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BiTS: You just recently signed a new contract with a new management company or something
like that?
RJ: Yes, we have. We just signed up with them. They’re out of Florida and they’re going to be
booking us and we’re excited about it. I’m telling you in such a short time, I’m sure Jenny told
you, in February, I came there to play on her record and that’s
what it was about. John Wooler brought us together. Since Point
Blank went under and Virgin and that’s been, I don’t know, since
2000, something like that. And we signed with Point Blank in 96
and John Wooler and I, who was the president of Point Blank,
we’ve done productions for other artists where I play guitar and
then helped arrange and stuff like that since then. So he tells me
I got this singer from the DC area, because we had just done Will
James and he’s from the UK and we’d just done a production with
him which was a lot of fun. And so a couple of months later, he
says I’ve got Jenny Langer, and we go in. We go in the studio and
I meet her for the first time. The same thing, she didn’t know it
was going to be basically the original Boneshaker band playing for her, which was myself, Jon
Gilutin, Sergio Gonzales and Nate Brown. That was the original Boneshaker studio band and we
went in to work with her and she, just the minute I heard her sing, I was thinking, what a talent.
What an amazing talent, but we did these four songs for her record and she realised that there
was no way it could be on her record in the same way with the stuff she’d already done. But in
the background all that going on, once again, Bernard Fowler from The Rolling Stones was
supposed to be the new singer of The Boneshakers.
BiTS: Oh, okay.
RJ: And he came to sing a duet. John had him come in to sing a duet and John told me Bernard
is in this time. Bernard is really going to do The Boneshakers. That has been going on over eight
years, at various times that Bernard was going to be the new singer and it just never worked out
because of that thing. You know, he gets that call from Mick and those guys and he’s got to go out
and do that. But every time, I remember when we were doing, I don’t know if you know Paul
Rose, he’s I think from Glasgow. Great guitar player. I did a project with him through John. I
played rhythm guitar on a record and Sweet Pea sang and it was great. It was fun. We came over
to the UK and did some stuff. But same thing again, Bernard said, Bernard came by the session
to get some backgrounds and he said, The Stones are never going out again and so he’s going to
be the singer. He’s going to be the singer of The Boneshakers, and it didn’t happen [laughs].
BiTS: Did you enjoy your trip to the UK?
RJ: Of course. I’ve been there many times with Was (Not Was). The first time we went there was
in the 80s. We played the Wire Club. We did all that stuff. It was fantastic and we did a tour. We
did a couple of tours there. I mean, it was the one place where people got us. United States is still
all about ‘Walk the Dinosaur’. But in the UK, people knew everything. They knew all of our music,
‘Shadow and Jimmy’ and the stuff we did. What I call the beat music stuff, ‘Earth To Doris’, “Hello
Dad… I’m In Jail”. They knew everything and that was amazing for us to go there and be
appreciated in such a way.
BiTS: You certainly are appreciated. Look after yourself. Have a good day.
RJ: You too. Take care.
BiTS: Bye. Bye.