Michael Monroe has been a rock icon for decades. His band Hanoi Rocks created the blueprint for nearly every 80s rock band, and his solo work has seen one great record after another. Michael Monroe will release his latest record, Outersteller on February 20 and recently took some time to talk about it.
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On this being the 4th record featuring the current lineup of his solo band – Hang on. It’s more than that. There’s Sensory Overdrive and there was Horns & Halos, Blackout States, One Man Gang, I Live Too Fast To Die Young! and now Outersteller. The sixth album with the same band. Oh, actually wait a minute. You’re right. Ginger Wildheart was in the band. With exactly the same band, with Rich Jones in the band.
Then that is the fourth. You’re right. Sorry. This is the lineup, the best lineup of all these that have had. All of them are great, but yeah, you need a personality. Starting with Ginger. He was always, “Oh, I just wanna play guitar and don’t wanna be the front man anymore.” But when it came time for him to leave, then I had to find another personality. You can’t just get a session guy, then Dregen was the perfect guy, and it was an actual kind of progression to Rich Jones after Dregen had too much on his plate. He was hurting and, couldn’t deal with it anymore. So, he had to move on. Rich Jones had been subbing for him anyways, and Rich had been doing our artwork starting with Horns & Halos merchandise stuff. Anyway, there’s an old, friend and everybody knows him and all that. When Dregen couldn’t handle it anymore, I was like, “Oh which is already there”. He turned out to be a great songwriter great musician, and great, one of the nicest guys and rock and roll, I’d say. He loves animals. So, all of us great people do, I love his Instagram profile, says “animal lover people hater”. I can relate to that, because the more people I meet, the more I love animals.
On if he has to tweak the material Rich Jones and Steve Conte write – Once I get it, I make it my own. Once it’s out there, it’s everybody’s. But yeah, they’re right with me. We know each other so well. I choose the best songs for the albums regardless of who wrote them. I don’t have to have my songs in there. I haven’t stopped writing, I just go for the, with clear perspective. I step outside of myself in the whole band, and I’m thinking as a fan and sort of what I’d like to hear and how I see this whole thing and putting the album together. We had 45 songs to choose from for this record. It was like an ongoing progress process. It came together as over the last 2, 3 years, since the last album was done.
There was songs left over from then. “Pushing Me Back” is from, the One Man Gang Sessions in 2018 that came out in 2019, 2018. “Pushing Me Back” didn’t fit the album and then I was gonna have it on I Live Too Fast To Die Young!, but it didn’t fit that one either, but it fit this one. It’s a perfect place for it. That’s from then. Then we made some demos with our guitar Roadie Bobby He had a studio in, or he has a studio, little studio in Helsinki that, we recorded some demo, a bunch of demos and three songs out of those sessions are on the record, “Shinola”, “Rode To Ruin”, and “Precious” and they were just good enough to say we were checking out, they were made as demos and it was fine, good harp solo too, and everything. It was like just get a good mixer, and which we have now. Dave Draper did an amazing job and he’s my man from now on. It was my first experience with him. We connected in the best possible way. I love that guy. He’s the best.
In any case, yes, so those songs were from that session, and I really like, we also demoed “One More Sunrise” was in this villa that we stayed in two, two summers ago. It was like the summer before the last we went into this house. You could rent a place for five days. It’s kinda lottery if you get it through the musician’s union in Finland. Me and Sami (Yaffa) are trying to get us this place where this residential in the studio or it’s like a villa where the whole band can live and record downstairs. It was like a studio. All the instruments and everything set up. We were there for five days and we wrote a song per day, and everybody could come up with a blueprint for the day, like an inspiration for that day, what kind of song we wanna write that day? One day when we started writing “One More Sunrise”, it was Rich Jones’s Day, and he said the song “Jungleland” Bruce Springsteen. Okay, one part after another, no end to it, it’s cool. That was, so the working title for that song, one More Sunrise for at first was “Sunderland” in Finland. But that was the first time we were able to be in a studio together with the whole band since Dregen actually, when Horns and Halos was starting songs from scratch. From like just being in the same room and someone playing a riff and jamming and getting into starting songs like that. We hadn’t done that since. Halos like 2013. So that was great. That’s my favorite. Sami, too, loves that the best. I think he’s the best when the band is there in the same room and we come up with, stuff like “Rocking Horse” came from that session and “One More Sunrise”.
“One More Sunrise”, it’s especially fun ’cause we think, “What the hell? Why should you have a three-minute song?” It’s boring to have everything the same. let’s just keep going. And it feels good and it still builds and it doesn’t get boring. Then, alright, I put some sax on here, and dueling sax and guitar, I like the stuff like that. Then, all right, new part, piano, how about that? It ended up being seven minutes and 40 seconds and I love it. This is one of my favorite songs on the album. And it turned out brilliant.
Morgan Fisher on piano. Mott The Hoople legend, who plays on “Malibu Beach” as well, the Hanoi Rocks song, the rock and roll version of “Malibu Beach”. He plays the amazing piano. Nobody does stuff like that like he does. So that was my favorite time, coming up, songs like that, that one being in the same room with the band and starting out songs from just jamming. It was every day we came up with something. But those two made the album. I didn’t even know we had an album until like about a year ago when we were in the UK on tour and all this. When I had an order I had chosen, I was still moving a few songs here and there. Then at the end of our UK tour last spring, at the end of the tour, I had to I remember. I showed it to Steve (Conte), and Steve had some idea there. However, he would’ve started the album with “Precious”. He thought that was a good first song of the album. Are you serious? No freaking way. It’s like Jesus, and obvious that to me, it was like basing your face “Rocking Horse” is obvious. That’s the opener. To me that was very clear with Sami’s bass in your face and then fucking that starts out the whole thing. I think that was obvious.
On developing a running order for the album – That’s crucial that running order I spent years doing that. In this case, few years, couple of years here. I was like starting okay, I had a sketch and I had some kind of rough idea, over the past year I’ve been like not freaking out about it. I really get into it seriously. Not stressing out about it, but like intensely concentrating on trying different combinations. That is absolutely key. I’ve managed to make every album, I think pretty pretty great. Concise, as an entirety. That’s the beginning and the ending.
In this case, I had “Glitter and Dust”. I was like, I thought if it’s the word glitter, I was like I don’t want that in the title ’cause I’m trying to get away from all that. But that’s okay. That doesn’t matter. But “Glitter and Dust”, if that was the last song, it wouldn’t be cool if it was the last song of the album that, but then I realized, “Oh, of course. No brainer. “One More Sunrise” grand finale of the album.” Then song that doesn’t even end when it ends has an extra ending when you think it’s not yet. You got the whole part there. It’s the obvious ending. Then “Glitter”, that was perfectly, it is always the danger of having a ballad or slow one like “Antisocialite”, on the last previous album. That was also really cool. We all, we were really aware that we wanted to keep it very it is intimate and, not big and big drums or anything. More and more like John Lennon “Imagine”, kind of production approach as opposed to, because just to steer clear away from the power ballad thing, that was never done any of those and never will, someone riding a dolphin on top of a wave in Grand Canyon.
But yeah so, a matter of taste. It certainly isn’t what you play. It’s what you don’t play what you have the good mind and good taste to leave out because everybody can do everything. It’s not about being a virtual slow player. It’s having the good taste of steering clear of cliches, that’s one of our rules. Cliche free and everything, lyrics, solos songs. We’ve been watching this quite a few decades. Everything gets too ridiculous if you’re repeating something, and we would, we have so much fun with the band. But yeah, you gotta be able to laugh at yourself and laugh at the whole thing, otherwise you won’t survive.
So choosing the songs there’s a lot. Even when those guys, when Steve, Rich, we are so similar. We have a real soul connection, and it has to do with Stiv Bators.But writing lyrics they’re also in my head very much because we know each other so well and they know my way of thinking. So they come up with fun stuff which I go, “Yeah, that’s me. Yeah, I can totally, that works. I’m behind this. Yeah, that worked.” I encourage everyone to write and there’s less pressure for me and there’s more fun. I like to collaborate and but then I choose the best songs. Like fucking, not gonna choose them based on who wrote them, that shouldn’t have anything to do with it. When I sing it, I make it my own. It becomes a Michael Monroe song right there and then, and I love the variation and always try to go for something different. Always wanna reinvent ourselves, and not never make the same album twice. All these records have been really strong, but I really feel that this one has the best sound-wise. I think this has the mix thanks to Dave Draper. It has a certain, it is more like towards analog. It’s not so bright and doesn’t disturb you.
The last one was very analog kind of approach but maybe a bit too much maybe a little too, the drums we were trying to, we kept them, organic, natural, and no samples. But sometimes what sounds good sounds good, I don’t care what they do. These days, not even the drummer can tell anymore what’s the sample, what’s not, if you mix it right. It’s in the player. It doesn’t really, it’s not the guitar, but it’s in the fingers of the player. I heard a story, Billy Gibbons, I think it was, Jimi Hendrix played a show and after, and he played amazingly and totally right, perfectly as he always did. Then Gibbons took the guitar, I don’t know if Gibbons or somebody else, but took the guitar and said it was totally out of tune. It was like none of the strings, not even close. But when he played, it was like magic. We have a lot of fun, and you can tell on the record if it’s been forced. There was no hurry because our music is timeless, thankfully.
On touring the US – Damn, did you see us? You better see us. Me and Rich Jones got work permits for a couple more years for sure. We’re definitely gonna put ’em into good use. But it’s a question of what tour and how we’re gonna do it. We will we determine we’re definitely gonna come there. Unfortunately, the Buckcherry tour was the five-week tour in the fall. We had to cancel because my knee, the broken meniscus was busted last spring. The whole summer I was limping after doing gigs, it got worse. The doctor said, it’s busted, but sometimes it gets better. Sometimes it doesn’t, it stops heal by itself. So I was waiting for that, but it wasn’t getting better. I was doing certain physiotherapy and all that stuff, but it wasn’t helping. So, I decided to, it was still painful. So, I decided to have the operation. So that was done just one and a half weeks ago, Thursday, a week ago Thursday. I’m recovering. I just have four days on crutches and now I’m healing. It’s still swollen. I’m keeping my leg up. It’s still so swollen. I can’t really bend it, but it’s it should be better. A couple more weeks, I’ll have a checkup and then three more weeks to recover and I should be as good as new if not better by the time we go on tour.
The album comes out in the t the, around the 20th of February, right? The 20th of February album comes out and then UK tour, we’re gonna be there on the 23rd or 24th. Yeah, couple of weeks in the UK and then spring some Finnish dates. But definitely the America is in the plans. That was great. Being there playing there is great audience. I always know. ’cause the culture, rock and roll is strong, big part of the culture. It has been for decades. Always have been taken seriously especially when people get mad, when money is in question. But still, it started there with the blues, with Little Richard to Rolling Stones and the Ramones and everything in between is what we love. Rock and Roll started, little Richard and Chuck Berry, they started. That’s why it is been like part, the, part of the culture and every from, Buddy Holly all, there’s part the history as opposed to some, when I grew up, in Finland they were like, oh, they little kids put ’em in the basement to make that noise. Make some noise if they want to, at play. They play the band thing and they’ll grow out of it. They’ll get a real job and they get real, it’s like when they stop playing around and I was like, fuck, I ain’t gonna stop playing around. This is me. But yeah. In America they have more respect as a cultural thing already.
They get two guitar rock there, with the Stones had, with Aerosmith and what is, guitar Rock and Roll. People love it there, and there’s an audience always in America, although mainstream hip hop, and country. Country and hip hop. Isn’t that the ruling? They can have it. We got a rock and roll.
On the past and future of Hanoi Rocks – No big goodbyes. Hello, I must be going Goodbye. Yeah, no, The thing is, when Razzle died, it was, that band was so strong as a unit, and when Sami left, that was the end of it. We couldn’t, me and Sam, me and Andy (McCoy)and Nasty (Suicide) were not in a good place. We were not connecting, and that was a really rough time. Had we been able to take a break, maybe for a year or a half a year or something, and then got us, gotten ourselves together. We didn’t have the luxury of doing that, and we didn’t have the, we were just, I was devastated from losing my best friend. All of us were totally devastated. Sammi was like, that’s it. He quit. There was, no way to keeping it together. But I also they wanted, the management of course, and the labels wanted to, we just signed a deal, and they wanted to keep going. They wouldn’t know if we want to keep going. The guys that would’ve been there was nobody could replace Razzle or Sammi, we tried a couple of auditions, and it was like really weird. I said, “What the hell is this guy doing here playing?” It was like, it didn’t feel natural at all.
So, I want to stop Hanoi ’cause sure, yeah. We were in the verge of, maybe we could have become possibly based on, what happened with like Guns N’ Roses and stuff at the time. There was a perfect time for that type of band. Although they’re a bit heavier than Hanoi was soundwise, a bit more Aerosmith heavy soundwise. Their image was a bit rougher. They had the high-top sneakers or the boots. Rough, but more leather jackets and maybe easier to relate to for most people, because Hannah had a very unique style.
All of us were very unique. Maybe. Very different, different style maybe in a different way. It was easy to have many bands. I remember being like getting into the heavy metal be started to become like a name of a genre or whatever it is. It’s always leather and studs and there’s so many bands that have the leather and studs. We had nice colors and suits and everything. We were a hat band. Never a hair band. We were a hat band. All these rasta hats and all kinds of hats. We all had hats. Wasn’t a hairdo. Then what bothered me to, we had the punk attitude and the street gang. Because when, we started, me and Sammi and Nasty, we were on the streets for the first half, half year, homeless. We had that gang, us against the world and looked after each other. All the six months we were, I had the edge and that’s what like the Guns N’ Roses guys, they got the point, they really got the best outta Hanoi is the attitude and more like the punky thing and as opposed to the big hair, I never even wanted to have big hair.
My hair is straight and boring. So I started back home, I mess it up. So as we waer and then sometimes it was too long so I had to cut for a long time. So they started looking like Johnny Thunders there in the first New York Dolls album cover. Sometimes, they didn’t mean it to be that way. Then I hear this, “Oh my, you started this fashion or this thing that metal was”, don’t blame me for that crap. These guys play their hairspray better than the instruments that would bother me, and the party to chicks and sex and drugs. And this cliched to me it was like insane obnoxious kinda. I would never act like this as I grew up in Finland, I’ve never been with a groupie in my life, and I could never imagine spending a night with some complete stranger. But in America, especially in Hollywood, it was like, good. It was like normal. I was a freak. I was a weirdo. They, I was considered strange ’cause I wasn’t into that partying, group and stuff like that. But of course I had my demons, but I was more, I was serious about that. I was it wasn’t something you could just go and party. I never liked drinking. I don’t wanna mess my head up. I was to explore, expand my horizons and my perspective. Broaden my perspective, but all that stuff. Fashion is always boring when people start copying the other, you gotta have a strong thing of your own. If you jump in a bandwagon, then you disappear when the wave disappears. I always wanted people to be individual, be themselves. Somebody would look fine. Somebody’s style is like, cool cut and jeans and a t-shirt. That’s fine. Most people actually will look weird with my kind of look. One time it was like everybody had to have eyeliner, big blonde hair do, and even if you are a 150-pound truck driver, it was like, yeah, eyeliner. It was like no. Find your own, make do your own style and figure out what you are and who you are, and then be that’s it. It’s very simple.
You were asking about the Hanoi grand finale, there hasn’t really been, what happened with the 60th birthday? I certainly rambled off. It was my 60th birthday, it came together. It was a great night because it was just it covered everything from my career from the be beginning to the end solo stuff, from earlier solo stuff and newer solo stuff. The lineups, I had Demolition 23 was the opening band for the whole thing. Then the new Hanoi from the 2000s we had with Andy. Then at the end, of course the original lineup with Gyp Casino, the original drummer who’s still alive who hadn’t played the drums for 45 years, whatever it was, in between 40 years. Yeah, it was, he had like only played guitar and, not as a full-time job either. He did an amazing job considering we had two rehearsals. It was like, oh, was it nine songs we did, whatever. “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams”, he doesn’t play on a record even, but he did an amazing job. But I was gonna have Gyp there for something else and Nasty and Sammi were gonna be in the house anyways. Then I got this call from Andy saying, like inviting himself, saying” I heard you have this 60th birthday. I didn’t see the poster of it. If my world tours allow me, I might just show up and play”. I was like, what? Okay, so you’re inviting yourself. That got me thinking, I was like, wait a minute. Of us. I was thinking some once in a while thought the thought of having the chance to sit down with all five of us who started the band, with Gyp Casino, Sammi Nasty, Andy, and me would be cool even just to meet up for the first time, like 40, over 40 years was last time we had met each other was the last show we did with Gyp was 82 July 24th or something in 1982. That’s the last time we’d seen each other. I figured, oh wow, “We could play, maybe get together and even play a few songs and maybe have this as a surprise”.
But then I figured wait a minute, fans are gonna be mad if they’re gonna be pissed off if they’re not gonna know. So, we decided to do this press conference when we announced that the original lineup. We’ll, play at the end of the show. It was over three hours the whole night. I held on very good. It was a magical night. That was the only way to do it. It wasn’t after we announced it, it was already selling really well. It was all the whole stadium the ice hall. But, after that news, the next afternoon, they sold out and it was like packed to the hill. It was more they shoved in more people than you could allow. It was like over, over 8,000. We’re not supposed to have that many. It was really a magical night and they, you just had to be there. It was supposed to be streamed, but then at the last minute it wasn’t. Therefore, it was never documented. It wasn’t film or anything yet.
It’s been recorded though as engineering recorded it. But there’s a ton of footage on. I could see on the internet somebody’s make their own edits even of the Hanoi part, but it was cool. I was like, yeah, so happy now. But, and it was great ’cause everybody played great and everyone seems to be in good spirits and Andy was cool. It was nice to have that experience and then for the right reasons. And everybody just loved it. That was the way everybody’s been talking about it. But it just came together over a few months because the concert had been planned for over a year and we’ve been working on it for a long time. Then after the call from Andy, that was like a couple of months before the actual event. Came together at the last, over the couple of months before, the last, two months after before the actual event. Before September, was it 28th, third, or whatever? End of September in 22.
So then that, that just came together naturally. Nobody’s offered a huge amount of money to get us together either, which makes sense to me because we were never a money band. The record sales never reflected Hanoi’s fame. We left our mark, we did something that you can’t buy with money, and it is more, more significant that we left our mark, we changed the world, and helped preserve real rock and roll and true rockers.
Passing on the legacy, inspiring others as we’ve been inspired by our heroes and our favorites. So yeah, so that was the special one-time event. And there was no plans for (more). I said they’re all talk about, “Okay, now they’re gonna do some festivals in the summer”, they’re gonna go on tour and now no way I would go on tour with this. It was too special. It’s a great band. It was great to see that we could, it felt great to be playing with those guys for that time to, to experience that. But I don’t know, it was a one-time thing, but there is something now that something very cool that, working on but I can’t really reveal yet. But it has to do with James Gunn’s “Peacemaker”.
There’s something to look forward to in terms of the Hanoi Rocks, the story’s not over yet. I don’t think totally. It’s like there’s always some cool things that can happen and I think there might be something pretty cool coming up. I don’t know, over a year or two, I can’t say, but in the future, sometime. There might be a cool thing happening. You’ll know when you, you hear it. We look so forward to it. Say we said it on this day today.
