The IMC Magazine Issue 17/July 2016 | Page 34

his Moaning Lisa thing. They were one of the most revered bands in the Virginia Beach area. Al takes his craft as serious as a bad cold and so do I. That`s what I respect the most about this guy. Just as I did Teenage Head. Just as I did with all the Bowie people and the Iggy people.

People that are listeners and fans of bands like Left Wing Fascists and Iggy Pop and these bands? They can see through the b.s. These are real people giving their flesh and blood on stage and in the studio. That's what comes out of the music and that's my job. Just to try and put that on canvas and not dress it up too much. Just make it as raw as it is on stage because that's what folks want to hear. That's what we grew up hearing. Live bands. Nowadays with computers and all this b.s. you don't hear any bands like that anymore. I miss it. It's a nice breath of fresh air for me to work on.

Let's talk about the 'Party Favorites' LP. What's on the album?

Big Al: Party Favorites came about for a couple of reasons. One. When we first did the formula of an album we always wanted to do a cover song. One cover song was not unreasonable. It wasn't anything that was usually famous. Our first cover song is 'Roll Your Own' by Mel McDaniel. I was in love with this band called The Fabulous Poodles out of England and I jsut adored the song and we put it on the first record.

The second record, Scotty really loved At The Hop by Danny and The Juniors and he wanted to do a guitar version of At The Hop. So, the third record came about and I actually said 'Stacy I want to do a cover on this and I said I want to do Robin Thompson's 'Sweet Virgina Breeze'. Stacy's a great producer and he's like, 'Hey, it's your album. You do what you want to do. We're not going to make it sound bad. It's going to sound killer.

The cover we did was 'Sweet Virgina Breeze' which is the Virginia State song. We found out there was a lot of radio stations that would not accept our entire album because it had a cover song on it. Even though I was friends with Robin, he had just passed away and I was in contact with

Steve Bassett, the co-writer of the song. It didn't matter. So the record company said, 'Well. here's

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