ROCKNATION ISSUE 22
AMERICAN MAFIA
Interview with
Freddy by
Tom Mathers
Hello Freddy of American Mafia and welcome to Rocknation. If you had to tell someone what your band sounded like, what bands would you mention?
Well, rather than me telling you what we sound like I will share the following: Bad Company, early Whitesnake, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, early Foreigner, Great White and Tesla
are a few of the comparisons that reviewers have made over the course of the last year. I think since we are children of the ‘70s, those comparisons make sense. American Mafia
is a hard rock band, plain and simple. No frills. Just good, old fashioned rock and roll.
Freddy you’ve played with some huge bands in the music business, can you name some cool stories about Quiet Riot and Widowmaker.
Cool stories? Hmmm... How about a self-deprecating one? Dee Snider used to do these fist pumps onstage, accentuating musical accents. You know like throwing his arms
out to the sides during the song. Well, one time I got a little too close to him, he must have been out of my line of sight, and I got cold-clocked right in the side of the head. I was
dazed for a second, but recovered pretty quickly. We laughed about it afterwards. He was (and still is) such a dynamic performer onstage. Nobody comes close. With Quiet Riot,
I was with those guys at the height of the grunge scene and we had a gig booked in Seattle that we anticipated being a poor turnout. When I say it was one of the best, most
packed places I ever played with them it would be an understatement. The audience was frenzied and so into the band that I think we were all a little shocked by it. It really
demonstrated how powerful and deep the influence of that band was on hard rock and heavy metal in general, no matter the sub genre.
You have some great singers on your latest release, please tell us about them and how you picked them for this recording.
Well, Dave was obviously there from Holy Water and the intention, originally, was to do an entire record with him on vocals, but he just wasn’t into it. He was dealing with some
personal issues, unbeknownst to me, that resulted in him taking his own life. It was quite tragic. He was a sweet guy with an incredible voice. He is truly missed. Without Dave,
we decided to shift gears and do something different, so I simply made a wish list of singers I thought I might like to work with. It was a long list and some declined or weren’t
available or whatever, but that’s the way that goes sometimes. Making a record is often a testament to perseverance. As for the guys on the record, John West lives near me in
central New York, so I went to go see him play one night and hit him up. We’ve since become friends and I now play in his band, Ten Man Push. I was familiar with him because
of his stints in Lynch Mob and Badlands. Jimmy Kunes was recommended to us by Randy Pratt (Lizards bassist and Cactus blues harpist) and I really dug what he did on his
solo album Gate of All Saints. Mike DiMeo I had known from the Long Island music scene. He used to sing in a band with Stuttering John from the Howard Stern show. I
auditioned for that band eons ago (didn’t get the gig) but I always knew of Mike as one of the best singers around. Ed Terry I had known because he was in a band with our
drummer Bobby Marks. And Don Chaffin I know through our mutual friend, drummer John Macaluso (Ark, Yngwie, TNT). What’s great about all of these guys is that we somehow
ended up with a cohesive sounding record and no one ever heard what anyone else was doing. Being the producer on it, I really just let people do their thing and got out of the
way of that. I think, as a result, they all delivered stellar performances. singer M.I.A was recording there.
What other bands have you toured an been a part of?
There have been a few lesser known bands. Even from the time I was 16 years old I was playing between Long Island and Los Angeles with a band called Redline, which later
changed its name to Rock Asylum. We played all the famous places, Gazzarri’s, the Troubadour, etc. and on Long Island we hooked up with some big shows at Sundance when
it was in Bay Shore. I also played bass in a band called Kreep in 2003, I think it was. We were the support band in the US for Skid Row during the Thickskin tour. That was a
pretty wild ride. We had everything in a mini-van - band members, gear... beer! No roadies, no sound guy. Just totally low budget, following the big name band around the country
and trying to make a go of it. It was definitely not glamorous, but I think we had a lot of fun. It’s kind of hard to sustain those kinds of bands/tours without any financial support
from a label. At least nowadays there is Facebook and social media and bands are more adept at marketing their own merch to bring in some cash, but in 2003 that hadn’t really
taken root yet, so we were pretty much flying by the seat of our pants.
What plans do you have for 2016?
You should see a new American Mafia record in 2016. We are working exclusively with Don Chaffin on this one and without divulging too much, I will say that we are tapping into
some very inspired material. You can expect it to be a little heavier and a bit more raw that Hit Machine. It should, hopefully, show a lot of progress in terms of where we’re at now
versus where we were when those tunes were written. I’m pretty excited about it. Making new music is where it’s at for me. Can’t rest on your laurels in this business. There are a
few other projects in the hopper too , that will hopefully see the light of day in 2016. And if not in ‘16, then soon thereafter, so keep checking our website
http://americanmafiaband.com and Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/AmericanMafiaBand for upda FW2