Los Angeles in the 1980s was filled with bands that should have been huge. One of those bands, Rock City Angels, found their way to the Sunset Strip from Florida and took the city by storm. While you may not be familiar with their name, you will be amazed by their story. At one time, the band featured none other than a pre-fame Johnny Depp on guitar, and that’s just the beginning. The band recently released a new version of their debut record called Young Man’s Blues (The Original Jim Dickenson Mix) and bassist Andy Panik called in to talk about it.
Please press the PLAY icon below for the MisplacedStraws Andy Panik Rock City Angels interview –
On what makes this mix different from the original release – Well his version is, It’s more pure. The other version is great. They’re both great and they both got great reviews. Well, the original got like three stars in Rolling Stone and it’s got different performances, but his is just more pure when you listen to his, you can see that the other one is sort of transparent.
On some of the different musicians on this mix – It’s got a lot of additional musicians, like the Memphis Horns. Really great guys that have played on lots of people’s records. Jerry Kerrigan plays on it. He played with Elvis. He plays percussion. Charlie McCoy also played with Elvis. He’s a harmonica player, stuff like that. Wayne Bennett was a guitar player that played on one track. He played with Bobby Blue Bland, a blues guitar player.
On being in the band with a young Johnny Depp –Well, that’s the Johnny Depp factor that we’ve all come to learn how to live with. It’s just different, you know? What was he like then? I gotta be honest, I played with millions of musicians, and most of them have got problems, are assholes, or just hard to deal with drug abusers, and he was really humble. He would say good things about you, and stuff like that. Complimentary. He was really nice, and I’m not just saying this because of who he is now, because I don’t have any contact with him. I know people that know him that are still good friends with him from his other band, The Kids, Joey Malone, Johnny was a great guy. No doubt about it.
Probably people would like me to say that he wasn’t, but he was a starving artist. It’s kind of weird when you think about it. He’s this big, giant name now in the acting field and musician also, and he’s done so well for himself. Then I look back at, God, he was so nice to me. He really was. I can see why the directors and stuff would want to work with him.
On the LA scene when they got out there – Guns N’ Roses were already signed when we got there. We got there in June of 86, but they were in the studio recording, which would ultimately be Appetite for Destruction, changed the world of rock and roll as we know it nobody knew that was going to happen either, kind of the same thing that Johnny Depp. Who knew these things? But yeah, Guns N Roses was there when we got there. They were already signed in in the studio, and they weren’t even playing out on the scene anymore, because they wanted to keep a little profile. I think they did play some shows under an assumed name. I forgot the name of that, but it was Fargan Bargis or something. Fargan Bastards, Fargan Bastards. It was just an assumed name, I guess. But everybody knew their reputation and I’ve read somewhere that they said that we sounded like them. We fit right into that sleaze rock thing, which, which I realized when I got there was so full of these, it was as opposed to what was going on there prior to that was heavy metal, millions of bands.
So this sort of changed it, but everybody, all these bands were into this. I’ve realized there’s three bands. The New York Dolls, Aerosmith, and Hanoi Rocks. Hanoi Rocks being the newer of the three. You had bands like Jet Boy, Faster Pussycat, Guns N Roses, Junkyard, the Hangmen. All these bands, SeaHags that were felt, or heavily into those three bands, as we were also. The punk thing, mixed in with punk rock. So we fit right in. From the very first show at the Scream Club, which is a legendary club there. The management there wanted to be our management, and it just snowballed from there. I’ve been in so many bands. I never have I ever been in a band that just took everything, the green light, everybody liked it. It took a long time, we were together six, seven years into different phases, me and Bobby before we got signed, but once we got to LA, we fit right in and people wanted to represent us.
On live footage of the band on YouTube from before they got signed – There’s some other stuff out there too that is lost. Well, there’s a show we played at the Music Machine. They wanted to sell it to us. I think our old manager got her something from another TV show. We did of us performing live some underground show, but yeah, we really had an edge.
Bobby was just a great frontman. It was different. He was different. Singers around that time and still, to this day have a very high-pitched scream, nothing against it, Rob Halford, and later Sebastian Bach, and even Axl Rose, but although Axl Rose had both, he could sing really, really high and really, really low. But in our band, the singers we liked were like the old blue singers, like Howlin’ Wolf and then the Jim Morrisons, the David Johansson, the Iggy Pops who had the baritone and that’s what Bobby had. So that was great and that was different. But he liked it like that. That’s what he was and plus his stage persona and then the fact that we mixed in the blues and punk rock to the hard rock umbrella.
On why Geffen chose to have them record in Memphis – We worked long time to get our formula down. We started out as a hardcore punk rock band in 1982 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida called The Abusers. We opened up for Black Flag, the Circle Jerk, TSOL, Tex and the Horses, so we had this punk rock foundation to the house, to the formula. So when we added that to the glam, which we got into later, and then Blues and stuff, we got our own formula, which took years to develop, the songwriting. Then when Geffen got interested in us, they just circled right in on the Blues, and they just punched, punched, punched that button. Before you knew it, we were in Memphis, the home of the blues and soul. We did soul too. I can remember recording “Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding one of the first demos we had for Geffen. We did a great version of that.
On the Geffen failing to support them after the record came out – That really sucks, man, because you want to tour your ass off when you’re such a young person, you grow up wanting to live the rock and roll dream. We got to tour with Jimmy Page, that was obviously huge. But that was a month of that, six weeks all together with interviews and practicing. The first show at the LA Forum was the culmination of years of work, and that was great, awesome, that was the highlight. That was great. Then we went on a small tour with Joan Jett for a couple of shows. That was great. Then the third one was Georgia Satellites for a month. That was great, too. Back to the clubs. But then they for some reason wanted to start working on a second record. That’s when we started doing demos and stuff and Bobby started getting back into heroin then. That really pissed off Tom Zutat who’d had enough of Guns N’ Roses doing drugs So he took it out on them all the time But there’s nothing he could do about it because it was such a monumental record and paying Geffen’s bills and his lining his pocket, everybody at Geffen So they couldn’t do anything about it. So they took, he took it all on us, on Bobby because Bobby was on dope. He had been on dope since he was 19, on and off, for various reasons. It’s really a sad story. The rock and roll is littered with sad stories.
On the failed sessions for a second record – They turned down every one. We did demos in two different states, two different countries and they just never could hear that song, and it just didn’t make sense, those are some of the best stuff that we ever did. People have come to really enjoy them and like them online.
On what he did after the band broke up – There’s a little period there where I did another band. I’ve been playing in various bands ever since, and the first one was a band called Smash It to Pieces with my good friend Jeff Johnson from Jason and the Scorchers. They were like the hottest band in L. A. That broke up, and then I got my own band, Rumble Train. That was with Mike Barnes and Doug Banks, the two guitar players from Rock City Angels, Young Man’s Blues, and we got a publishing deal with Cherry Lane so that held us out for about a year. But we never could get the record deal because of the whole grunge thing. Even though what we were doing was like Black Crowes blues. Grunge didn’t affect them. We were doing that before they were doing that. They were just an alternative band called Mr. Crow’s Garden. We were already playing the blues then. But it’s universal, the blues is universal. You don’t got to be black, man or a woman or whatever, to play the blues. You gotta live it.
On if the reunion would have continued if Bobby was clean – Well he did clean up, but see, he already had Hepatitis C. So it was a death sentence. He couldn’t do anything about it, he went to the doctors and all that. But we, me and Bobby, directly after, sort of after the Rumble Train thing petered out, we had a band called Death Rattle. That was in Hollywood, but we broke up after one show, but it was a really good band. Then in 2000, we got back together, me and Durango and Jimmy James, one of our original guitar players who played on the glam album. We did an album called Use Once and Destroy, it goes back to our punk roots.
On if some lineup of the band would ever get back together – Well, I think it would yeah, Me, Mike Barnes, and Doug Banks. That would be great, the three remaining members of Young Man’s Blues. Unfortunately, our drummer, Jackie Jukes, passed away also this past year. It’s really another sad tale. He was a good guy. But yeah, I could see us, me and Doug and Mike, getting together with maybe a name singer, or even, someone unknown. The fan base is there, but I don’t know. I would like that to happen. It would be great. A new singer, and a new drummer, and maybe [00:18:00] some you know, special guests or something, named Johnny Depp.
