MM - So how has the album been received?
CC - The reviews have been great, I think it's because we’re old and they are being kind! (laughs).  They’re the old guys, they’ve been around, let's say something nice (laughs) ... The reviews have been way better than I expected.  I’m thrilled.  My main concern was after all this time will people still like the band?  What will they expect from the new music?  Will they be expecting a certain thing?  As a songwriter you need to evolve a little bit, but you still need to keep the core of what you are.  You're always trying different things.  I was concerned would people still like this sort of thing, but the reviews have been great.  It’s been like it’s The Rods.  One of my main concerns, especially when reforming the band, was that when bands reform and sometimes they're a little bit of the watered down version, if that was the way The Rods had to be then I’d rather start a whole new project and call it whatever, rather than try to resurrect something that isn’t what it was.  Fortunately its been cool.  We’re really having a blast and it isn’t much different from the old days. 

MM - It's not as though the band have been strangers over the years.  You worked on David’s latest solo album  ‘Bitten By The Beast’.
CC - Yeh I did one song on that album, the one Ronnie sings on. He’s also on one of the songs on new 'Vengeance' album.  MM - Yes 'The Code'. 
CC - That’s right.  It’s a song I wrote.  For me that was a career high although it was also bitter sweet.  At the time Ronnie hadn't been diagnosed then so it was a great time.  It was a big thrill.  Then afterwards it was very tough.  It was tough when we came to mix it because we hadn’t heard it for a while.  When we pulled up the tracks and we listened to it, we just sat there in silence, it was so sad, but for me it was a great highlight.  Ronnie wasn’t just a great singer he also was a great guy.

MM - Yes a lot of people have said he wasn’t just a great rock singer, it was his personality as much as anything that people remember him fondly for. 
CC - He was a great man.

MM - Yes I remember on the 'Holy Diver' tour, after the show the band put up tables in the foyer of the venue and Ronnie signed autograph after autograph, nobody was missed out. 
CC - Steve our tour manager had been with Ronnie for ten years, and we were talking about that, he’d have all these stories about how Ronnie would be so sick but he would never cancel a show and he would still sign stuff.  One night he was so sick he performed but he couldn’t come out, he always had a meet and greet, but he sat on the bus and still signed about a hundred autographs.  He (Ronnie) said "bring them to me and I’ll sign them" ... that was the kind of guy he was.  In turn that’s paid dividends for him because the fans love him.

MM - I think it's one of THE rock legacies that will go on and on.  I’ve never known a passing that has such an effect on so many people in so many different genres of Rock and Metal, right through the genres, from Thrash to Classic Rock. 
CC - There was so much respect right across the board for him.  I see some musicians who have big attitudes and I’ve warned a lot of the young bands that I work with.  I’m working with a band from Miami right now and I’ve warned them that over the years I’ve met some of my idols and I’ve went up to them and said .. "I’m a big fan and I love your stuff" ...  I had this one time with this drummer who was a big influence on me.  We toured with them and I was like ... "I love your drumming" ...  and my friend was his drum tech.  I was like ... “I’m a huge fan, I love your drumming” ... and he was like .. “Whatever” ... and he turned away.  Be careful, most people are cool.  Beware of your idols.

But Ronnie was never like that. And he made friends, Steve was a fan he came to see him in 81-82 as a fan, Ronnie treated him well and said if you ever need anything give the office a call.  Steve's got a great story, he was a fan then ended up being his tour manager for ten years.  I think Ronnie had a lot of friends like that who were fans and then they got to know him more and more and became friends. 

MM - A prime example of Ronnie's music crossing easily across the genres is the band that are on tour with you currently, Dio Disciples.  Now there’s an all star band.  You have Ripper Owens who come from the Metal end of the scale and then you’ve got Toby Jepson from the more classic rock end.  These singers stretch right across the genres. 
CC - I just seen them at Donington and I was curious.  They really nailed it, they did a great job. 

I was in Toronto a couple of weeks ago and Rob and me have been email buddies for a couple of years.  So we finally got to hang out for a day.  We had a great time and we’ve been in touch ever since.  He gave me an advance copy of the new album and I was blown away by it.  So I’m looking forward to seeing him again as well as watching them live.

MM - So how would you describe 'Vengeance' compared to the likes of 'Let Them Eat Metal', and The Rods early albums?  Do you see this as a natural progression?
CC - You’d have to hear it, my friend Monte Conner at Road Runner, he’s a V.P. at Road Runner in America and he’s been a Rods fan since he was a kid.  He’s been at Road Runner for decades now and he said he’s really impressed, not only with the record but with the fact us guys haven’t mellowed with age.  Coming from a jaded A&R guy that’s pretty cool.  It’s hard for me to judge, but I’m thrilled the fans and critics have been kind.  It's not that the album wasn't good, it was more you never know how it was going to be received, because it’s been such a long time and a lot of music has come and gone over that period in time. 

MM - Well we still have the likes of Judas Priest who are still touring and Saxon, who are probably more popular now than they have even been!  
CC - Yeh, Toby I think he did a killer job with Biff on the new album, what I’ve heard is phenomenal.

MM - A lot of people are going back to that era.  I know the term "old school" is thrown about far too often, but back then it was just ROCK MUSIC and HEAVY METAL, that was it, there wasn’t any of this genres within genres and sub genres. 
CC - That’s what it was, I see it with the young bands I work with.  There are more young fans coming to Rods shows and discovering us.  It used to be just dads with the kids but now they just show up on their own. All of my friends and friend of friends who have kids, their kids are all into the classic stuff the metal, they're rediscovering this stuff.

MM - Tonight’s set and the sets for the tour, are they going to include material from the new album or is it going to be more of a "best of" set?
CC - Some new, some old.  The set is 45 minutes and we’re trying to do songs for everybody, the old fans and the new ones, including some stuff from the new album.  It's always difficult.  When I’ve gone to see bands who have a new album out and they only play the new stuff, but I know their history and they ignore their history and play just the new stuff, I come away sometimes disappointed.  It's not that I don’t want to hear the new material, it's more I want to hear a mix and that’s what we’re trying to do, a little of both.  Just trying to keep everybody happy but still to include the new material because we’re excited about it.

MM - So are you working on a new album or are you seeing how this one goes? 
CC - Either way we’ll be doing another album, that’s my hope.  We get along better that we ever have.  We never really had many problems before any way, we just kind of wind down but now we’re having fun.  We all have our own studios so there is no reason why we can’t.  We're also writing better than we ever have.

MM - I think when you become older you have more life experiences to draw upon for inspiration than you do when you're younger. 
CC - I think so, I think you learn from them.  In the past I’ve written songs that my daughter has said ... "hey dad what were you thinking?!?" ...  but there are also songs I’m proud of.  I won't revisit those songs I’ve learned my lesson’s from. (laughs)

MM - So you don’t go back to songs you’ve written but never used and take pieces from them and say that would be good here? 
CC - Dave and  I both write a lot of material.  He has this song called 'Voodoo' that I actually recorded and demoed.  I love that song, but we kind of have this rule in The Rods, we always joke if it longer than five minutes to run and has more than three cords it's not a Rods song. (laughs)  Of course that’s not the case but there are certain things that work for a trio and certain things that work for The Rods, and when it clicks for us its fast.  Other songs, even though they're great ...  Dave’s a great blues guitarist and Garry’s great at playing blues bass and we love that stuff, but it’s not really The Rods, so it should go on our solo albums.  I have a solo album that’s almost half done with all the tunes done and it's different from The Rods stuff.

MM - Do you have a deal sorted out for its release yet? 
CC - Not really, we’ll probably self release it.  We'll give to Mom and a couple of cousins! (laughs).

MM - I think the internet makes music more accessible today than ever before. 
CC - Yeh you can just self release, make people aware, you know the hardcore fans, if they're interested they’ll find it.

MM - Things are different from when you started out, because now there are a phenomenal number of bands out there.
CC - Yes.

MM - But there isn’t always the quality that goes with the quantity.  You have to rake through a vast about of stuff to find something good.
CC - I think so.  I get asked this often ... “don’t you think its easier now for bands because its wide open and you can reach more people”.  I’m all for downloading, I don’t have an issue with fans downloading music.  I've seen it myself some people will rip an album and give me a copy.  If I like it I’ll buy the album, if I don’t like it I won't play it again.  So my thought is that a lot of people do that, they discover a band and they want to support the band, so I don’t really have an issue with that, but for a new band I think it's very difficult because it is such a crowded market place.  

How do you get an awareness to your band when there are a million other bands out there?  There are more distractions.  There are a million more TV channels out there than there were in the 80’s for example and video gaming and everyone’s texting.  There are so many things that people are doing for entertainment, it’s a difficult market place.  Yes you can self release and some say you don’t need a major label, but you do need a publicist, you need a lawyer.  You do need a system.  You need staff or volunteers to continue to get awareness to your band.  I mean you need an agent to tour which is difficult and expensive, so on one hand I think it's easier and on the other hand it's not because there is so much out there and it's hard to rise above that.

I think the level of musicianship has gone up so much, there are so many young kids that are brilliant musicians, by the same token I think where can I market them, especially to the independent labels that have a niche market.  They want a band to be this or you must be that ... it has to be a cookie monster vocal of a singer and the music has to be in this range of tempos.  Stuff has to be like this or that and if you're not like that then even the independent labels won't support you.  

We had that with the big labels too, the A&R people would say we need a single and we’d say ... “we’re The Rods, where you gonna get a single from The Rods?“  ... "You're going to be on the radio” ... “ I don’t think so” ... who's gonna play us?  AM radio, are they gonna put us next to Aretha Franklin?  We’re The Rods, that’s just not going to happen.  You get that pressure from A&R people.  Yes I think it's tough for bands, if you’re not in their particular genre or sub-genre then it's really tight.  It's hard to get support even from the independent labels.

MM - What advice would you give to any up and coming bands?
CC - Well being a survivor and a warrior who's been screwed so many different ways that would make hookers blush when they realise how many ways I’ve been screwed, I would say the first thing is it is important to have a lawyer, a music business attorney not some realtor lawyer, preferably one in a major city.  It’s expensive but it is the first step to not making a mistake.  A lot of bands will work backwards.  They’ll sign something and then they have to backward negotiate and that’s impossible, once you screw yourself you’re done.  I think an attorney is a key point.  That and to be true to yourself and not compromising it no matter what they say.  

I remember that drunken guy who said ... “hey Carl, what you fucking doing? that music’s shit, that’s the worst crap I’ve ever heard” ... “what you doing with that band" ... and you say .. “you know what FUCK OFF I like this band!".  So make your choice and believe that’s the key, if your chasing things, you know so many musicians are in different bands that they start to think maybe something is happening here and they forget that they have to be true to themselves.  Sometimes you have to stick it out to catch that thing that’s gonna stick and it's easy to get here and go there.  I’ve seen so many musicians not commit to one band and then further down the road they get that reputation and then one of those bands really takes off and it’s ... “I already left that band!!!”.  So believe in yourself and get a good lawyer would be my advice.

MM - OK, now it's time to get up close and personal as we find out more about Carl Canedy, the man and the drummer.  At one age did you start getting into music and drumming? CC - I started out about thirteen.  I actually started out with the clarinet because the drum chairs were all taken, but I wanted to be a drummer.  I started out in fifth grade playing clarinet for a couple of years.   I always wanted to be a drummer from the time I was a little kid, but because we were poor I couldn’t have drums so I started out with whatever was available, but it clear from the start that the clarinet was not the instrument for me.  I just wanted to beat things, I had a drive for that.   Eventually I ended up getting a drum kit when I was thirteen, my cousin persuaded my Mom to go and buy this drum kit.  Her and my Dad got this drum kit, they must have been thinking ... what are we doing? ... but we’ll do this for you and bought me this drum kit.  That was it and I never looked back.   Then I started playing guitar shortly after that and a bit of piano and would stop playing drums and play guitar when it got too loud or too late.  So I’d play guitar for a couple of hours per night as well.  That’s why I can write so many songs, because I’ve played the guitar as long as I’ve played drums.

MM - Who influenced you as a drummer?
CC - Well, one particular big influence of mine was Paul  from Blue Cheer.   I saw Blue Cheer on American Band Stand, until then it was all Tommy Roe and ... "I’m so dizzy my head is spinning“ ... then one weekend Blue Cheer were on and my speakers were rattling and these guys with long hair were doing the ... dumm dumm dah! dumm dum dah! ... I was like ... “what was that? ... that it's it right there! ... that’s what I want to do!”.  

That was maybe six months after I started playing.  I went out and bought another bass drum, I had no idea what I was doing with it, but he had one so I was gonna have two bass drums too.  That was a big influence in me liking heavy music.  So, Blue Cheer was a big influence and it was great honour to work with Paul and Dickie when I produced the 'Beast is Back' album.  They were great guys and I really enjoyed it. 

But it was Ginger Baker, Mitch Mitchell, Keith Moon, John Bonham, those guys were the guys that really did it for me.  Then later on studying with Carmine Appice.  I was a huge fan of those guys so to take lessons from Carmine was a real big thing for me.  Because Carmine was a guy that I was keen on taking lessons from, I drove over from Boston.  I actually moved to Boston to find a band to try to make it happen, but that was not a scene for a heavy drummer.  So I would drive over from Boston to take lessons from Carmine.  He gave me a lot of really good advice. 

There was this kid who’d come in before me and he’d be like ... “I wanna play fast, I wanna play fast “ ... and Carmine would say ... “you need to learn the basics first”.  By that time I’d been playing nearly five years before I started to go to Carmine and what he did was he sorted out the things that I played that were 'bad' and he would say ... “that’s wrong" or  “that’s cool let's keep it” ... “that wrong let's change it to this, it’ll be better for you”.  He sorted me out and taught me how to play with power and control without working extra hard, which I actually do anyway, but he really taught me a lot.  He taught me about playing and one of the things he said which I thought was great was, like the kid who was in before me ... "if you want to play to get laid or you want to play to get rich, or you want to play to get famous, then you're playing for the wrong reasons, because nothing may happen.  So if you don’t play because you love music you may as well go and do something else".  Those words, simple as they were, they really stuck with me because I was impressionable, I was only twenty one.  So he was a big influence on me as was Tony Williams. 

When I started taking lessons from Tony it was awesome because he played with the likes of Miles Davis and I was into that at the time.  That progressive jazz and the rock base.  But I never really understood all of it.  Tony Williams was all about the composition.  One of the things we'd do in our lessons was, we wouldn’t play drums, we would just talk music.  To this day when I record and produce a band, I take what I learned from him and apply it because it's useful and it was an amazing experience to hear somebody who thinks that way.  It really changed my way to everything I did, not just drumming, so those guys were the biggest influences on me, because they had a direct impact on me, but I love everybody’s drumming.  I love Ringo, I love Charlie Watts and John Bonham as much today as I did back then and yet I think Mike Tangini and Vigil Morati are great drummers.  There are many great drummers and I like the fact that there is a camaraderie in the drumming community, because growing up from where I was, I got a lot of shit for playing loud and playing with match grip jazz guys who told me I was a hack and it was wrong.  I said fuck you, because I saw the guy in Blue Cheer play like that and that’s what I wanna do.

MM - I’ve found that a lot of rock and metal drummers seem to have the ability to cross over quite easily to the jazz side of drumming, but you don't seem to get that same cross-over with guitarists and bass players.  They don't seem to have that ability. 
CC - I think it's because ... take my friend Frank Briggs who is a great drummer, he played with Beta 5 and Atlantic Star for years.  He’s just been on tour with Engelbert Humperdinck as well.  He's a great musician, a great studio guy and a phenomenal drummer, but he has a jazz background.  I was in L.A. about six months ago and I went to his studio and he showed me some things.  I was like ... "Frank I have a few questions" ... and he was like ... “what am I gonna show you please!”.  He is a phenomenal guy yet very humble.  He showed me some things, a lot of the stuff I’d been learning and have always learned coming from a rock background, but it's the jazz things, how to sub-divide the measures that you get in jazz.  That’s kind of why the drummers that started in jazz can play rock so easily and can be so creative with it.  With me it was more a case of the rock drummer trying to learn some jazz.  It’s backward learning, so I’m kind of un-learning.  Now I’m taking lessons from a local guy who I really love, he's really cool.  I tried taking some lessons from other guys but there was this ego thing going on and it didn't work.  I really just wanted to go back to the basics.

MM - You mentioned earlier that you have a daughter.  Has she followed in her fathers footsteps and is she into music also? 
CC - She is going to be a senior and she is studying music education.  She’s already started a band and she’s been in musical theatre since she was about four and a half.  She joined a choir, then she started musical theatre, then she started a band.  I’ve done children’s theatre for about sixteen years now and I write plays which I think has helped improved my song writing, by writing songs from my daughter group and children's plays.  These have actually helped me as a writer.  

She (my daughter) came up with that theory because I wasn't writing for myself and when you're writing for someone else it takes you out of where you are as a writer.  But anyway, she has been a singer since she was about nine.  She was in the Pixie Chicks and did a few big shows in America.  She had a really good run with it and when she was sixteen I thought this kid has been into music her whole life.  I thought she’d want to go on and do some kind of music.  Then she came to me and said ... "Dad, did you know you can go to school for music?" ... and there this girl whose pretty bright and I’m looking at her thinking you just figured this out?!? (laughs).  So now she’s a senior and she wants to be a music teacher.  She also wants to be on Broadway, that’s her goal.  I’m glad she wants to get her degree first because Broadway is like playing in a metal band, it's not easy.

I’m really proud of her, she’s a really good kid, not a brat, no definitely not a brat, so I’m very proud of that.  Who loves bratty kids?!? (laughs) 

MM - You also touched on the fact that you're producing new bands.  What sort of music is that?  CC - This band Blunken, I call them Blunken the Ride.  These guys are from Miami and when I came to do the album ... we did pre-production in Miami, but when it came time to record the album we couldn’t find a recording studio with a room big enough to give the drum sound some ambiance.

All the studios were Hip-Hop studios.  Everybody had digital rooms.  Nobody records live drums anymore and if they do it's in a little box or it was going to be somewhere it was $1600 a day.  For a band just starting out and self-financing that was too much, plus of course they had to pay me so we couldn’t cut the budget there! (laughs). They came to SI Studios in Old Forge, P.A. to record, because I closed my own studio when my daughter was seven.

In Miami there is no metal so these guys hear Rap and all these different kinds of music.  They're really heavy and their songs are eight minutes songs, a bit like Opeth.  These songs are eight minutes, nine minutes songs, they perhaps sound like six minute songs if you're in Jamaica smoking a joint, it’s a trippy thing.  People who get them love them, but we go back to the earlier problem, for an independent where we are they going to place them?  So we may have to self release this one.

MM - Well thank you very much for talking to us and we’re really looking forward to seeing the band live again. 
CC - Thank you, its amazing that you came to see us 29 years ago.  I hope you enjoy the show! 

MM - The interview ended there officially but Carl was so kind to let us listen to The Rods new album 'Vengeance' on his iPod while he warmed up for the show, and we chatted informally for some time later.  I know Carl mentioned that sometimes when you meet your idols you are sometimes let down, but not today.  Carl is a real gent and a nice guy who is passionate about what he does, he's a proud family man and we wish him and the band all the best on the remainder of the tour and hope a headline tour will follow sooner not later, because these guys ROCK with a passion that has never subsided after all these years.  

Here's a few web links you might want to check out ...

The Rods - www.therods.com
Carl Canedy - www.myspace.com/carlcanedy 
Blunken - www.blunken.com.