The Squirts were created when members of Rick Springfield’s backing band got together to form their own unit. While each member has gone on to play with some of rock’s biggest names, they have gotten together again to release an album called III. Matt Bissonette, who has played with everyone from David Lee Roth to Elton John to REO Speedwagon, recently took some time to talk about the band.
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On how The Squirts came together – Basically The Squirts, we were out Rodger (Carter) our drummer for Rick Springfield and George Bernhardt was playing guitar for Rick Springfield and I was playing bass and singing with Rick. We’d been doing Rick’s gig for probably about five or six years, and then Rodger would come down to my studio and we’d just bash out some songs for music licensing to try and get songs placed in movies and TV and stuff like that. Then we just started kind of stumbling into a sound and it kind of stumbled into our first record called Squirts One. We were having problems finding names for albums. We were just doing a stupid number thing, but it just kind of turned into a thing.
Then Rodger was talking to Rick one day at a gig saying, “Hey, what if we opened up for you?” So, Rick being the cool guy that he is just said, “Yeah, go ahead”. It was actually like a sound check for his concerts because it was the same instruments and we’d be playing on the same gear. Then we would just go out and play the songs from our first record. Then we recorded the second record Resquirted, and by the way, don’t look up The Squirts online and find anything bad and blame us for it because, and it was a different meaning. We just started doing gigs with Rick and he just let us play all the time, so we’d open up for him. Rick’s fans were really great and gracious and bought CDs, and they know the songs, knew the words of the songs and everything. It was a great couple of years, three or four years that we did that. Then, we all took time. Everyone kind of left the band and did different things, and then we just kind of, during COVID, we just were writing stuff. George and I were writing stuff, and we just started bopping ideas off and we said, “Let’s just do another record. Bring back the band from the dead.”
On if he always felt the band would get back together – We’re all really good friends and we see each other. George just moved to Nashville a few years ago, so I don’t see him quite as much, but I’ll always go from my house in Orange County up to LA and Rodger and I will go out to lunch and hang out. Whenever I’m in Nashville, I try and see George. It just kind of just happened. It’s kind of funny when, it is like when I used to hear stories about John Lennon and Paul writing songs, they would just sit in a room with an acoustic guitar and just stare at each other like, “What do you got? What do you have?” I remember we used to do the same thing with Rick Springfield when we were writing songs for his records. We would just kind of go, “What do you got?” You have to have that person that kind of motivates you to do it. So, I think George and I were talking on the phone and just kind of happened again. We just started with one song, and we dug up a song that we had done probably 20 years ago when we were on the road with Rick, and we did it in a studio in Milwaukee on a day off. So, we took that rhythm track and that became one of the songs, “When You Die”, we just kind of heard that song, but it’s a pretty cool groove and started tearing that apart, and it’s just been great over the years that everybody has their own studio. What used to cost, $50,000, $100,000 now costs $10,000. With everybody playing and producing ourselves, it keeps it under budgets and stuff, but it really started just with one song. I remember that was the first song we worked on and everything just kind of flowed from that. There was never any real intention to, to do it. It just kind of happened. So now the world is ready for it.
On the origin of the songs on III – Each song comes about in a different way. Sometimes I’ll start an idea, sometimes Rodger will start an idea. Sometimes George will start one. I think COVID kind of hit everybody pretty hard and we were all looking for stuff to do because music was banned. I think that was the word that motivated us when music was pretty much banned non-essential. That word non-essential is just, how can you say that word about a person’s life or livelihood? That it can do this, but you can’t do that. You can have a strip bar open, but you can’t have a church open. You can do this and that. It just seems so funny. This was kind of a launching pad, I think, for us to, to vent out some frustrations in a funny way. A lot of these songs like “Not a Good Time for a Clown” and “Funny You Should Ask”, and “White Noise”, a lot of these albums are kind of just songs and they kind of left me to write the lyrics and stuff and the melodies and stuff. We fit the stuff around whoever’s idea starts first. I’ll kind of come up with a hook and just mess around with ideas. But it got really inspired to kind of blow off steam and laugh about the situation as bad as it was. I think every song in a way is kind of about something pretty serious and either distressing or uplifting or whatever. I mean, we’re The Squirts. We have to be funny. That’s what we are. So, we’re just trying to make light of situations and try and find the positive side of any situation. Because that’s all you can do at the end of the day.
On influences of XTC and Cheap Trick on the record – It’s funny you should say that. XTC is one of my favorite bands, specifically the Nonsuch album that they did, one of their last what they did and how they would make songs. When they would write you would just see a picture in your head. You’d hear a song like a “Peter Pumpkinhead”, which probably has nothing to do with it. It’s kinda like John Lennon writing a song when he says, “What did you mean by these lyrics?” And he goes, “Well, what does it mean to you?” I’m sure when Andy Partridge was writing lyrics, he had a specific thing in his mind, but it kind of makes it general so you can see anything. When I would listen to that record, I would just see images of things, and that’s kind of what we wanted to do, is just to have songs that somebody would ask you, “What’s that song about?” It could mean something completely different to somebody else, but I kind of have an idea what it’s about, but it’s kind of general anyway, but those band, those two bands are one of the two of my favorite bands.
We go out on the road with Cheap Trick once in a while, and I’ve been getting to know those guys and they’re sweetheart guys and really, really cool guys and just great music, great melodies. That’s what we wanna do. We wanna write great melodies and lyrics that make you think, and make you laugh and just kind of feel good about it. It’s a disappearing art in this crazy world.
On the life of a sideman – It’s kind of funny like right now I’m on the road. We’re in Hollywood, Florida, and we’re playing tonight with Kevin Cronin and Don Felder and Styx. We’re out for three months and we’re playing up until September. Then they come home, and then I call it coming back into real life. You come home and then you just kind of, the highs and lows of going out there and rocking and stuff and coming home and digging ditches. Feeding the dog and all that stuff. It’s kind of a thing like this, that life is.
So, I started out growing up in Detroit, just playing bass and playing in different bands. I kind of got into the playing like a second baseman of a baseball player. The bass player role is you’re not the glory guy. You’re the guy that makes the double plays, that makes the band sound great. Whether you play simple or busy or whatever it is, you have your role and, and coming from Detroit, we’re all like hardworking people that do their jobs and don’t complain and go out there and do it. I’m realizing at this age, at 63 that one of the main reasons of getting a gig and keeping a gig isn’t so much how you play and your level of musicianship. It’s about how you get along with the guys on the bus and on the plane. This business is so much personality driven and just kind of what kind of person you are to get along.
I just bounced from things since 1981, Greg, my brother Greg and I played with Maynard Ferguson and that was like our first road gig and. I look back now and I just kind of see this thing about one thing leading to another thing. Like a lot of people in LA will go to clubs to get their names around to be seen in case there’s any gigs going on. Usually that works when you’re seen, you’re remembered in someone’s mind for a session or a gig or whatever. I’m not like a big bar guy, but I just thank God every day that I’ve gotten calls to do work. I can see now when I look back, I keep a journal every day and I constantly go back and look at it and go, “I can see how this one gig led to this gig”, how Ringo led to ELO’s thing that I did with them. Coming to LA how we got the gig with Satriani and Roth and, and then with Elton and now with Kevin, it’s just the thing that you just never know what’s gonna happen.
It’s so funny because all I really wanted to do was be a songwriter and a singer and have my own band. We had a band called The Mustard Seeds that we had for 10 years, it was kinda like a King’s X power pop band. That was kind of the love of my life until that ended and I just kind of kept doing different things. But my main thing is writing songs and producing and doing different things. I remember my dad and now I’m a dad of a 28-year-old son. I remember my dad would always see me struggling in my own bands and trying to make the bands work, not making any money, being married and having a little kid at the time and he’s kinda looking at me like, “Your brother’s, you know, he is out on the road with Toto. Now when are you gonna”, and I’m going, “Dad, I’m doing it”, “But when you gonna get a real job”, kind of thing. Now I get it being older with my own son and stuff, but that was my main thing is doing that. But that doesn’t always pan out the way you want.
I know God has specific reasons of things you can handle and what you can’t handle. I probably could never have handled being a star singer guy front in the band every night and doing that thing. That’s not really my personality. So, I think I’m right where I need to be, where it’s balance. My brother and I always talk about balance, being able to play any kind of music and not just being a rocker or a jazzer or whatever, but being musically balanced to be able to do anything and just kind of do something different every day. One day I’ll be home just hanging out, then I’ll be writing a song, producing something, then I’m out on the road. Everything’s different and that’s what works for me. That’s where I’m most happy. If I was to just do one thing every day, I’d probably lose my mind, so it’s a long answer.
On the REO Speedwagon controversy and his role in the band – I’ve removed myself from that situation completely because it’s not really anything that, it’s not really in any of my business to be honest. I know that I’ve learned a lot about people and the internet and how that unlocks everyone’s right to have an opinion, which is great, but that opinion is so ugly. Sometimes the things that people are saying that I see a glimpse of it, something will pop up and I’ll see it and I just go, “That’s not a good look for anybody”. That’s just too bad that somebody could say something that they would never say to someone’s face because you just wouldn’t do that.
The internet has made people kind of into the monsters, and I think that when they look back at things that they say and they do, we all do things like that, that we look back and wish we didn’t do. It’s just kind of a bad spot for everybody and it’s just sad. I feel bad for everybody. We’re just finishing this tour out and seeing what happens after that. I pretty much just got a call to fill in and then they asked me to stay a little bit longer and I’ve stayed out of it as much as I can and I just hope it works out for everybody.
On if the mindset is different playing his own music with The Squirts rather that as a sideman – Yeah, that’s a great question. I was just thinking about that the other day. I remember, I was a lot younger then and not as experienced as being older now when I used to go out and open up, play in my own band and go out and sing in front, it was tough for me. The hardest thing was the first gig that we did with The Mustard Seeds, where I had, here’s a mic, and I’m not sitting in the back playing bass for some other artist. I’m right in front, talking and entertaining, talking to people, coming up with a spiel that works. My thing was always hiding behind comedy and sarcasm, funny things because it’s really tough for me to look somebody right in the eye and sing a song. Rock stars like Rick Springfield or Bruce Springsteen or whoever, they’re rock stars where that’s who they are. I know who I am and I’m kind of this guy from Detroit that’s a bass player who is very fortunate to play music. If somebody listens to a song I write, I’m just like, “Thank you”. It’s great. But I don’t have anything in my mind thinking I’m any bigger than I am. because I know myself and I know my faults and my strengths and weaknesses.
There is a difference when you go out with your own thing, when you’re playing your own music, with your own lyrics and your own song, and this responsibility, this weight that you have for it to be great is something that I might not have been able to handle for long terms, like Kevin and Springfield, guys like that, Satriani, that’s who they are. They live and breathe their own music and they’ve done it their whole lives and they’re more comfortable in that skin. If I go out on a road with Elton, I remember when I first started the first gig, your, your legs are weak. You’re kind of getting up there going, “Holy smokes. There’s like 50,000 people here. And I’m playing, and I’m here right now playing in this situation. I don’t know how I got here, but I’m here now.” I talked to my son who’s a baseball player, and that first inning when you’re out on the field a little wobbly until that first ball comes to you. Then it’s like you don’t think twice about it. With us, you got your in ears on your playing and it just comes, “Oh, this, I’ve done this a million times. I can do this.” Then sometimes it just sneaks up on you. You do a gig and you just go for some reason, usually, if there’s a specific person in the crowd that you got on the guest list that you’re going, “Boy, I hope they like this”, or, you go back to 12-year-old mentality of, “Man, am I okay to do this? Am I good enough”? Music is a funny business because it exposes everything about you. For me, I’ve learned years ago that music is not for me, it’s music I think was originally made to glorify God. The thing that put you here is what music is, and that’s kind of how I try to live my life going, I don’t care if anybody here, it is like an audience of one. If I write a song and I would think that God would go, “Good try. Good. You did your best on that. It’s not a great song, but you did good”. That’s all that matters to me.
I love to make people happy with music and do all that stuff, but I learned years ago that when you’re younger, you’re playing for that one girl in the crowd and you’re thinking, “Ah, you that person over there”. Then the older you get, you realize that it’s just silly and kind of pointless and kind of immature and you kind of grow out of it and you go back to it and you just kind of go through life. As you get old, and I’ve gotten old enough to kind of go, it’s almost kind of a job. You go up there and you do your job and you do it. I love my job. It’s great, but just try not to get too serious about it. But that’s a great question.
On if The Squirts will play live – We’ve been talking about it. Everyone’s kind of gone to their corners and we’ll see what’s gonna happen with this record and how it does and stuff. We’ve talked about it and we wanna do it, and, we’re kind of hoping something happens, so we gotta get ourselves motivated to get out there and spread the message. Well, hopefully soon. Yes.
