New Jersey and were talking with Chris Dunn's wife Tish one night and she happened to mention that Steve Walsh formerly of Kansas was looking for a guitar player. She had heard this from one of the Producers of Kansas who she knew and she mentioned Mike. It turned out that the Producer (whose name escapes me for the moment) was a big fan of Mike's and City Boy's so he called Steve Walsh. About a week later Steve called and he and Mike spoke for a while and that was that until about two months later. We were back in Birmingham, England when Steve called and asked Mike when he could come to Atlanta to meet w/him and discuss the new band. Mike flew in two days later, met Tim Gehrt (drummer, who also happened to be a City Boy fan) and a bass player who was later fired from the band. Anyway, they rehearsed for about two or three days and then I received a call from Mike telling me to "put the house up for sale, we're moving to Atlanta." So, that is what happened. We moved to Atlanta shortly thereafter and Mike spent three years recording and touring with STREETS. The final lineup became Steve Walsh, Tim Gehrt and Billy Greer (bass) and of course, Mike. Billy was recommended by John Kalodner (the A&R guy who signed City Boy to Atlantic Records). John had come down to see the band in Atlanta and I guess Steve told him they wanted a new bass player. Billy was in a band called QB4 (or something like that), and John had seen the band in a club recently. He told the guys about the bass player and so Steve, Mike and Tim went down to hear the band and if I remember correctly, asked him to come down to talk with them and rehearse right away. The minute he opened his mouth to sing harmonies with Steve it was all over! They loved not only his voice but his playing and hired him on the spot. A funny side note to Billy. Billy is from Tennessee and had quite an accent. Of course Mike was from England and also had an accent. I remember one night after one of the first rehearsals Mike coming home and saying, "you know I think that bass player must be pretty funny." Of course I said, "what do you mean, you think he must be funny." Well, Mike said Steve and Tim were always laughing at something Billy had said but his accent was so thick Mike couldn't understand what he was saying! When we got to know Billy better we mentioned it and he said he was releived as he couldn't understand Mike either! Anyway, it's just one of the Streets memories I have.
Q: Does Mike stay in touch with the guys that he worked with in STREETS? Steve Walsh, Billy Greer, and Tim Gehrt...
A: We see the guys from STREETS as often as we can considering Billy and Steve live in Atlanta. But every summer when they are in L.A. Billy calls and we go and see the show and hang out for hours with them afterwards. Mike played guitars on a USO tour that included Streets, Kansas, Cheap Trick, Steven Stills and a few others a few years back and so he knows the guys from Kansas too, so it is always fun to go and see them.
Tim lived quite close to us for a while, up until about two years ago, and so we saw him quite a bit. He and Mike are quite close, so we saw him alot. However, he moved up north a while ago and we don't see or hear from him as much.
Q: Is it true that Mike played guitar on the first 2 Warrant albums?
A: Yes, Mike played guitars on the first two Warrant albums. Beau Hill was their producer and as he produced the 2nd Streets record and he and Mike had stayed friends, it was somewhat of a natural call for him to make when he asked Mike to come and do the sessions. Jani and the guys from Warrant became good friends with Mike and Mike even gave Joey and Eric lessons for a short time. As a present to Mike they had a guitar specially made for him. Beau also asked Mike to do some guitars for the FIONA album as well as a few things on the KIXX album. There are two songs from their record that Mike played on, but I can't really remember their names or even the album name.
Q: Do you have any memorabilia from STREETS? I curious how much STREETS was on the road? Where and when if possible.
A: Memorabilia from STREETS. Not really, aside from a few t-shirts, a couple of passes and some photos that's about it. We have a couple of rehearsal tapes that I occasionally pull out to listen to, but Mike has a hard time listening to it, so I only pull them out when I'm feeling nostalgic. We just received the Live Streets CD which was so much fun to hear again after all these years. Our daughter, Nicole and I listened to most of it right away, but Mike would come in and out of the room occasionally. But for me it brought back some great memories. We had alot of fun back then. We'd all meet at Steve's house, head into the various cars and go to the tennis courts and play tennis until we dropped, go back to Steve's and eat food til we were sick and just have a great time. Steve has a son named Bleu who is around Nicole's age so we spent alot of time together, so again, it brought back some great fond memories. The band got along great, and so not only did they work well together, we would hang out alot too. Steve had a great back garden where we spent many hours bbqing and swimming in the summer and in his recreation area playing pool and watching movies in the winter. Really a very enjoyable three years!
At the time it seemed like STREETS were always touring, but in actual fact there were probably only about 4 tours, each lasting three to four months each, I think. It has been a while so this is just an estimate! I know the guys toured the east coast and mid-west quite a bit, but I don't think they played on the west coast much. They shot their video, "Everything is Changing" in L.A. but if I remember right they only played a gig in San Diego. But again, it was a long time ago. I might have some tour schedules around somewhere. I'll have to look.
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