1 - 90 Miles An Hour Down A Dead End Street 3:14
2 - I Don't Want Your Love, (If You Don't Want Me) 3:35
3 - (I See) No Way Out 3:18
4 - Fill An Empty Heart 3:41
5 - Soul Deep 3:17
6 - Loud And Clear 4:19
7 - Perfect World 2:51
8 - I Found You Again 3:12
9 - Just A Little Too Hard 3:30
10 - Drop Me Off At Home 3:18
11 - Jealousy 4:28
12 - Meet Me 'Round The Corner 2:55
ANDY BABIUK - BASS
CLEM BURKE - DRUMS
ELLIOT EASTON - GUITARS
WALLY PALMAR - GUITARS, VOCALS, HARMONICA
HISTORY
by Paul Busch (tonedeaf.com.au)
Sometimes the simple equation of close mates, plus musical inclination, multiplied by a chance to get together can equal something that could be more than just a busman’s holiday. When the individuals involved are rock and roll veterans of decades and come from the bands Blondie, The Cars, Chesterfield Kings and The Romantics, the odds increase that the sum of these parts will hopefully make some monstrous morsels of sonic pleasure. Meet the band who’d rather be considered a bunch of mates having fun than a ‘supergroup’, The Empty Hearts.
Andy Babiuk, formerly from The Chesterfield Kings, caught up with us from Rochester in upstate New York to talk about this conglomeration of road warriors and the notion around putting this project together.
“This was a musical idea that I had and I thought about my friends who I had known for twenty years or more when it came into my head. Our bands have played and toured together in the past. I have known Elliot (Easton, guitarist from The Cars) forever, and Elliot and Clem (Burke, drummer from Blondie) have played together. You know how it is when guys hang together in bands backstage getting drunk and stuff and the topic always comes up that we should do something together outside our regular bands. Most of the time it never happens.
“I had been in the Chesterfield Kings for about 30 years and it was getting a little bit stale. It dawned on me to have a band where all the guys just have fun hanging out because they like the same kind of stuff. Not just music, but Wally (Palmar from The Romantics) and I have talked on the phone for decades now and we laugh about things like the Three Stooges and shit like Universal Monster movies, just stupid stuff that guys do.
“So I called Wally, and he was doing a Ringo Starr All-Star tour at the time, and I said, ‘what if we were to start a band where the premise was to get in a room and just have fun and write songs. Kind of like when you picked up a guitar when you were a kid because you liked The Stones and The Beatles and The Kinks and all those kick ass bands we dug growing up, imagine if you could have a band like that and have fun?
He was excited and asked me who I was thinking about being in the band and I told him who the guys were and he came back with, ‘Wow, sounds good, but we all live in different cities and it’s kind of fucked up’. I just told him to do me a favour and go think about it while he was being a rock star with Ringo and flying around in Ringo’s private jet”, laughed Babiuk.
Long story short, Palmar finished the tour with Ringo Starr and the seed planted by Babiuk had taken hold not only with him but with Burke and Easton. With a group of touring muso this might seem like a logistical nightmare getting them together to make a record, but things happened with ease. With that, the boys flew off to Los Angeles to sit down in a studio together.
With no plans or schemes around what they wanted to do, the four journeymen spent some time playing and trading licks and recording into a phone placed nearby. The sound they were trying to get was the sound of a band of brothers having some fun and the strengths and unique qualities of each member shining through. It was very much taking all of those pieces and putting them together and there you have it, The Empty Hearts. After a short period, there were some demos on the phone and the thought of producing a record was beginning to gel.
Babiuk explains “We were all friends with Ed Stasium (producer) and we had all worked with him at different points in our careers. We were talking about different producers and even of producing the record ourselves. We decided to give Ed a call and see what he is up to. Ed had just come back from a vacation in Hawaii when I called him and told him what we were up to and who was involved and asked him if he wanted to do a record. He immediately said, ‘Fuck yeah! You guys are making a record together, I am in!’ It was as easy as that”.
“Ed is a wonderful guy and he was an integral part of making The Empty Hearts sound the way we do. He was a genius in the studio and his career speaks for itself. He’s a rock and roll producer and that is what we wanted. We did not want to get some posh producer to make us sound like something we are not.”
The group had given Stasium the iPhone demos of them hacking through their new songs and when they got to the studio he had a few ideas. These were simple ideas to do with song arrangements and the like, always remembering that the theme of the project which, as noted, was to have some fun.
“When we got in the studio he just told us to play the songs for him. He had us set up in one room all together, old school, no walls between us, no overdubbing. It was like a band playing live. Four or five of the songs we actually cut in one take. It got so funny that if you made a mistake you had to pay twenty bucks to the other guys. It was a so enjoyable and we cut the record in five days here in Rochester and it was just a blast”, said Babiuk.
“I got this text from Little Steven, ‘You guys got a fuckin’ name for your band yet?’ I told him no, and he came back in a text and said, ‘you’re going to be called The Empty Hearts, I said so.’”
The good times shine through on all of these tracks. The opening ’90 Miles An Hour Down A Dead End Street’ showcases the entire band. Your ears prick up and immediately the thought is you know that sound. The singular talents of each rocker combine to give you a dozen tracks of pleasure that go from garage to pop to even some twang, as is the case with the Stones/Gram Parsons tinged ‘I Found You Again’. By the way there is no pedal steel on this track; it is some Telecaster wizardry from Easton, which is amazing when you hear it.
The track ‘Fill An Empty Heart’ sounds a bit like The Zombies, while ‘Time Of The Season’, was one of the first tracks written and where the band name came from.
“’Fill An Empty Heart’ was one of the first songs we wrote. We did not have a name for this band for a good five or six months. Then I got this text from Little Steven, ‘You guys got a fuckin’ name for your band yet?’. I told him no and he came back in a text and said, ‘you’re going to be called The Empty Hearts, I said so’. So I just copied the whole text and sent it to the other guys and told them I got it from Little Steven and if any of you guys want to argue with Silvio Dante you just be my guest, but I guess we are going to be called The Empty Hearts”, Babiuk said. The truth be told Van Zandt had not even heard that track so it was kind of spooky that he came up with that moniker.
The band was christened, the record was finished last February, and a deal was finally found to release it. As mentioned earlier, the band made sure no media releases used that dreaded “S” word, Supergroup. Lo and behold the first bit of press written about the band of course had to use it. Babiuk would prefer that people thought of The Empty Hearts as a group of mates who just happen to come from bands that have been around for a while.
Label them anyway you like, but the pedigree of the veterans gathered here cannot be doubted. Simply, this record is a sharp punchy up beat rocker and you should give it a whirl!
The Empty Hearts self-titled album is out now 429 Records via Universal Music Australia.
~Enjoy~
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