The initial Rough Cutt was the product of a chance meeting between Shortino and Alford. Shortino, who moved from Ohio to California as a teenager, had grown up in a musical environment. "My mother was a singer and her family was into music, vaudeville and things like that," he recalls. "Also, my uncle played banjo and did minstrel shows, and when I was two or three, I used to play a little ukulele. I was singing 'Bill Bailey' and songs like that when I was five or six. By the age of nine or ten, I started playing guitar and singing in a band. I was really influenced by blues, soul - people like Ray Charles, Janis Joplin, Steve Marriott. By the time we moved to California, I was playing bars at 15, banging my head against the wall, and I got a record deal at 18 with Bell Records. Snuff Garrett produced it, and it didn't go anywhere. So I went back to bars. Then I met David."
At the time, Shortino and keyboardist Claude Schnell (now with Dio) were in search of a drummer; likewise, Alford was looking for a vocalist. "I said, 'I sing,' Shortino remembers. "and David says, 'Yeah right.' So I took him to my house and played him a tape I made in my parents' 24 - track studio. He still didn't believe it was me, so I said, 'Let's get together.' A jam session was scheduled at the Starwood. Alford looks back, "When he opened his mouth and started singing that night , it was like the first song we were playing ...you're on stage and it's really good and everyone feels it! We knew what we wanted before we even finished the first rehearsal. I said to Paul and Claude , 'let's down to business - I know this guitar player who really smokes' and we got Jake E. Lee."
Alford and Shortino both had other commitments when they began ground work for Rough Cutt. Shortino was "on paper" with another band; Alford was wrapping up a few dates with Ratt, a virtual revolving door on the Los Angeles scene; a circuit that Alford laughingly describes as " the real Peyton Place!" He notes , "Chris Hager and Steve Pearcy started Mickey Ratt, then it became Ratt. Chris quit and went to Sarge. That's when I was in Ratt with Jake and Matt (Thorr). Then we all quit Ratt and went separate ways. Matt went to Sarge, Jake went to nothing, and I went to find Paul! Actually, two months had gone by and I was really depressed. I called Ronnie and he said ''Move to San Fernando Valley - you'll find a singer.'' And I did!"
The first ten months of Rough Cutt's existence are what Alford calls "our hardest time." A showcase was set up for Atlantic Records but, says Shortino, "neither of the representatives could make it. They called at the last minute to say so." Alford, however, took matters into his own hands and contacted Ronnie James Dio. "I called Ronnie and all these people to come down ," he notes . "For two weeks , I had been talking to Wendy Dio, because we'd made this tape at Paul's folks' studio and I took it to Ronnie. They were knocked out , so we were talking about this management trip and if Ronnie would take us into the studio and produce us. When I called him, that's what clinched it, because during those two weeks between giving them the tape and Ronnie coming home from the Black Sabbath tour ... " Shortino interjects, "All I kept hearing was ''Ronnie James Dio wants to check us out'' and I was committed to these other guys. So they came to see us, liked the band, and about a week later, they negotiated with the people I was with to buy them out of the contract I was signed on."
"They knew Paul had commitments," Alford observes, "but as soon as Ronnie saw us showcase, that was it. During that two weeks I mentioned , he had made plans to leave Sabbath, start his solo career, and have Wendy manage him, and since it would be good for the company to have another act, they asked us. Of course, we said, Yeah! But what about ...'' so we let them handle that. They got Paul out of it, we signed the papers, Ronnie took us into the studio and we did a tape. Two of those songs, which Paul and Claude had written - 'Used And Abused' and 'A Little Kindness' - wound up on a compilation album, L.A.'s Best Unsigned Bands." Shortly after, Rough Cutt underwent their first alteration when Jake E. Lee became part of Ozzy Osbourne's band. Craig Goldy was recruited and spent approximately one year with the group. Meanwhile, Claude Schnell transferred over to Dio, Chris Hager and Matt Thorr entered the picture, and Rough Cutt was selected in the top ten of 40,000 entrants in a radio talent search that led to another compilation album, Rock To Riches, featuring "Try A Little Harder" Goldy eventually joined forces with Giuffria; Alford and Thorr went to San Diego where they discovered Amir Derakh, a longtime fan who secured his position by performing Rough Cutt material for two surprised members. Alford states, "Right away, we said ''Hey, you've got the gig!" He wasn't doing anything and that day I told him , 'If you want to try out, you've got to come right now,' so he just grabbed his guitar and stuff , dropped everything , and went to Los Angeles. Two weeks later, we were doing a national television show, Rock Palace. Amir was stunned! It's his fifth gig and he's on national television! Then we got signed, went to Europe - he got in the band at the perfect time."
According to Alford, the key to Rough Cutt's securing a record deal with Warner Brothers was a self produced tape that the group recorded in Shortino's parents' studio. "That studio," he says, "is the nucleus of where we could get by with doing what we did. We could go in and put our anxieties down on tape. The song 'Dreamin' Again' is the one that got Warner Brothers to set up the showcase for Ted Templeman and that's what got us signed." Although Templeman was originally expected to produce Rough Cutt's debut album, complications prevented the sessions from taking place. Veteran Tom Allom (Judas Priest, Def Leppard, Krokus) heard the group, was impressed, and agreed to take them on. Sessions began at the start of October, 1984, and ended in mid - November, with a total ten weeks spent recording and mixing the product. Rough Cutt was basically responsible for their own pre-production, and Shortino explains, "We wrote ''Black Widow'' in the studio and cut it live - the vocal tracks and everything." The single, "Piece Of My Heart," was the result of Shortino's intense admiration of Janis Joplin. "I really love her," he remarks. "She had a lot of soul, really sang from the heart. Wendy Dio mentioned doing that song so David and I went home, came up with the arrangement, showed it to the band, and it was pure magic when we did the track. I'm a dedicated Janis Joplin fan; in fact, I'd like to also record ''Ball And Chain.'' " he muses, before breaking into a flawless rendition. "Anyway, there was a six-month hold out before the album was actually released." By that time, the group had acquired considerable press attention and appeared on the television series Fame. They headlined a month-long tour of Europe, and participated in a twelve-hour concert marathon in Japan. This summer, Rough Cutt began a five month, 80-city tour opening for Dio in the United States; a cross-country venture that will carry them into the second week of December. Earlier this year, they participated in a Dio founded project, Hear' N Aid, a heavy metal/hard rock star studded recording entitled "Stars," the proceeds of which will raise funds for worldwide famine relief.
"After the tour is over," says Shortino, "we'll begin pre-production for our next album, which is probably going to be released in April or May. We've been writing like crazy, collecting ideas on this little tape recorder we carry with us on the road because we aren't able to bring a portable studio with us yet, We've got enough new material for probably two new albums. We've got some possible working song titles for the album, all of which are song title as well: 'Rip It Up, Tear It Out,' 'Don't Settle For Less,' 'Money Talks,' 'Ball And Chain' - those are all possibilities. The next record is going to be better. The material is a lot better; The band has really grown a lot. We've got some other songs ready: 'All For One,' 'Love Won't Let Me Walk Away,' 'Caught In The Act,' and 'Love Me Tonight - It's Forever,' which is a funky tune that I wrote. There are also four others that, at this point, we aren't sure of the titles for. I also have a song, which I don't have a title for - it's a real pretty song (he offers a cappella sample) and it will probably be the only ballad on the album. I don't know whether to call it 'Every Time I See You' or 'Take My Breath Away' or what! Plus, we're thinking about using older tunes, for example, there's a song called 'Prowler' that Chris and Matt wrote; they had recorded it before the band got together with them and it's a really good song. We've got a lot of material to choose from!"
While Shortino is usually responsible for melodies and lyrics, he notes that "Everybody in the band writes individually and collectively. I've been playing guitar for 16 years, so I write with the guitar and at the piano. I usually write with a melody. I put a chord change around it, and the music around that. I think melodies are really important - if someone can hum what you're doing without any music, that really says something, and not many heavy metal songs actually have that." Shortino feels that the next Rough Cutt album is going to be a progressive step from their debut. "The songs are really better," he emphasizes. "We've all gained a lot of experience; we know more about each other, what each person likes. I'm finding myself more in terms of my voice and what I sing best. The band basically lets me trip on melodies, and I'm a really open-minded person to the point where I take constructive criticism from all of them. We tape our shows every night and listen to them carefully in order to clean up our mistakes. I'm very critical of myself - we all are - and we share our opinions with each other. It's the only way we can learn. Interestingly enough, we seem to all hear and notice the same things about each other."
Belief in the strength of their material is preventing Rough Cutt from feeling any pressure to follow up their debut. "We had bad timing, I guess, when we released the first album," Shortino concludes, "We should have released a bit sooner because of the backlash on heavy metal, but I don't consider this band heavy metal anyway. I consider it heavy rock and roll. We have five writers, so that brings in five different styles. Our first record was pretty versatile; it wasn't all one kind of song or tempo all the way through the album. It went different places, and the next album will take that even further . You take a band like Led Zeppelin - all their albums were a little bit different; they progressed on each record. I think Rough Cutt has that kind of quality; it's going to always change, and always improve."