Tony Scott: 0:13

Welcome to T he Jay Franze Show, a behind-the-curtain look at the entertainment industry, with insights you can't pay for and stories you've never heard. Now here's your host, J jay Franze.

Jay Franze: 0:42

Well, hello, hello, hello and welcome to the show. I am Jay Franze and this is your backstage pass to the entertainment industry. This week we get to talk with a rock and roll legend. We get to talk with Mike Skill, singer, songwriter and founder of the Romantics. He has written the hit songs Talking in your Sleep and, of course, what I Like About you. We'll talk to him about what the music scene in Detroit was like in the 70s, his time with the Romantics, and we'll discuss his latest project, ' 67 R riot. Now, mike, he is not only a rock and roll legend, he's an all-around great guy and I can't wait to talk with him tonight. So if you would like to join in, comment or fire off any questions, please head over to jayfranze. com. Now let's get started. Mike sir, how are you?

Mike Skill: 1:33

Very good, jay, I'm doing really well.

Jay Franze: 1:40

I am so excited to have you here tonight, sir. Why don't we just jump right in?

Mike Skill: 1:44

What can you tell us about the music scene in Detroit during the 70s? Oh, 70s, okay, that's after all the MC5 and Iggy's and all that. They started moving out and breaking up Early 70s. They lasted about a year or two. Into the decade Iggy moved to Hollywood and the Five kind of splintered and there were a bunch of other groups, a handful of other groups Scott, richard, case. They broke up. They were a great band the Frost, dick Wagner who went on to play with Alice Cooper. So it was kind of splintering.

Mike Skill: 2:10

All the 60s groups the Five and Iggy were like really happening at the teen clubs in the early days and they were still just like learning from that. They went to the ballroom, grandy Ballroom, which was like the Fillmore, and that's where they really got it together. But the 70s Detroit was kind of what we've been going through in the whole country. It was a downturn in Detroit in the 70s, from the gas crunch to Japan, making vehicles, all the little manufacturing companies, the ones that I would go work at in the summer or in the winter. I would work in the winter from November, december, all the way through till spring. You could just walk in any door all around the manufacturing areas of Detroit and get a job and I would buy an amplifier, a guitar, strings and that would keep me for a while because we weren't playing shows Me and Jimmy, the original Romantics drummer.

Mike Skill: 3:08

We went to high school together and we were all about writing original music, always imagining ourselves on a big stage or on a stage and writing our own material. And we're using that whole 60s teen club thing of mc5, grand funk, bob seger, iggy and the iguanas. He played drums. That was our initial thing, that 60s thing. And then, uh, the 70s, detroit was really like an abscess. It was empty. People just scattered the whole white flight thing. The white flight thing in the 60s and then the 70s was the downturn in our industry, with Japan making smaller cars while we're still making 20-foot long Katya and Catalina'sinas, you know, and cadillacs I guess I didn't think about the auto industry impacting the music scene in that area well, it in fact the sound as well.

Mike Skill: 4:01

johnny hooker, you worked in, uh, you worked in the cadillac factory. I had a singer, uh, harp player. He worked at the gm cadillac factory and, uh, you'd work there, make your money and put in your equipment and play. Some people played clubs and bars, but we kind of stayed away from that. After high school we got out of the basement our mom's basements I used to play at. Jimmy's Greek mother would scream at us you're too loud, you're too loud. We had to finally leave.

Mike Skill: 4:28

Usually bands would get like an old storefront from the 40s or 50s one of those hair salons, barbershops, ace Hardware shop, small ones and we'd rent it for $90, which I could never come up with the money, or none of us could. We'd scrape it together somehow and we'd rehearse there all the time. We'd go there all at 5 o'clock either you were working or not, and you'd go there at 5 o'clock. You'd're working or not, and you go there at five o'clock. You stay there till 11, 12 at night or later. You set it up like a stage and you have your little area where you hang out and you write songs. Your friends come over sometimes and it was just really not unlike Warhol had in the factory in New York.

Mike Skill: 5:08

We were kind of doing the same thing on a smaller hometown, detroit, level. All the buildings were empty. A lot of buildings were empty hotels, everything Just. Mainly, what was there was the city hall, the police station, some government offices and maybe a few you know, like the Coney Island was still there a few restaurants. They built a big Renaissance center but hardly anyone could stay there. You know, the only thing that was keeping it alive was us going to shows. We'd go downtown and see T-Rex, nazareth, mata Hoople, david Bowie, the faces, Rod Stewart. Cobo Hall would have Cactus Humble Pie. Then you had the East Town Ballroom was like the Fillmore. So those were the groups the English, the British, the groups and all that were coming into town.

Jay Franze: 5:54

Right like the Kinks.

Mike Skill: 5:56

Yeah, the Kinks. David Boyd came in for a week, did a week and then he wrote Panic in Detroit. Detroit had a really reputation because with the ballrooms the granny ballroom, the Yardbirds would come to town. The early Led Zeppelin played there, the who played there in the early days before they did who sellout, just as they were writing. Tommy and the Detroit bands were really like loud, raw, not unlike in a factory where you're working. A lot of noise. Detroit's the city with a lot of dirt, a lot of noise, a lot of gritty. You know people working 24 hours a day. They're building cars and so the music scene was not unlike that whole environment. It was coming out of us, Just like Eminem, same thing. He was in the factories, taking that gritty thing thing the street and putting it in our music.

Jay Franze: 6:46

Yeah, that's what's all about so what changed from the 60s to the 70s?

Mike Skill: 6:52

what really happened from the beginning was, um, in the very early 60s and late 50s, most bands weren't playing bars and nightclubs. It was was lounge music, piano players, sax players, female singers, lounge singers singing Frank Sinatra. You had to be 21 to go to a bar. So what changed in the 70s, late 60s and 70s was the drinking age for one and bands started playing after, kind of after the Rolling Stones and Beatles broke it open. Younger people were going to the bars so they wanted bands to play. Music of those people, and that was the generation was, would have been Rolling Stones and the mid 60s stuff Up until that point though until, like I'm 18, from Alice Cooper.

Mike Skill: 7:36

That's when we started. I started getting into the bars was in the 70s, so, like MC5 before they were MC5, they were playing soul tunes like James Brown, otis Redding, black soul tunes and rhythm and blues, and a lot of groups did that. And then, all of a sudden, the middle 60s, it became the hard rock and roll, when the bars opened up to us, young bands. Romantic started after Lou Reed came out and the Velvet Underground, with the Ramones in New York, everything kind of opened up. Anyone could sing, anyone could play, because just before that everyone wanted a lead singer. They wanted Mick Jagger or a Robert Plant or Rod Stewart. Then that whole thing kind of quelled and it was like everybody started singing, everybody started writing.

Jay Franze: 8:24

Well, that's a good point.

Mike Skill: 8:25

The Romantics everybody sang in the Romantics, Then that whole thing kind of quelled and it was like everybody started singing, Everybody started writing. Well, that's a good point. The romantics everybody sang in the romantics yeah, everyone in the group was the lead singer. That was the point. The point was we're going to have four of us sing no-transcript, Easy choruses, easy titles and a great beat with a great drummer. Jimmy was a great drummer for that, yeah.

Jay Franze: 8:55

Well, I think that's part of having four people singing and you have people singing the backup and harmonies and it creates that memorable chorus. It gives you that opportunity to leave remembering the chorus and being able to sing everything.

Mike Skill: 9:08

That's right. It was kind of happening in the punk scene, london and New York and LA. The songs were getting shorter, like the 50s, like two, three minutes or even the Ramones. Some of the songs are like one and a half or two minutes, really fast, but pop and catchy. We were so influenced by our brothers and the Ramones as well, I mean all those groups in that LA, new York, london scene. Our sisters and brothers before us were listening to the 50s music and 60s music and so we were kind of emulating that Eddie Cochran's, the Elvis's and we were kind of taking it back to the original raw Elvis and then Iggy Pop, of course, and MC5 with a raw punk. That's what created the whole, not so much the negativity.

Mike Skill: 9:52

The Detroit fans were about a show, no matter what, it was a vanguard show. Iggy was a vanguard, you know, doing anything playing with a vacuum cleaner on stage or bringing peanut butter out on stage or diving into the crowd. It was kind of a show. It was uh, an exception, I think, of the warhol thing. You know the freak out anywhere I was doing a freak out show. You know, nudity and sex on stage and, uh, mostly nudity, but long jams, long jams would go on and that's what MC5 and Iggy did. They'd do long feedback, solos and just craziness in about 1968.

Jay Franze: 10:30

So how did this influence the romantics?

Mike Skill: 10:33

We were a throwback to simpler times. We were trying to get back to shorter songs instead of Led Zeppelin, long songs and, yes, long songs, and it was getting real fresh. So the songs were getting shorter. When I saw Flamin' Groovies and the jam, I'm going that's a ticket man. I knew that stuff the Kinks, the who and the Detroit scene. We just melded that together and we took that Flamin' Groovies pop thing.

Mike Skill: 10:59

When the Romantics idea came along, we could never find a singer. So then we figured we're going to start doing that, we're going to start writing and singing our own songs. And I had these cassettes I still have them, piles of them, from when I was writing before the Romantics. I bring the cassette in, I go look, I got these songs. So we got the idea for Flamin' Groovies, the jam, the punk scene in New York, la and now London, new York, la and now London. And we melded that whole thing together, me and Jimmy go. We just need a bass player and singer. So I had Wally Palmer's phone number. I called him up, asked him if he'd like to come over and audition and I go here's what we're trying to do. We want to pop songs short, raw, hit them in the face, make them dance or whatever they want to do, throw beer cans or spit or whatever. And that became a whole set. We wrote a set of songs in like a month.

Mike Skill: 11:46

I had to play guitar. No one wanted to play. None of my friends wanted to play short Chuck Berry pop songs. I said I guess I'm going to have to do it. So I had to set down the bass. I went right to guitar and so I'm writing simple solos a la Keith and Pete Townsend, and that's how the romantics came to be.

Mike Skill: 12:07

And then we started playing the little clubs in Detroit. My friend came over and he was starting the new MC5. He goes look, I put together the new MC5 with Rob Tyner, the singer from the MC5. He goes we need a band to open and there's a club in Detroit. Uh, uh, you guys might want to come play. I'll come over and check you out. He came over and he says here's the deal, we'll let you play. You play a half hour set. Uh, let me get robbed. Come over. He came over. He goes fine, man, these guys are good, they'll be good.

Mike Skill: 12:38

We had this stuff, you know, these skinny ties, little uh lapels and ripped up. We didn't have the ripped up jackets, we were going for a Motown thing, like Motown singers, and that we wanted to look sharp, anyway. So we got to show. They said, yes, we had our set down. We were like energetic, we were just moving around and digging the music and singing. All of us sang. What are we going to wear? What are we going to wear? What are we going to wear, me and him? We're talking about it. We've got to get something.

Mike Skill: 13:07

So we found the Salvation Army just outside of Detroit, royal Oak, michigan, a couple of miles outside of Detroit. It's still there, salvation Army. Every time I walk by it I remember it. We grew up in Detroit from like eight, nine years old, early Motown I heard, before Motown it was Tamla Records and I'm a kid at that time. But here we go to the Salvation Army.

Mike Skill: 13:32

Look in the window there's mannequins with these four suits and they're orange and they're baggy, like iridescent, like kind of Motown-y kind of suits, but really baggy. So we go in. We go, we'll check this out. We went in and there's a rack and it's like a rack, 10, 12, 15 feet long and it's all orange, these orange suits. Probably some hotel had a wedding or something the waiters. The waiters wore these orange suits. They're really funky. So we got four of them that were small, the smallest ones we could find we're skinny kids and so we got four of them and they were so baggy so we went and fitted and we tightened them up, made them small, kind of smaller. We wore those, we did the show.

Mike Skill: 14:18

The five came out looking like 15 years earlier. They were looking like 1970, which is cool, I mean. They sounded great but they still had the really really long hair and bell-bottoms and that kind of look and we were like coming out of London, detroit, motown, mix, new Wave and we kind of stole the show. They were all talking to us after and we were trying to get a 45 out. That was our initial thing. I was getting these things in the mail from Greg Shaw Bomp Records. It was on a mimeograph sheet, like in high school, that mimeograph sheet. He would put it on. You know it smelled real good to ink in school and yeah, they were like blue and he stapled them together, mailed them out to you before the magazine and just as the record company was coming up.

Mike Skill: 15:09

So we wanted to get a record on bomb. But we put out this record. Uh, I think it was um shoot, it was um, tell it to carry and first in line, I think. And we didn't get it ready for that show with the mc5. It came out the next week, two weeks later we we got asked back at my Fair Lady, that was a club, so we got asked back. It was with what's his name, mink DeVille. We went for MC5. Two weeks later Mink DeVille brought out the new 45. And somehow we did that show and it went over. Really great too. Same club Manager talked to the promoter in the city, the big promoter, and got us on.

Mike Skill: 15:43

The third show was 78,000 seats at Pontiac Silverdome Jay Giles, peter Frampton, steve Miller, steve Miller, Jay Giles, peter Frampton, the Romantics we went on stage at like 7 o'clock and we went over. I mean, no one booed, no one threw anything at us Always a plus, yeah, well, like when you played there, I think you played there with the stones and uh, it was flip-flop lighters and, um, something else I can't remember bras or something, panties. We were really a good live band. We were all over the stage and, uh, we held our own, you know, with jay goss, the best we could well, that's what I wanted to ask you.

Jay Franze: 16:24

I know you have influence from the Kinks and the Knack and I know Humble Pie is one of your favorites, but what kind of influence did Jay Giles have on your band?

Mike Skill: 16:33

Well, a lot. But Jay Giles was a new raw thing. It was like taking the place of C5. They were raw rock and roll and they kicked ass. They attacked the stage. We took that whole thing and applied it to our thing and we didn't stand there. We moved around and used the stage. As the stage got bigger, we had to move more. The hair got bigger, the clothes got more expensive, flashier, yeah, flashier. So that's why Romantic's big hair and everything. The stage got bigger, playing with the kinks, playing with talking heads, playing with Cheap.

Jay Franze: 17:07

Trick.

Mike Skill: 17:08

I mean we're not going to stand there with Cheap Trick. I mean we weren't the cars, we weren't going to stand there. The other thing is we played this little club, the Red Carpet. We were together. Two years I think we were on the road in Boston at the Rat. We years I think, we were on the road in boston at the rat. We played the rat three, four times. We came there the big snowstorm of 79 78, yeah, and we, uh, went in.

Mike Skill: 17:30

We drove through. They told us to go home. We started to go out and then we turned around and went back in to the parking lot. We went down, we stayed at the howard johnson's. We called the club. The club said everything's closed. It was well, we're here, we're playing, we'll play. They opened the club. The club said everything's closed. It was well, we're here, we're playing, we'll play. They opened the club and the first night it was like 20 people the first night, maybe 50 people the next night, and then it was packed and we became kind of the darlings from Detroit. J-gals brought the hard rock, we brought it back from Detroit. Okay, next thing, you know, we're touring around doing small clubs Philadelphia, new York, cbgbs, we played CBGBs. Anyway, getting back to Detroit, we played a little club called the Red Carpet. The second year we were together. We'd been going all around the eastern us. We still got um resale shop clothes. We're wearing like black jackets, white shirts, black ties, like the jam. We're doing the jam, the who thing.

Mike Skill: 18:29

That whole thing kinks, who thing right and uh, black ties, skinny black ties, and we play. This club called the red carpet and they had a bar band. The bar band would play covers but we were playing on their equipment and, uh, by the end of the night, jimmy banged it, he broke the pedal, he broke the snare stand, I broke the, the plus pedal. We were trash, trash the, the instruments, not on purpose, but we were energetic and it was a small stage. Yeah, that guy, doug fire, was in the audience. So about a year later, here comes uh the knack. About a year later after that, he went to, went to uh, la, moved to LA and formed the knack. So we've, I think we influenced uh, we met on later, we played shows with him later on and we became friends and all that. We had no, we had no animosity at all. It's just things. It's a big soup, rock and roll, and you just gravitate. It's a big Italian soup.

Jay Franze: 19:25

There you go.

Mike Skill: 19:27

No minestrone.

Jay Franze: 19:28

You mentioned the image and how people influence each other, but your image came out. You know the band started in the late 70s and went into the 80s and that's when MTV came out. And did you feel any pressure now to carry on that image once MTV hit?

Mike Skill: 19:44

um, no, we always stuck to the one thing our, our attitude and our energy, our energy.

Jay Franze: 19:50

The first two albums are like my favorite well, it was at that time that you were fired from the band, the band band that you started. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Mike Skill: 20:00

How do I say it? Let's see, we went in for the first album. We did the first album I think it was 79. We recorded and it came out in 80. And we went in in September I believe the hottest month of the year in Florida. We wanted to go to Criterion Studios, one of the best studios in the world. It was overbook I believe the hottest month of year in Florida. We wanted to go to Criteria Studios, one of the best studios in the world. It was overbooked. So we had to play at Coconut Studios down the street. A woman owned it I can't think of her name right now, sweet lady, but it was a great studio. It was perfect for us because we weren't overwhelmed with the name or anything and we just went in and brought our attitude and we had the songs written from three years of playing, three years of touring new york, boston, canada, uh, toronto, all these raw, raw songs. I wrote in my bedroom, I brought it in, I think three songs from the from that came on maybe in the second album.

Mike Skill: 20:53

I had been playing guitar just that three years. I would. I was just uh getting in my groove and, uh, I wasn't really live. I was still trying to manage uh doing, uh rhythms. I was great at soloing my tones. I didn't want to use pedals. Detroit players just turned up and I couldn't turn all the way up in these small clubs I couldn't get to sustain. So I was having that thing and it wasn't helping when we jumped to bigger stages. So I was still learning. We had our new high watt amps. We had these new, uh, new songs and um. So we finally uh, after a month, two months, we went to florida. We played, recorded the album.

Mike Skill: 21:31

The album comes out in january of 80. We toured the whole? U toured Canada. We came home in. It must have been the end of summer, it had to be August, september. We're going, man, let's go to Europe. We should go to Europe Because we were gearing ourselves. We always wanted. We loved looking at GQ magazine Because Roxy Music was in there. We loved Roxy Music Because they drew all the girls. The girls went and saw Roxy. We loved Roxy Music because they drew all the girls. The girls went and saw Roxy Music. We loved Roxy Music because we loved their music and it was an extension of the Lou Reed, andy Warhol thing and we were on to that.

Mike Skill: 22:08

So the first album. We got the red leather suits and it was just. It worked great for small stages and with cheap trick and all that. But management thought differently. They thought that's too expensive. We can't use your money and go play Europe. We can't go to England. That's my opinion anyway. It's too expensive. So we never went to Europe. We've gone to France, we've gone to Netherlands. We would do press tours and we never went there and played live in London or England. That's the perfect place for romantics was London Anyway.

Mike Skill: 22:44

So with that, that whole thing of three years doing the album, a big tour, doing the tour, not doing Europe. And then the management was really obsessed with looking at the charts. So he sees, the first three songs was Tell it to Carry, when I Look in your Eyes and what I Like About you. And the third song, what I Like About you, went to the, I think, number 74 on the charts, billboard charts and it started dropping off. Oh no, oh no, it's dropping off charts. You guys got to get in the studio right away. It's the first songs out we're going. What? I mean? It took us three years to, you know, accumulate a great record.

Mike Skill: 23:24

The first record is a great record, so I had to come up with all the guitar material. And you know, you come up with a guitar part and I go here, here's an idea for a song, here's what I'm thinking. Here's a melody idea. Here's an idea for a song. Here's what I'm thinking. Here's a melody idea. Here's a song title idea. Here's a little bit of lyrics and here's the groove.

Mike Skill: 23:44

And then we go in the studio and you go, jimmy, here's what it is. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Wally, play this. That's where the soup happens. I'm the guy, though that's got to go and I get some things from the other guys, you know, but I'm pretty much. I had that sound, you know, for the people recognized on the guitars pretty much, and Wally backed that up with his kind of rhythm. But my guitar playing was really the open chords, the rhythm, the way I do, the hooks, what I like about you hook, that's my forte. And I had to come up with all that for that second album. And and then, um, we did the same thing, uh, uh, how long was it was? It was like a year, not even a year. We did. The record came out in 80.

Mike Skill: 24:31

We went and recorded the second album in late 80. We went in. I think it must have been. It was in fall, fall was coming up and we were in New York. We recorded at A&R Studios, famous great studio. Van Morrison recorded there, I think four seasons, I think Billy Joel, incredible studio. We decided we wanted it live. I was the push for a lot of things and that got me into trouble. I was the push for man. We want to have a little more punk attitude, we want a little raw. And so that second album is a lot raw because me well, jimmy Choo, he was with me on it, he would pick up on it, but it created my energy and exuberance for the what was going on in the scene and everything mixed with what we do. It got me to trouble, you know that.

Mike Skill: 25:21

And me asking about royalties and how that feel to get kicked out of the band that you formed well as a surprise, and I I'm sure there wasn't much thinking behind it, because, um, uh, this sound, uh, my trademark sound was's trademark sound, with jimmy's beat and then our melodies and the way we put things together. There was a there. It wasn't that, it was a formula, it was a um it was a chemistry the chemistry.

Mike Skill: 25:50

There you go. That's the word. I was looking for, exactly chemistry, and I lost that with the by changing it up and had to bring in another guitar player and that. So they did another, another record. They went in right away. You know, management was great at pushing the band, helping the band get to kick an ass on the Red Label, but they weren't so good with. Okay, you guys, go take a month off, relax, come back, then get together a month later and write some songs and then we'll go back in the studio. That never happened and that was just every album, every album. That's why you get some repetitive thing the look and the repetitive, because you're just trying to bam, bam, bam but it's that chemistry that brought you back to the band just shortly afterwards.

Jay Franze: 26:38

So I mean when, when they came back and asked you to join the band again, did that kind of clear the slate for you or did you have any feelings there?

Mike Skill: 26:45

I was working with another guy. Uh, I was working with a guy from a band called rhythm core. They became rhythm core. I was hanging out, I was in detroit okay, they're out. Whatever they were doing romantic the band, I was in Detroit. But here's this.

Mike Skill: 27:00

The first two records was coming off the punk scene, energy, raw. Go in the studio, play it once twice, record it, sing it once or twice, no effects, no overdubbing, like we just we refined that. But we had that attitude on the first album. The second album was even more so. The attitude, the energy, bash it out.

Mike Skill: 27:24

By that one year and a half that I was out, the whole scene changed. In London you had Spandau Ballet, you had Duran Duran and this was happening in the States kind of too and you had this more production, bigger production, more echoes, more delays, more dance beats. I was getting that underground. This band could be called Department S I'm not sure if you ever heard of them. Great song, it's Vic there. I want to record this song. It's a rock song. I think it's a cool song. But these underground bands that were coming out, they'd have two singles. It was like a dancey rock, punkish kind of I don't want to say electronic, but still guitars, some synthesizers. But then with Duran Duran it went farther. It went farther into the mimicking Bowie and Roxy Music, and so my head was hearing. I was hearing that and I was hearing Nick Lowe. Nick Lowe was coming out. This was more produced songs, and so that's what brought the In Heat record, the rock and roll mix with the dance grooves of Talking In your Sleep, which was an accident.

Mike Skill: 28:38

I was playing bass. Now they called me up. I was in my dad's above ground pool or something. I was kicking back and probably out at clubbing the night before and still playing guitar with my friend Mike Persch from Rhythm Corps, which is a great band Check it out. I'm out of Detroit and all my friends I'm going to band check it out out of detroit. And uh, and all my friends, I'm going to clubs and uh, the stuff coming out of london and whatever still, and I'm still writing, and I was starting getting ready to record a record with, uh, some guys and uh, they get the phone rings, they called up and I'm going. She's, I wasn't getting my royalties, by the way, I wasn't getting my, I was getting paid properly, and so I'm not quite broke, but not doing that well and I wasn't going out and finding a job at the time, so I'm going. Okay, I'll do this, see how this works out.

Mike Skill: 29:34

So they wanted me to come in and play bass, because I had been a bass player with Jimmy for years and I can do it like in my sleep, talking in your sleep, anyway. So we went into the studio. I had some songs, funny enough, rock you Up, which is a song I had the same chords, same chord progression, with three chords on the neck of the guitar, but they had something called Sucker for my Baby or something I don't know, some kind of thing like that, and it was the same chords and we just melded. They melded in my song because mine had like a hook and my rhythm. I showed it to cause and then I came up with the bridge part and all this and Jimmy came up with Rock you Up and Jimmy sang it.

Mike Skill: 30:22

By the time the record was done, recording, we had, I think, 10 songs or 11 songs. We recorded every day. We'd go in at 10 o'clock. Good boys, go in and record the. The backtracks got that all done. You do all the vocal tracks, we finish that up and then, uh, I think, uh, we go, ah, we got the last song done.

Mike Skill: 30:44

I can't remember what it was, but the producer, pete sullivan, is on the fourth record of in heat. He comes out of the control room and there's no hit. You guys, give me a hit. There's great songs, at least. But I need one more song, mike, what's that song? You were doing on the bass in the studio. You and Jimmy were jamming with it and I go oh, you mean, that's all it was, that's all it was, and it was just jamming, and then we just had a guitar part. We just jammed on it like BB King or something, or like Fleetwood Mac or something, the blues, fleetwood Mac.

Mike Skill: 31:28

He goes yeah, that's it, let's check that out. That's a good groove. And you know, with all the clubs at the time there was tons of discos and dance clubs and rock clubs in Miami. It was crazy. It was at the same time with Griselda, the cocaine queen of Miami. That whole thing was all across Miami, that whole craziness, anyway. So he goes yeah, man, that's cool. And uh, rick james song, uh, damn, that I know super freak. Yes, so that groove, that groove and the club scene and the rock team, we're putting it all together. So that's what we did.

Mike Skill: 32:08

He goes, he got a keyboard, brought it into the studio me and jimmy, we helped on the turnaround of the bridge, me and Jimmy hanging around the keyboard. We're just there, pete's playing the keyboard, he's coming up with something. We go yeah, yeah, that works, that's good. We get the whole thing. We go dum da-da, ba-da-da-dum, ba-da-da-da-dum, ba-da-da-da-dum Ba. He goes da-da-da-da-da and gets to the bridge. Tell me that you want me. Oh yeah, that's a good part. Tell me that you need me. I know that, I'm right. I hear it in the night.

Mike Skill: 32:39

And then we just said talking in your sleep, talking in your sleep, talking in your sleep, talking in your sleep. And then someone goes. We need something else. I don't know Was Jimmy or somebody. How about Secrets that you Keep, jimmy? I saw him on a song with lyrics or something. Secrets that you Keep, secrets that you Keep when You're Talking In your Sleep. And then someone goes. I think Pete goes. I hear the secrets that you keep when you're talking in your sleep. So we had the song right there. Finished it up, put the vocal on. Jimmy wanted to sing it. Song right there. Finish it up. Put the vocal on jimmy wanted to sing it. He sang what I like about you and I could hear him singing it. He'd sing it really good. And uh, there was a big argument. Palmer wanted him wanted to sing it. They went back forth. I stayed out of it.

Jay Franze: 33:24

I thought jimmy would be great for it well, yeah, and that was your top 10 hit, but even more popular, at least more known, was what I I Like About you, and that just recently had its 40-year anniversary and then you decided to cut that in the Mike Skill Group. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Mike Skill: 33:44

What I Like About you. I always wanted to. I have a little side group. I'm important and to keep my blood hot, I just get with my friends and we play. We've got a few guys and we play a club here, a club there, a benefit here, a benefit there. And so I started doing what I like about you and I go man, I've got to record it and I had the drum track with Brad Brad playing on it Brad Ellis, the drummer for the Romantics for 18 years.

Mike Skill: 34:13

On my way to Detroit for rehearsals with Romantics I would stop in Chicago where Brad is, and I'd go, brad, I got three songs Do your drum track and I'll throw a dub track, a guitar track, and then I'd go do the show and on the way back I'd go to Portland. I'd stop in Chicago, I'd go here's a scratch vocal. I did that over over I don't know how long it was, maybe a year or two, maybe a year, something like that. I came out, accumulated a bunch of songs and that's what came out later on. So I did what I like about you.

Mike Skill: 34:41

After that I had that track and later on I got my son. He's played keyboards when, since he was like four years old, great little keyboard player he's taller than me, great keyboard player and uh. So I took in my little studio I have I have a little place, a little room and we did what I like about you and I had that track and uh, and I put the vocal on and it worked. I just, I just go mick, I I plugged into the original one original type high white amps and the marks were still on it from the original one.

Jay Franze: 35:13

I did the original one like about you it seems to have a more raw feel to it. Was that intentional?

Mike Skill: 35:18

that was the idea. That was I. It was the feel that I thought I missed on the original first record. But I love the first record because it's more subdued in a small way and I brought out out all the electrified Detroit rawness on my version but still contained it to have the attitude of the first version. I had Brad played it and I just played the bass on it, so I knew the bass. I probably played bass on the original too. I'm not sure if Rich played bass on it or not. Yeah, I told Nick I wanted it electrified and keep the raw energy. I sent it to Chuck Caucasian at Pearl Sound in Detroit and he produced it for me and it came out super good. I was so happy with it, it was so fun it sounds awesome.

Mike Skill: 36:09

Thank you.

Jay Franze: 36:09

What was the studio experience like? Was that produced by Chuck?

Mike Skill: 36:14

Yeah, chuck Caucas'Keefe. He's been doing a lot of stuff for Tool, jimmy Page, robert Plant. He did Chris Cornell a lot of remixes for Chris Cornell. He was a great friend of Chris Cornell. He'd fly into Detroit. Like I said, I would go through Chicago and team up with Brad, and that's how it came about. I would work with him and, uh, uh, team up with Brad, and that's how it came about. I would work with him and uh, get to drum, drum tracks. Then I had a drummer from uh, he had the, he had the hairdo that came down and went up like a bird.

Jay Franze: 36:45

Oh.

Mike Skill: 36:46

I'm sorry, that's all you have to say is the hair. The songs I had is Carrie Got Married with Brad and Chloe worked on that. They wrote the lyrics and music and I added my guitar part Not my Business. That's my song with Brad on drums. My Bad Pretty is another song. 67 Riot that's with Wayne Kramer.

Jay Franze: 37:08

Dude, that's a great song.

Mike Skill: 37:10

It's about Detroit riots from 1967 when I was 13 years old. 10, 11, 12, something like that Detroit riot happened. Working conditions, paid conditions. The history is well known around the world and around the US, the world and around the US. It was one of the hottest times in the summer in July of 1967. The whole thing just blew up and fighters and police shootings and people shootings and rooftops and destroyed the whole neighborhood, the whole old neighborhood Black businesses, black record stores.

Mike Skill: 37:50

Unfortunately, here I am, most of my friends, my little junior high school band or whatever it was before that. We're on the east side of Detroit. We're probably about five miles away from the area, maybe five to seven miles away from the area, but when the riot happened, the news of course made it sound like it was two blocks away and you better watch out because you're going to have gangs, black gangs coming in your neighborhood and it was the whole racist thing and it was not good. The National Guard came out, jeeps with machine guns on top, helicopters, green helicopters low In Detroit was the first half, I think the big four. The big four was four cops in a car with a shotgun standing up in the middle of the seats and they would stop you and risk you.

Jay Franze: 38:47

Dude, how scared were you at that time.

Mike Skill: 38:50

Not that scared my house, we'd stay around the neighborhood. We went out a few crazy people don't know white or black, who it was, it's just um the stores. There's a place called grasshead auto supply. It was like for you, if you're hyping up your hot rod or car or car parks right. It was like a whole block long and it was all plate glass windows end up putting up uh boards all across it and eventually they knocked the windows out, the store did and put in cement and then people started moving. White Plate started happening in 1962, 63, by 67. It had just grown in leaps and bounds by people moving to the suburbs. I stayed in to the 70s and my dad retired and moved to the suburbs. So I was still in the suburbs for a couple more years and then I got a house in Detroit, detroit area. I stayed in an apartment and then got another place, but I was just doing music man, I was just a rock musician basically through all that.

Jay Franze: 39:54

So tying that back to your song.

Mike Skill: 39:56

Yeah, 67 Riot.

Jay Franze: 39:58

You go back and you reflect on that time and you write the song. How quickly did it come together?

Mike Skill: 40:03

Some of the songs that I recorded for this first record I did were done at my son's school. There's a little school about two miles from my house, about three or four miles from my house here. It was a school built in 1920s or 30s and it was let's see, it was probably not a two room schoolhouse, but it was like a three or four room schoolhouse. The two room schoolhouse had been built and was torn down, but the music room was a double wide trailer and it was an older one with a wood floor but it had thin carpet on it and it was an art room music room and there was a math room across the way with the same thing, and so I asked him if I could get in and use a portion of it for a studio and he agreed and in the day I had drums in there and guitars and basses and the kids could do what they wanted with the music instruments. And at night I'd go in until maybe 6 o'clock or it was more like 8, 9, or 10, and I'd stay there sometimes until 3 or 4 in the morning. It's out in the woods. It's called Carver, carver City. Out there it's an old train with logging. There's an old logging railroad that was out there. Anyway, it was quiet out there. I played till four in the morning. I came up with some of these songs. I had a producer that came out. He was like a drummer for my friend's band, he knew how to run the board. He came out. I go look, I have this idea for a song. Just play this one beat. I don't want anything, I just want you to screw a bump. And it was 67 Riot Beat. And I'm thinking in terms of Funkadelic. I grew up at the time of Parliament Funkadelic with George Clinton. They played in my high school. They had a dance and I think they asked us who we wanted to play the show and George Clinton and Funkadelic got chosen to play as a capitorium. And they also had other concerts that other rock bands played. But this one time they had, um, george clinton and parliament funk and out came and they got through like, I think, a song and a half and out came the diapers on, uh, eddie hazel the guitar player, great guitar player, incredible, like a hendrix, like a real raw blues. Back, blues, blues, guitar player, rock blues. And the police came and shut it down. We just saw a song or a song and a half in there. That was it. But at the time we had Maggot Brain came out and you and your Folks record came out. Anyway, that whole thing influenced 67 Riot.

Mike Skill: 42:31

I wanted that groove in the ending of it. The way I sang the part in the ending made me think of George Clinton. And then I thought, man, I need someone to play guitar. And I thought Wayne Kramer. And I told Chuck we had mixed the record, mixed the song, and I go, chuck, you know, I always thought Wayne Kramer would be great on this. He goes hey, man, just give him a call. I go what, I can't go.

Mike Skill: 42:51

Wayne Kramer, he's my guitar hero. And so I did, waited about a week and I go I'm in Portland. I was out and about and I got the phone and I called. On my phone I called Wayne and I said Wayne, mike Skeel, I have a song for you. I'd like to get your guitar playing on the song 67 Lions by the Riots in Detroit. He says send a track to me. He goes I'll check it out and I sent it to him. He calls me back a few days later, a week later. He said Mike, this is a really good song. He goes, I want to play on it and I go do just whatever you do, like you've always done. He played it, sent it back, I got it back.

Mike Skill: 43:28

I'm in the studio with Chuck. We're just going. Oh my God, we couldn't touch it. We weren't going to turn it down, we weren't going to cut it up, we weren't going to move it, we weren't going to jog it, we just said leave it how it is. And so that's what you hear. It's Wayne Kramer, god rest his soul. Badass, mother Him and Fred Smith were my heroes coming up. They were a guitar duo, not unlike the Allman Brothers. They were a guitar duo, not unlike the Allman Brothers. They were kind of before the Allman Brothers, around the same time before, because they were the hard rock and they would write their song parts. They would organize their song parts just like an orchestra Fred would play the lower part, wayne would play the upper part and it just. It was great, great to learn from. I'm giving away my secrets.

Jay Franze: 44:14

There you go. Well, hey, I worked in Nashville for several years under a guy named Bob Bullock and he had an opportunity to work on an album with the tubes, and they have a song called she's a beauty and please correct me if I'm wrong Didn't your wife play a part in that video?

Mike Skill: 44:31

Yeah, she's, she's. She came over here. She's my producer. She danced. She's one of the. There's a blonde and a redhead in there. She's the redhead. That's awesome. We toured with the Tubes and I met her, and a year later we got together after the tour and we've been together ever since. So Cheryl Henley and Michelle Gray were the two.

Jay Franze: 44:50

All right. Well, we do this thing here we call Unsung Heroes, where we take a moment to shine the light on somebody who works behind the scenes or somebody who may have supported you along the way. Do you have anybody you'd like to shine a little light on?

Mike Skill: 45:03

Oh wow, Chuck O'Kaysian at Pearl Sound, Chloe Orwell and Brad Elvis, my wife and son Mick, my wife Cheryl and son Mick, my wife Cheryl and son Mick. I'd like to thank you, Jay, Thanks for having me, and all the people that played on my records. Mostly it's me on guitar and bass and a few people added and that's about it, yeah.

Jay Franze: 45:26

A big thanks to Mike for taking the time to share his stories with us and, as always, thank you for taking the time to hang with me here. I really do appreciate it. If you know anyone that would enjoy hearing Mike's story, please be sure to pass this along. You can do that and find the links to everything mentioned over at jayfranze. com/ episode 78.

Tony Scott: 45:51

Thanks again for listening and I'll see you next week. Thanks for listening to T the Jay Franze show. Make sure you visit us at jayfranze. com Follow, connect and say hello.