Jerry: We found some key players but they didn’t want to stay with the band. They had other things they’d rather do. As a whole me, Gordy, and Adam started writing and messing around in the practice room and noticed that style of music was going into a totally different direction so we formed Fat Sam.

How does Fat Sam differ from Toast? Jerry: Toast is more of your synthetic produced studio work and Fat Sam is just your raw rock and roll.

I looked at your website and said it you performed with Joan Jett and Jason Bonham.

Jerry: Yes, I have.

In bands with them?

Jerry: Shared the same stage with them.

You guys just recently put out your self-titled CD.

Jerry: Pretty much. It’s close to being out. June 5 will be the releasing of the single “In Your Face”.

When is the CD itself going to be released?

Jerry: Probably in about two months I’d say.

Tell me a little bit about it. How many songs are on it and how long did it take to get it done?

Jerry: Ten songs are on it. We’ve been writing since May of last year. We recorded it in October. It’s a bi-coastal recording. We pretty much finished up right at the first of the year with the recording. I’d say it took us about seven or eight months to put the album together. Now it’s just a matter of grouping together our financial production process.

Did you guys have to get together to do it or did you pretty much do it over the Internet?

Jerry: As far as recording the album? Pretty much we did the vocals out here on the East coast. Most of the musical work was done in Orange county at Sonik Wire Studios.

So you guys flew back and forth then.

Jerry: Correct with Stacey Heydon producing the album.

I know some people, when they put an album together, they email each other shit. I think that’s kind of cool how the Internet is so helpful for that kind of shit.

Jerry: It is.

Have you guys been doing any shows?

Jerry: We just recently played the Norva. We’re backing up Stuck Mojo on June 12. We’re also playing a classic bike event out in Rockahock. That’s in Lanexa, Virginia. It’s a big show out there.

Oh, one of those bike get together things like Sturgis.

Jerry: Yeah, pretty much.

So Stacey Heydon played with David Bowie and Iggy Pop.

Jerry: That’s true.

What got him interested in being a producer?

Jerry: Money.

Yeah, I guess money will do it.

Gordy: Angela, this is Gordy.

Hi Gordy.

Gordy: You’re the one who interviewed me before with Toast.

Yes, dear. I sure did. It’s been a while.

Gordy: Stacey produced that album. Stacey played with David Bowie and Iggy Pop. He also produced the band Sheriff that had a number one hit and he used to be in Viriginia. That’s where we hooked up with him. Now he’s down in L.A. He’s also doing the Goo Goo Dolls right now I think. He’s been a producer for a good while. After he got out of Iggy Pop and all that he just went into producing. He’s from Toronto, Canada. He worked at Good Concepts Studios and did a lot of that stuff. I figured I’d give you the background on him. If you Google Stacey Heydon, you’ll find all sorts of articles with him on it and then you’ll see us on it.

Adam: I’m the one you’ve been emailing back and forth.

Yeah, we’ve been playing email tag. So AC/DC knows all about you guys.

Adam: Yeah, Gordy just recently had a stand in part in the movie with Brian. So they did that thing and we slipped them a disc and I guess they enjoyed it. Gordy shot him an email and asked him about the movie and they flung us on their site so we decided we would go on ahead and use that. That kind of PR helps.

Yeah, use whatever promotion you can babe.

Adam: Exactly.

It says on your website that you guys made a television appearance on ESPN. What was that all about?

Adam: It was a long range golf shootout and they used one of our tracks for the background guitar licks they usually put in there. There were no vocals that they used. You’ve got to use that rock and roll background track for something kind of happening like those X Sports type things. It was a long range golfing tournament. It was a long range shootout. Something that was supposed to have balls. These guys are like “hey, I can whack this ball 300 yards.” So they needed some beefy music behind it. They used it for that. It was pretty cool.

How did they contact you for that?

Adam: That was something that Stacey actually hooked up for us. We really didn’t contact anyone. He just hooked them up. He said “okay fellows, you’re supposed to be on ESPN on this day on this show at this time.” We thought that was cool.

Damn, that guy rocks.

Adam: Yeah, he gets around. He knows some folks so that’s pretty cool.

He’s definitely going to get you guys around. So what kind of plans do you have after the album is released?

Adam: We’re just going to try to promote it and try to get it out there as much as possible. We’ve been doing as much Internet marketing as we can. We’re trying to utilize MySpace.com and Download.com and MP3.com. There’s an Australian MP3.com.au we’re plugged into. Actually there’s another one, I think it’s called Hollywood.com I believe. It’s a recent one so I’m not really that clear on it and I haven’t checked it in a little bit but we’re on a bunch of those music download sites. We’re giving some of the music out for free for people to download. We’re trying to put our link on there so people will buy the CD. Unfortunately it’s not finished yet but we’ve had a couple of people purchase the disc. We’ve sent out what we’ve got that hasn’t been mastered all the way. We just give them a rain check to send them a disc as soon as we get it done. We’ve got them all listed and everything is pretty well organized.

Just give them something to tide them over with until they get the real deal.

Adam: Yeah, exactly.

I think MySpace.com is absolutely awesome. It definitely gets the word out there. Who did a lot of the songwriting? Was that pretty much a collaboration of everybody?

Adam: Yeah, it actually was. We’ll just sit down and come up with a riff or something and then we’ll just start jamming on that. We’ll roll with that for a while and then we’ll just try to collaborate and put together a nice change to flow into the next part. We’ll just take our time. We’re not in a rush but they seem to come together fairly quick. We have that glue that keeps us together. We just keep writing. Everybody’s hungry and we’re all on the same page so that’s really cool.

Are there any songs on there that are really stand out favorites that you’d like to play live?

Adam: I like them all but I think the ones that stand out to me the best would probably be “In Your Face”, the one that we’re going to release and probably the one that has not been mastered yet which is a song called “Wild Eyes”. Those are probably my two favorite. I like them all but I like my babies. They’re like all of our babies. We’re four proud parents.

I can see four guys standing there like “we’re four proud daddies.”

Adam: It seems like that shit sometimes. It’s like being married to my wife and then four other fucking guys. They can be a pain in the ass sometimes but I’ll stick it out. If you don’t argue then someone’s fucking lying. They’re holding shit back and they’re lying so that’s healthy.

I don’t think people can get on together without getting into an argument occasionally.

Adam: If people get together and they don’t argue or don’t have a disagreement then somebody’s lying and holding back. That’s when you have a problem and it’s not going to be pretty.

No it won’t be. Do you guys have any touring plans?

Adam: We’re working on it.

So maybe this summer you might get on some festivals?

Adam: Yeah, exactly. That’s why we’re trying to get this thing out before summer gets really cooking. We’re getting ready to send it out to a shitload of radio stations and these radio stations have summer festivals and they’ll have the other bands that they’re playing currently come in and do the festivals. We did some last summer with Toast. We just started writing another style of music and things changed and the whole agenda basically changed. We’re going to try to hop back on that same agenda that we had but it’s a whole different genre of music basically.

So the Toast thing is put to rest.

Adam: Yeah, pretty much. We’re all enjoying this much better than that other stuff.

Sometimes you can get a little bit bored with one thing and if you change it up a little bit it gets a little more exciting.

Adam: Yeah, it felt like that was a stepping stone to get us all into the same room together to start this new thing. I think this thing is probably more real than the other so here we are.

Indeed. Have people heard some of the stuff and have you gotten a good response?

Adam: Yeah, we’ve had a lot of good responses. Some of the remarks you can check out on the MySpace site. It’s www.myspace.com/fatsamrocks. It’s just like the website www.fatsamrocks.com. You can read some of the responses that we’ve had on there. Luckily they haven’t been negative.

Yeah, sometimes you do get that lucky. You don’t get people telling you it sucks.

Adam: Yeah, that would be kind of fucked up when people up there go “man, you guys suck shit!” We have a choice to either put that on there or take it off. We’ll probably put the negatives on there at least if it was that negative.

That way everyone gets a fair and balanced view as Fox News would put it. Any other thoughts or comments?

Adam: You can holler at Mr. Jim Mann over here.

Hi Jim.

Jim: I’m not high. I don’t do that.

Never?

Jim: Yeah, back in the day.

So you used to do it once upon a time.

Jim: Once upon a time I didn’t know what I was doing.

What got you interested in the Fat Sam project?

Jim: I showed up for work detail and I was the only white guy out there. They threw a bass in my hand and said this was my new job. They wouldn’t let me go until I learned how to play. I’m Jerry’s brother. The older one.

Just out of curiosity, what got you into playing bass? I’m always curious about why people choose that instrument.

Jim: A frustrated guitar player.

Someone told me they thought bass was a dull instrument.

Jim: It’s got just a few notes less than what a guitar can do and it’s all a challenge. And I’m rising to the occasion.

There’s nothing you would consider boring about it.

Jim: There’s nothing boring about it. You have to have a bass in a rock and roll band. You just do.

Yeah, you do. I was covering a show the other night and they didn’t have a bass player. They just had two guitars and drums.

Jim: Two guitars and a drum?

Yeah, I thought that must sound really weird.

Adam: What did you think of our CD?

I liked it. I like that old school rock and roll sound. I absolutely dug on that shit. I was wondering if you guys were going to do a video for “In Your Face”.

Adam: Yeah, we’re kind of in the works of doing one right now. We shot some footage of the Norva. It’s one of the premier rock clubs here in our area. We’re working on syncing that up with the album version of the song instead of taking the live audio. It’s not the greatest of quality.

They always make that sound really cool in the studio. When will the video be out?