Steve Conte Discusses With Pipeman Radio The New Micheal Monroe Album Outerstellar

0:04 Hi, you love then too, He's sure. Fore wy for you, young. Ge, Get up, Get up. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures of Pipe Man W four C Y Radio. And I'm here with our next guest, who is man not only a killer musician, not only has he played with pretty much everybody, but he's here today for the new Michael Monroe album, which is badass. And so let's welcome to this show. Steve Conti, how are.

0:49 You, Hey, how are you Dean? And everybody listening out there in radio land? So, uh yeah, I love that we both went to Rutgers. I notice. So I was like, okay, that's cool because I don't know. To me, there's nothing like a Jersey dude. Yeah. Well, I'm originally from New York, Upstate Jersey in Manhattan for thirty years, and now. I live in the Bronx, so you know. Nice. I did live in Europe for three years too, which was nice. I live in the Netherlands. Oh yeah, I love the Netherlands. I've lived there like a few months out a year a few years, just to get away from the Yeah.

1:32 I I moved there right after. I'm sure we're gonna touch on this, but I was playing with the New York Dolls, and when the New York Dolls ended for me and I started playing with Michael who was based in Finland. Michael and Sammy, my wife, who is from the Netherlands. You know, she loved the idea of going back there for a few years, and it was very convenient because we were doing a lot of European touring. So we lived there in the South of Holland there for three years and then we moved back to manhad. I love it. I love the Netherlands, except for the weather. Like, yeah, I'm London.

2:13 It's like England weather, you know, blown down grading. The last time I was there. I don't know. I'm an idiot. I live in South Florida. I'm the opposite of a snowbird. Like I'm in Florida when everybody else is in, all the idiots are gone. And then and then I go to cold weather places during the winter. I don't know what the hell I'm thinking, But we'll. Come to Finland then, man, right, that's where we end up playing in the winter, unfortunately. Yeah, the. Brazilian or something. Yeah, a couple of years ago, I was in the Netherlands for two months, and for that two months, I saw three hours of sunlight total.

2:53 And I was like, yeah, in the summer, you get about two weeks of really good weather, right, Yeah, Because I go there every summer because my wife visits her family and and I played with Michael. We played festivals in Finland all summer long on the weekend. So I just go back and forth between Amsterdam and Helsinki, you know, every weekend, and. I cover festivals all over the US and all over the world. And I saw Michael do a press conference. Well I saw the set too, but press conference at Hellfest a couple of years ago. When I was there in France. Yeah, and that was the most fun press conference I ever did, just saying nice and it brought me back to the good old days.

3:42 We still live them. Well, that's what I love about Europe too, is like a lot of these bands that I thought were gone from the eighties that I hung out with on the Sunset Strip, they're all they all have just been in Europe all these years because they love music there. Well yeah, I mean America is so fickle with you know, what's the latest trend in hip hop and dance and DM and you know, social media and models and you know, young kids music, and I mean it's all fine. I mean it's I know, that's what happens, you know, in the world. But it's just it's too bad that, you know, rock and roll of course, is way down. You know, used to dominate. I mean, rock and roll was what the radio was in the seventies, you know, the in the sixties, the eighties and the nineties, you know, but now it's a little five percent or ten percent of the marketplace, you know, really, so you know, you go where you're.

4:43 Where you're selling, you know. Yeah. Well, and the Europeans they just love their music, like. Yes they do, they do. And the festivals. What I love about there too is like I was interviewing Jacoby Shaggs from I'm you know, he was in a festival out there, and he's like, yeah, it's really cool when you can play right after Earthwind and Fire just played. You know, it's like that you can mix the genres. We were so screwed up back in the age, at least in LA with the genre bull crap, you know, like it was ridiculous.

5:24 My band Company Will suffered from that. We were on Mercury Records right after Michael's Not Faking It album. We had the same record company, same A and R guy, same everything, and you know, they didn't know how to market us. They didn't know how to market Michael either, apparently. But you know, if you weren't a metal band, they didn't know what to do with you, you know, because that's what was happening. So you know, we were like jeans, T shirts, boots, you know, maybe leather jackets, kind of you know, simple down home rock and roll guys. We liked you know, Georgia satellites and. And you know stones, and you know, they wanted to stick us in these metal magazines with all these glamy dudes, you know, and so we kind of got you know, called hair metal just because you know, we did have some long hair, and it got bigger as the time went along. But you know, we're just a rock and roll band. And yeah, and then of course grunge came and just killed everything. But if you want to get into the Micael record, I got about maybe ten minutes.

6:35 No I do, and because it's badass, So I was listening to it and like I am, so you know, I'm so enamored at artists that after all these years can still create new music. It's like, I think, Wow, it must be really hard after you've written all this music, and do you even think of more ideas? And here you did a spellar performance of creating Outer Stellar. Thank you. Yeah. Rich Jones and I are a good team for that. You know, we write together. We write separately. Michael and Sammy chime in Carl do we got two like band co writes. But I think I have three songs that I brought in the are mine, and Rich has a bunch.

7:26 That he brought in. But it's kind of the first album in a long. Time that we've done where it's real collaboration because a lot of the stuff during the COVID era we just had to send in our demo tapes that we made, you know, at home. Rich would be like, here's here's the song, and here's the parts that you're gonna play, and I'm like, okay, or you know, vice versa. I would send in my songs. I'd say, Rich, here's the parts you know that you're gonna play, and here's the songs. But this time we got in a room and we we got to write some stuff as a band like One More Sunrise. We came all came up with the music to that together and Rocking Horse. Then I went home and wrote the lyrics and melodies to Rocking Horse, and me and Rich wrote the lyrics to One More Sunrise and Uh, you know, Black Cadillac is mine. I gave Carl a percent because he came up with the drum beat, but that's my music. Lyrics till the when the apocalypse comes.

8:29 Is mine and Black Cadillac is mine. The rest of riches uh some great stuff of his two Shinola and Precious and uh wrote the Ruin or some of my faves. But it's a nice, uh journey that we take you on. It's not just like you know, ten songs of you know, pop punk, shove down your throat. You know. It's a bit of a roller coaster, you know, which. I love it. That's old school to make because it's like albums used to be, like you just sat there and listened to the whole album over and over and over exactly. Yeah, That's why I love you know, physical Graffiti by Zeppelin, you know, or the Beatles White Album.

9:10 It's like so many different styles. It's not just like you know, one good song and then nine other songs that sound like it but not as good, right, you know, which is a lot of bands fell into that trap. I think in the eighties and nineties. I think it's true today. You take these metal bands today, some of them, I feel like they follow this formula, whereas metal back in the eighties was you know, experimentation. It wasn't a formula, you know, so you did have different songs in different music. Yeah, So what inspires you today to write new music that is different from way back when when you first started doing it.

9:57 Well, when I first started writing, I was ten years old. I'd started writing my first songs and made my first album in the family living room on a cassette with you know, all the players. So it had to be positioned around the cassette. So the drums were at the back of the room. They weren't too loud, and whoever was singing was up front, you know, like so you could hear the vocals. And I was very beatle influence back then, so I had a good foundation of melodies, chords, praising the lyrics. You know. And as time went on, you know, I got into different stuff. I got heavily into Zeppelin and the Stones and then more you know, jazz fusion as far as guitar playing goes.

10:37 But what inspires me now is like, you know, depending on the project i'm writing for. I mean, when I write for Michael, I have to keep his voice in mind, you know, his vocal range and the things he likes to sing about. You know, he doesn't really like to sing about love. There's not really many love songs in the Monroe Cannon, So you know, I'm always thinking about what he's going to sing when I write for him, and when I write for my band. I'm on Little Steven's label, Wicked Cool Records. I put out a number of albums under my name Steve Conki, but I have a new band. I'm working on a new record with my new band, yet to be named, And when I write for them and for us, that's more just straight up, good feeling rock and roll.

11:28 I don't care. About what I'm singing as long as as long as I really mean it. You know, it could be about love, it could be about anything. It could be about truth, it could be about social issues. You know, I have no filter as far as when I write for myself and then my band Company of Wolves is writing a new record too nice, and we're kind of going back to our old vibe because the first album was all right, that was established our sound, and the second album sort of wavered from it a little bit, and we're back to you know. So I like the kind of guidelines because I could write so many do I write jazz songs, I write country songs, I write pop songs.

12:15 It just depends on what I'm writing for. You know. I love it well, I love it. You're like doing more than ever now and that's so cool. And this new band and this new album, Adder Steller is amazing, just came out. Everybody's got to check it out. Everybody's got to check out all your new music that's coming out. And uh listen. Thanks for giving us such great therapy for all these decades. Yeah, Dean, Well, my pleasure, and I'll continue to do the same as long as I'm standing on my two feet. Man there it is, well, keep doing it. And thanks for being on the Adventures of pipe Man. All right, thanks being and everybody out there listening to cures.

13:01 Thank you for listening to the Adventures of pypemin on wur Cui Radio