00:00 Hey, I'm Steve Conti and you're watching Life Minute TV.
00:02 Renowned guitarist, singer-songwriter Steve Conti has been in the New York music scene a long time,
00:16 from his gig as the lead guitarist for the Reform New York Dolls to collabs with everyone from Eric
00:22 Burden of the Animals to Billy Squire, even a stint as Paul Simon's rehearsal vocalist. He
00:28 gained global acclaim through his work with Japanese composer and artist Yoko Kanno doing
00:33 soundtracks for anime series. Now he's just released his second solo album, The Concrete
00:48 Jangle, 10 tracks of what he describes as 60s meets 80s power pops about life.
00:54 Conti plays a multitude of guitars and other instruments and brings a bunch of his famous
00:59 music friends in on the action too, like Ecstasy's Andy Partridge, who co-wrote and
01:04 produced the record, Marshall Crenshaw, Ultravox's Steve Lilliewhite, Sex Pistols' Glenn Matlock,
01:10 Mott the Hoople's Ian Hunter, Sopranos actor Michael Imperioli, even his brother in Tucson
01:16 sing backing vocals. This latest project is clearly a labor of love. This is a Life Minute
01:22 with Steve Conti. It's a jangly sort of power pop rock and soul record with a little psychedelia in
01:28 it. Gets to show my Beatles side, which has been in my blood since I started writing songs at 10
01:34 years old. And 10 tracks and five of them you had some help, right? Yes, I had some help with
01:41 my hero Andy Partridge of XTC, who was a genius songwriter. He's up there with, you know, my top
01:47 10, you know, Lennon McCartney, Jagger and Richards, Townsend, and you know, Andy's right up
01:52 there with them. So it was amazing getting to work with him. How did that come to be? Have you been
01:57 friends? We had some mutual friends. I had a guitar maker who built him a guitar as well.
02:04 And so that guitar maker gave him one of my records and he really liked it. And then I became
02:11 friends with Steve Lilliewhite, who was a big producer. He produced quite a few XTC records,
02:15 also produced Stones, U2, Dave Matthews. One day, Steve and I were chatting on Twitter and the
02:21 subject of XTC came up and he said, "Oh, you know, Andy's on Twitter. We should bring him into this
02:25 conversation." And next thing I know, Andy is tweeting with me. I was going through his town
02:32 on tour, Swindon, England. And he said, "I hear that you're coming to my town. I'll buy you lunch."
02:38 But I tell you why. Because he said, "You stole my dream gig." Guitar player in the New York Dolls.
02:44 So apparently he wanted to be in the New York Dolls when he was a youngster. And
02:47 I had no idea about that. All right. So 10 tracks. Tell us about your five tracks.
02:54 The tracks that I wrote without Andy? Yeah. Well, I really had to up my game because
02:58 writing with one of the greatest songwriters, living songwriters, I really honestly believe
03:04 that I had to bring my A game. So I picked some of my more melodious, beatily kind of things
03:10 that would go along with the five songs that Andy and I wrote. And actually when I played them for
03:14 Andy, I played Andy the whole record. He went, "Hey, I really like that song, 'Decomposing a
03:19 Song for You'." I have one of my titles. And he said, "How come I never heard that?" I said,
03:31 "Well, it was already done. I didn't bring it to him." Because when we started writing,
03:37 we wrote everything on Zoom. So because he was in England, I was in the Bronx. I would go to the
03:43 Zoom session with at least two or three ideas. We didn't want to just be sitting there on the
03:48 computer. Well, what do you want to do? Yeah, I brought a bunch of ideas and he had a bunch of
03:52 ideas and we combined them. But the five songs I wrote without him, I think stand out pretty good.
03:57 And you play a lot of instruments on it too, right? Not just the guitar.
04:01 Yeah, I play guitar. I play mandolin. I play keyboards. I play some pianos, some B3 organs,
04:09 melotrons, strings. I mean, it's amazing what you can do with digital recording equipment. I mean,
04:15 it's a very analog sounding record and it sounds like it could have been made in 1973. And I'm not
04:22 a real keyboard player, so I could do it and make mistakes and then fix it. But I had some proper
04:29 keyboard players to play with me. My friends, Rob Schwimmer, who played with Simon & Garfunkel.
04:34 Tons of other people. Andrew Hollander, who co-produced the album with me. Mark Stewart on
04:43 cello. Chris Anderson on trumpet. And I think pretty much all the vocals are me, except I have
04:50 my latest single called "We Like It" where I have about 60 singers on it. Yes, I saw that.
04:54 Including Ian Hunter and Marshall Crenshaw and Danko Jones and Glen Matlock from the Sex Pistols.
05:02 And Michael Imperioli. Michael Imperioli from the Sopranos, of course.
05:05 I just basically, you know, went through my phone book, you know, and I said,
05:18 "What could I get?" Because the song, it's about a politician making all these crazy promises
05:24 to people. And I wanted all kinds of different people. I just went through my book and I said,
05:28 "Who would be good for this?" And I got 60 people. And I'm doing a video now,
05:35 and quite a few of those people sent me clips for the video as well.
05:38 And what about the two videos that you have out now?
05:52 So I have "Girl With No Name," which is one of my songs. We filmed it right in Times Square,
05:58 a lot of it. And then I have this company, these guys in England, or Scotland rather, that
06:04 do all these crazy post-production graphics, digital stuff. And it's amazing. So I give them
06:10 the film and then they do their magic on it and put lyrics to it. And it's, you know,
06:15 floating across the screen. It's really cool. And then the first one, "Fourth of July," was
06:20 one of the Andy Partridge co-writes.
06:21 That was done with the same team of guys. Modern technology, you can film this stuff on green
06:41 screen and then put yourself anywhere you want. What drives you creatively?
06:46 Music. I'm one of those guys where I'm a singer, I'm a songwriter, and I'm a musician. A lot of
06:53 people are one or the other. I foolishly tried to master all three of those things. Songwriting,
06:59 you know, each one is a whole lifetime's worth of work. I set my goals high early on. So,
07:06 you know, I wanted to be a songwriter like Lennon and McCartney. I wanted to be a singer like Paul
07:11 Rogers or Rod Stewart. I wanted to be a guitar player like Jeff Beck or Jimi Hendrix. I came in
07:16 somewhere, you know, in between all that. So, yeah, not too many lead singer, lead guitar player,
07:24 songwriters that I can think of out there. Mark Knopfler, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton.
07:28 I don't really know who else.
07:30 So you always knew you wanted to do this?
07:37 Yes.
07:38 From a young age? How old were you?
07:41 I heard the Beatles "Revolver" when I was six, and I was just fascinated. But I wanted to be a
07:47 drummer, so I was a drummer first. I wanted to be Ringo. My brother was a guitar player, and
07:52 within a couple of years, I think, yeah, I was about 11, I picked up his guitar and I just
07:59 discovered I could write songs not even knowing what I was doing. So I said, "I better switch."
08:04 And then I became really good on guitar, and he switched to bass. And the two of us, he plays on
08:10 my whole record, John, my brother John. Yeah, he's an amazing bass player. Our first album we recorded
08:15 in the family living room when I was 11, he was 10. We both played drums and guitar. We switched
08:21 it off. We wrote all the songs. And I designed all the album covers. I would draw the cover art.
08:27 That's so cute.
08:27 Yeah, so lifelong obsession.
08:31 Did you ever have lessons?
08:32 Guitar lessons? Yeah, we both took guitar lessons from the same person. But in the beginning,
08:37 it was like reading the little Mary Had a Little Lamb out of the book. It was really boring. And
08:43 then one day I learned Johnny B. Goode solo from Chuck Berry, and that was it. And then went back
08:49 to another lesson out of a book again. And then 20 years later, I actually got to play with Chuck
08:56 Berry a whole night.
09:10 And your mom's a jazz singer?
09:11 My mom's a jazz singer, yes. She was in Mary County.
09:14 Right. So how did she feel about you guys going into this?
09:17 Oh, well, she used to talk about have something to fall back on. But I said, "But you didn't, mom."
09:25 Because she raised four kids, a single parent with a singing job. So I thought, "Well, it's doable.
09:34 I don't have any kids. I can get out there and do this." So I never gave it a second thought, really.
09:40 And then how did you end up with the... What happened from there?
09:49 Oh, well...
09:50 Into the Myrk Dolls.
09:52 Between ages 10 and when I came to the city. I played with a ton of bands. I toured
09:59 through the '80s and '90s. I had my own band, Company of Wolves, and we were signed to Mercury
10:04 Records, an original band of my songs, co-written with the singer Heath. I toured with Blood,
10:11 Sweat & Tears, the jazz rock band. I worked with all kinds of people, Billy Squire, Paul Simon.
10:17 That was a crazy gig. I was Paul Simon's stunt vocalist for rehearsals when Paul didn't want to
10:22 sing. It was me. Willie DeVille was another one from Mink DeVille. And then right after I played
10:28 with Willie, I got the call from David Johansson saying, "I'm putting the Dolls back together for
10:32 one show. Do you want to do this?" He said, "I got your name from... I asked a couple people,
10:38 and they all said, 'Don't call anyone else. Call Conti.'" So we met, we had lunch, and I didn't
10:46 even play no music, and he gave me the gig. - Oh, that's something. What was that like?
10:50 - The first gig, we played Royal Festival Hall in London, and it was Chrissy Hinde and Bob
11:00 Geldof and Shane McGowan and Mick Jones from The Clash, and everybody was knocking on the
11:05 dressing room door, just fawning over us. I didn't know what to expect. They were like,
11:11 "You really filled Johnny Thunder's shoes." I mean, I wasn't a Johnny Thunder's fan. He's the
11:18 original guitar player from The Dolls that died. But I guess I have the Italian nose, hair,
11:27 and... Not nose hair, but nose and hair. And I guess it looked right, and I had used similar
11:36 guitars in Amstead and kind of play hard if I have to, so it worked. It worked well.
11:42 - That's interesting that you weren't a fan, but...
11:45 - Yeah. I mean, to me, Johnny Thunder's was a combination of Chuck Berry and Keith Richards,
11:50 who were two of my favorites, too. And then I got into a lot of jazzier guys, kind of the West
11:57 Montgomery and John Schofield and Jeff Beck and John McLaughlin and all these kind of crazy
12:05 jazz fusion. And I went to school and I studied with real jazz pros. But then when you get out
12:15 and you get back into the real world, I've always loved writing songs and singing and
12:20 having my hair long. So I wasn't gonna put a suit on and go play jazz, but it's a commitment to
12:31 jazz. I went back to listening to what I grew up loving, Beatles, blues. J. Giles Band was one of
12:39 my favorites growing up, too. So I went back to all that early, really simple stuff and just
12:46 kind of peeled back all the education that I got. - Yeah, you sure got a lot. Very eclectic.
12:53 - I think it's my best album ever. Not just because of writing with Andy,
13:07 but because that elevated my writing, too.
13:22 - To hear more of this interview, visit our podcast, Life Minute TV on iTunes and all
13:27 streaming podcast platforms.
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