It was from the streets, shaking up the establishment, questioning authority, telling truths. That’s what the reggae guys do there’s a message in the lyrics, raising questions – what the punk bands did back then as well, and what the original rap guys were doing. But now, I was really getting excited about creating my own thing, and those guys had such a great work ethic – and the lyrics of the songs, like Stiv says on the cover of the first Lords of the New Church album, “The truth is destroyed of us all.” Little Steven’s Voice of America album was one of the most important albums to me, and still is – what he says in the lyrics is what I always wanted to do. “I had started writing songs again with the encouragement of Stiv, which I had given up on during the Hanoi years because Andy (McCoy, Hanoi Rocks guitarist) always said he had a better song, and I allowed the situation to get to that point. Ever since he heard that, Little Steven has been supporting me in my career. He flipped out and said, “Wow, what a great band – what are you guys doing?” I told him the sad story about how our drummer died and we had broken up. Stiv had showed Little Steven a Hanoi Rocks video, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” as Steven had never heard of us. Stiv really showed me the ropes there – God bless that guy, he was really there for me an important guy in my life and career. More signs started pointing me in this direction, especially when I moved to New York. For me, it was really interesting because I had no plans and I didn’t know what I was going to do. As we were recording it, Stiv realized the song was really about him leaving The Dead Boys. That’s the magical version of that song – it was written by Jimmy Zero, the Dead Boys’ guitarist. “I was still recovering from this devastating blow, and Stiv encouraged me, we made those demos – we did a demo of “It’s a Lie,” where it’s a duet with Stiv. Then, when we went to do the video in New York, that’s when I decided to move to New York and start all over. Steven was doing the Sun City project at the time, and that’s the first thing I did solo since Hanoi had broken up, and I’m still really proud to have been a part of that with all the people that were in it – Miles Davis to Pete Townsend, to Keith Richards to Ringo Starr, to Grandmaster Flash and Run DMC – all these great people. These two people were like the coolest people in rock to me – I didn’t need anybody else. “I moved in with Stiv eventually, in ’85, and Little Steven came over to produce the Lords of the New Church, and that’s when we made some demos, which he produced.
I wanted people to know Hanoi Rocks as it was. There would have been some new guys coming into the band, and it would not have been the same as Hanoi had been, and I didn’t want that. He actually encouraged me to keep going – my intention was to save the integrity of the Hanoi Rocks name. It was a very difficult time, but also with Stiv being there for me, it was such a help. Not only did Razzle die, but Sami Yaffa left the band. I was obviously still devastated from losing my best friend (Razzle) and having my band break up.
Hanoi was breaking up and I was still living in London in the Spring of ’85 – Stiv was really the only friend I had back then. “It was a very significant period of time.
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