Fans of glam, power pop, psychedelia and just good ol' good time rock 'n' roll will find much to love in LA's marvellous Smash Fashion, who have been with us for a while now. Frontman Roger took some time out to answer some questions put to him by BBMATB on the band, old recordings, new recordings and whether being glam is a good thing! Looking forward to that new album guys!
Smash Fashion are Roger Deering (Lead Vocals / Rhythm Guitar), Lloyd Stuart Casson (Lead Guitar / Backing Vocals), Scarlet Rowe (Bass / Backing Vocals) and Repo (Drums / Percussion).
Albums 'A Gentleman's Guide To Sophisticated Savagery' (2006), 'Don't Pet The Sweaty Things' (2009), 'Big Cat Love' (2014) and 'Rompus Pompous' (2018) are available on all the major digital sites. Single 'Got Da Hee Bee Gee Bees' backed with their tremendous version of Elt's 'Bennie And The Jets' (2020) is available from Yeah Right Records from Bandcamp and other digital sites.
Hi guys, thank you for taking some time to answer a few questions. First off, for those readers who might not be familiar with Smash Fashion, could you give a short history of the band?
Greetings! For the uninitiated...Smash Fashion is a high energy atomic power pop band with a (feather boa!) with heavy glam (70s!) and decadent psychedelic leanings... initially formed in 2003,Smash Fashion has had a few stops and starts along the way... with numerous line-up changes over the years. The goal and objective still remains the same...To deliver the most energetic dynamic live show we can possibly do as well as on record..all while looking flash and having fun...fun is the key word here.
And who would you say were the main influences on Smash Fashion?
I think initially the two obvious influences that the band started out with was Cheap Trick and Supergrass...Yet as the group started to evolve and moved on we started to incorporate many different influences collectively as a band... Smash Fashion has many many musical influences...50s rock, 60s psychedelia, 70s glitter, prog and punk...We are not afraid of any musical challenge and like to push and stretch ourselves beyond the limit as far as we can...while retaining our signature sound...Not always an easy task yet somehow we've managed to pull it off ..sometimes by the skin of our teeth...by a hair on our chinny chin chin!
You have a new record coming out - how was it recording and putting it together during these days of Covid?
Has Covid made things difficult for the band over the last few months? We actually put out a record last summer... A 7 inch single, on the very cool Yeah Right Records out of Canada...with today's technology, we were able to put something together...This whole Covid thing has very much tried to steal the rock 'n' roll mojo...It is difficult, yet if you're going to continue you got to figure out a way to stay busy and productive best you can.
Any plans for further recordings in the near future?
Absolutely..We have a fist full of brand new songs that we are looking forward to tracking maybe by the end of the year or beginning of next year.
You have four albums stretching back to 2006 - Do you have a favourite album and what are your favourite tracks from your recordings?
Those records are all our babies and I'm proud of all of them...Overall I think that the 'Big Cat Love' LP is consistently our best record... while 'Rompus Pompous' has some of our most adventurous and personal material on it. I'm also very partial to the songs on the 'Don't Pet The Sweaty Things' LP...I think that some of our best songs are on that record, but the recording and mix was flawed...We've been slowly cherry picking songs off that record and re-recording them because the songs are too good to slip through the cracks...I'm also very proud of the song 'Smiles And Daggers' as we had the great Mike Garson (Bowie's long time pianist) play on that track.
Is there any unreleased material from over the years that may see the light of day at some point?
Funny you should ask... as we are currently right now at this moment putting together an LP of outtakes from the last few years...We found while we were on standby for Covid it was something that we could do since we are ready, had a lot of songs tracked but unfinished...it's turning out to be a really strong LP and I'm very excited about finishing it up and getting it out there... Smash Fashion has a lot of songs in the vault!
Now that things are beginning to open up a little do you have any shows planned?
We are still on a hiatus from live shows...When things do open up we do plan on getting back out there, as well as kicking off a Canadian tour... we miss the stage God dammit!
And did you try any live web streams or podcasts during Covid? If so how are were they to do and are they something you would consider doing again?
We did not do any live web streams but we did do quite a few interviews and podcasts...It's something to think about and if things remain the way they are then maybe we might just go ahead and get something like that going and jump on board on something just to get something out there again.
You've recently appeared in the glam edition of 'Rock At Night' magazine; is the glam scene something you particularly associate yourself with?
Good question... and the answer is yes and no... on one hand there is a cool neo new glam scene popping up slowly which we've been associated with and we quite like it...It's nice to see other kindred spirits wanting to do something flashy, loud and cool...And there's some cool bands out there doing it right now...On the other hand there's a large portion of the rock audience that is dismissive of anything "glam" associated.. which sucks. We may identify with a lot of glam but we're also capable of being heavy, hard and fast much like the Sweet or Alice Cooper in their heyday...Ultimately it's about the songs but we definitely want to have a flashy package to wrap those songs up in so to speak.. glam is not a dirty word!!
Is there a good rock scene in Los Angeles at the moment? Any bands from LA you'd particularly recommend to readers?
It's Los Angeles so there's always gonna be something going on.. however with the Covid situation I'm not really sure what kind of scene is happening right now currently... there's plenty of cool bands here ...The Crazy Squeeze...The Hangmen...The Klaws...Hammered Satin.
And finally, what plans for Smash Fashion going into 2022?
Well we are currently finishing up this LP... which realistically may be ready for release at the beginning of 2022...And then back into the studio again to record a brand new batch of songs...And hopefully by then things are opening up and we can get back to doing what we love to do .... let the children boogie! Stay safe everybody and come join us at our various social media sites! Thanks for having us Simon..cheers!!
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