Mike Skill Interview
Doug Burke:
Mike Skill is a founding lead guitarist, and major songwriter for the garage rock, new wave, and power pop band The Romantics. The Romantics were formed in 1977 in Mike's hometown area of Detroit. The Romantics’ songs have become classic rock staples. Inspired by the 1960s British Invasion, Motown, R&B, and the legendary activist punk attack of Detroit-based MC5, The Romantics' first show opened for the new MC5 in 1977, and that led to an extensive worldwide touring schedule. The Romantics have appeared at some legendary venues in their heyday, like New York's CBGB, and Max's Kansas City, Boston's Rathskeller, and Cleveland's Agora. The Romantics singles What I Like About You, Talking In Your Sleep, Little White Lies, Tell It To Carrie, One In A Million, Test of Time, Mystified, and others have solidified their fan base around the dancing party-friendly event that The Romantics live shows grew into. Mike is here on Back Story Song to share with us stories from those days, and new work that he is releasing now.
Welcome to Backstory Song, I'm your host Doug Burke, and I am so thrilled to have one of the founding members and lead songwriters of the group, The Romantics, Mike Skill with me here. Mike, welcome to our show.
Mike Skill:
Hello Doug, how are you today? Now that we got that picture and sound quality in the right spot.
Doug Burke:
I'm thrilled to have you here, and I'm thrilled to have our technical difficulties worked out. Mike, one of the things I've been looking forward to in this interview is you have lived a life of history, of music, and rock and roll. In particular, you grew up in the Detroit music scene and were heavily influenced by bands like MC5 who are legendary. I think nominated five times for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, haven't made it yet, that band with one living member who we're going to talk about him in this episode. But, you grew up in that scene with James Jamerson, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame bass player, one of the first sidemen to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. And then, you traveled to New York to the whole hipster, punk, new wave scene there. And, this is all where you music came from. So, let's talk about that. When did you start writing songs, and why did you start writing songs? And, how did this melting pot of Detroit music influence affect your initial songwriting?
Mike Skill:
First of all to start off, I was born in Buffalo, New York, and my parents moved us to Florida in the '50s. I was very young, and my brother, and older brothers, we moved to Florida. My dad had a small house built there, two-bedroom or three-bedroom, and I was there for about five or six years, and we moved to Detroit. My brother had passed away. Somehow he got leukemia back in the '60s, 16 years old, and passed away. So it was like a big dream, a beautiful thing going from Buffalo with the snow and the gray and dark, then hitting Florida, and we're outside every day playing as kids, and then this dark thing. We decided for a change as the '60s were starting, and we went to Detroit. My mom's sister lived there, so we stayed with them, and got an apartment, then we moved into a house. And as this was going on, Motown is just getting up and running, you're hearing Shop Around by Smokey Robinson. I'm pre-teen, way pre-teen. Growing up I liked piano. I wanted to play piano. It wasn't in the cards at the time. Back then, there weren't all sorts of electronic pianos, and big pianos. The whole thing was different. Nowadays, you could pull up a piano on a screen. The whole Detroit thing, it was a small community of really strong ties to a very big work ethic, and music was everywhere, from jazz, blues, everything, so that was the outlet because 24 hours a day they're building cars up until the '70s. So, there's a big entertainment scene, people coming in from all over, from lounge shows, to jazz, to lounge singers, and a lot of soul groups. There were mostly soul bands at the time. You had the Motown thing, and then next thing you know it's The Animals, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, and that's when I started learning to play. Around '64, I wanted a guitar, 1964, and my parents took my brother and I, and we got guitars. I was going to get drums, I got a guitar, because I didn't want to lug the drums around. The guy goes, "You know you have to carry these around?" And, I go, "Well, maybe I better get a guitar."
Doug Burke:
That's how you switched to guitar, just because of the weight of the drums?
Mike Skill:
Yeah, luckily. Anyway, that's what did it. That music was really prominent, or just getting going in Detroit. There was a huge radio station over in Windsor, across the bridge, across the border, Windsor, Canada. That station was 50,000 watts. Not unlike the station that ZZ Top and people in California had Mexican channels that would play rhythm and blues, we were getting the rock and roll, the soul. They were playing everything from Aretha Franklin to James Brown, and then you got The Rolling Stones. Then you get The Animals and you get Bob Seger when he was first starting out, early Grand Funk called The Pack, Terry Knight, and The Pack. When Terry Knight was a DJ, he went lead sing with Terry Knight, and The Pack became Grand Funk Railroad. And, there was also The Lazy Eggs, which was ... Oh God, I'm not going to remember their names. There were guys playing at all these small bands that became big bands around Detroit. Then you had the MC5, Grand Funk Railroad, you had The Frost, you had SRC.
Doug Burke:
Were you going out to all the clubs and listening to these bands play live?
Mike Skill:
These bands played teen clubs at the time. They were the hippest bands because they were taking a little bit of the Motown thing, some were soul groups, and The Beatles thing, and some were taking the James Brown soul thing, and the Yardbirds thing. The MC5 were really like Yardbirds, Who, mixed with James Brown's show.
Doug Burke:
And, a real political-driven show? Very '60s political activists in their music, like the original.
Mike Skill:
Yeah. Wayne Kramer, who played on one of my songs '67 Riot. MC5 had moved from Detroit to Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor was this burgeoning, liberal, rebel, hippie counterculture, huge, so we had the best music, the scene was happening, the Grande Ballroom started. The Hideout was a club that all those bands played, and then they went from The Hideout to the Grande Ballroom. And, there were three Hideouts, East, West, and I think there was a North one, I think it was. Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels came out around '61, '62. They were playing in the casino, out near Ann Arbor.
Doug Burke:
In all the other interviews you didn't mention Mitch Ryder, but I think his influence was so profound on The Romantics sound. To me, I was surprised you hadn't mentioned Mitch Ryder in the other interviews that you've done. But, he's the Detroit Wheels, Mitch Ryder, and The Detroit Wheels, and you do Shake The Tail Feather, which he also does in his show.
Mike Skill:
Yeah. Shake Your Tail Feather was a Motown song, I think it was a Motown-
Doug Burke:
It was originally a Motown song, but the root tones, I think it was, originally-
Mike Skill:
Either Martha Reeves or someone else, I'll think of it. We did Little Latin Lupe Lu. We used that in our early set. Actually, What I Like About You, Little Latin Lupe Lu in the intro has, "Hey!" It has hey's in it.
Doug Burke:
Let's talk about it, since you brought it up. What I Like About You, the song has had 128 million plays on Spotify and still counting. It is obviously a huge song in your career. I think it is the lyrically most important use of the word "hey" in any rock and roll song. You say you were referencing other things with that "hey?"
Mike Skill:
When I wrote it, I came in with it and brought it to the rehearsal studio, and the drummer was there, and I got there early, and I never got there early. My mom had to drop me off, I didn't have a car at the time. The band was in its second year, I think.
Doug Burke:
And, you're still in Detroit? You're in Detroit, your mom's dropping you off in your car?
Mike Skill:
Yup. My car was gone. I forget what happened. But, I get dropped off, I got there early, the other two guys weren't there yet, Wally and Rich, and then I and Jimmy were there, and I showed them this idea, to set the mood. We always had our old storefronts. They might've been a hairdresser in the '50s, or they might've been a tool shop, and they were usually not more than 20 feet wide and 50 feet long. So, everyone would put foam up, and egg cartons up, and you close the door and you're in there all night. I was there the whole year, go there every night, and we'd jam and play, and write songs. We were writing and creating. Other bands would use it to put songs together to play bars or whatever. It was all dark. You walk in and it's all black, a couch on one end, the drums and amps stretched out, with lights so it looks like a stage. So, we actually felt like we were creating a show, and that's what we were doing. We had a little space before that was a barbershop, and it was all mirrors, so we could play and look in the mirrors, and see how we were doing. That was earlier. What I Like About You was created in this one space, long space, the lights were on. I come in, the spa lights are down, Jimmy's in there. I tell him, "I got this idea." He got on drums, and I played the idea. When you write a song, sometimes it's mumbo jumbo. You just sing rhythms with your voice, and that's what he did. He's throwing words in here and there, so he's coming up with a verse. Everyone in the band at the time, Romantics, everyone sang lead vocal. I sang a couple, three songs in the set, three, four-song. Wally, Rich, Jimmy, we all sang songs, so it wasn't like, "You're the lead singer. You're the only guy. You're the lead singer, Jimmy." It was a full-on thing. We wanted it to be interesting live, so we all did it. I always loved the three-chord song, Gloria, all the Van Morrison stuff is close to three-chord songs. Like you said, Mitch Ryder, did those simple songs. Little Latin Lupe Lu had the "hey's", and Over Under Sideways Down from the Yardbirds, "hey!" So, it was just in the back of my head, and I started doing "heys" in a part, and we actually did it in. "Hey, uh-huh," I'm just jamming, and Jimmy's singing.
Doug Burke:
And, no other words? Those’s the whole words that you're working with at this point. You've got the melody, and the "hey", and the "uh-huh" so far.
Mike Skill:
Yeah, and the beat. That's the whole thing. It's the guitar chords, my simple backbeat, and the way I strum. My first song I learned on drums was probably a Mitch Ryder song. That's the only 45 I had.
Doug Burke:
Devil With a Blue Dress?
Mike Skill:
That's right. No, Jenny Takes A Ride.
Doug Burke:
Jenny, take a ride with me?
Mike Skill:
So, I learned that. I was just messing around with it on pans on the floor. I had a snare drum. I joined the Boy Scouts because they had drums. I wanted drums to play, and I was in there for a month, and I got a snare drum. I brought it home and messed around with that. Then they wanted it back, so I gave it back, and I quit the Boy Scouts. I went on one camp out, I think.
Doug Burke:
And, they didn't let you bring your snare drum on the campout, so that was the end of that?
Mike Skill:
It was about music, so right then you're talking I was 13, 14. That was probably just before I thought about the guitar. I wasn't even thinking guitar. So, the song just happened. It fell out of Jimmy. It fell out of me. We recorded it three years later, got signed three years later. We were on the road for three years, back and forth to New York. He was still singing two verses that were mumbo jumbo. He was jamming, so he probably had a set thing, but you're off way, there's a girl in the corner, he'd sing that. She's wearing a mini dress, she's dancing like this, she's moving like that, that kind of thing. He finished it off.
Doug Burke:
You just worked it out on stage live as part of your performance over three years of touring? Because you guys toured relentlessly in this period, right?
Mike Skill:
New York all the time, and Boston, and Philly.
Doug Burke:
Playing some legendary clubs like the Rathskeller and Max's Kansas City?
Mike Skill:
I'm getting off track. Usually, I follow a...
Doug Burke:
An arc?
Mike Skill:
Anyway, all this music that came out in Detroit, let's put it that way. All the Motown stuff gave The Romantics its melody, it's a groove, it’s beat. The energy and attitude of the city, the dirty, grimy... At that time, Detroit was just 24 hours a day building cars. I don't think there were many women working there, and I think black folks were probably doing more menial jobs there at the time. That's the way it was, and it's not right and, that's why the riots happened because a lot of that stuff going on in Detroit in 1967. But, the music and the entertainment of the city were integral, and it was part of what the city was made of.
Doug Burke:
And, it was more multicultural I get the sense? Motown crossed over to the white crowd, and the white crowd crossed over into soul.
Mike Skill:
And, the working class. The working-class people were coming from everywhere to work in Detroit, the largest city for all kinds, everywhere, all kinds of nationalities coming into Detroit.
Doug Burke:
The melody's classic and I think your music at this point is three chords.
Mike Skill:
Most of the time.
Doug Burke:
But, no one plays three chords the way The Romantics play the three chords. I read this somewhere. Yeah, you can talk about a song being three chords, but the way that you guys do three chords is really unique in the best way possible.
Mike Skill:
That's from listening to Pete Townsend play three chords and listening to all the other stuff that came before, Eddie Cochran. Eddie Cochran was three chords. Buddy Holly was three chords. Ricky Nelson was three or four chords.
Doug Burke:
But, they sound great when you put them together - the way you put them together.
Mike Skill:
Yeah. Well, that's this song right here. That was Jimmy's left hand and his foot, but I'm still doing that with guys. I have a guy come in, a drummer, Brad Elvis who works with us now. He does a lot of my stuff. I do the solo stuff. He knows exactly what beats I need to hear when I'm playing a rhythm. Drummers I've used, they know it's got to the backbeat, and it's usually got a swing to it like Ringo. It's not just straight robotic. It's got a lust to it.
Doug Burke:
A lust, I love that. I never heard that before, but the backbeat has a lust to it.
Mike Skill:
Yeah, it does. It draws you in. It excites you, and it amplifies your sentences.
Doug Burke:
What I Like About You is a lustful statement. When did that come about? You're still doing this Vocalese on stage with Jimmy.
Mike Skill:
Jimmy's singing it. He's got What I Like About You. He has a title, I have the music.
Doug Burke:
And, you're playing it off the audience? A lot of your songs do talk about the guy chasing the girl, and this is in that realm, a true classic of the guy chasing the girl. It's What I Like About You and all the things he likes about her. When did it all come together around the lyrics, so that you're ready to cut it? Did it morph as you're on the road and you're experimenting with stuff? I ask this question to every songwriter. When do you know a song is done? And, this is one that you did it, you recorded it, and it's less than three minutes of hit music.
Mike Skill:
You have to remember, our packaging, our formula was... One formula that was coming up before us and that we were coming out in front of was all this progressive music. All the songs were long, drawn-out guitar solos.
Doug Burke:
Yes. Kansas, Styx, all that FM radio stuff that took over in the late '70s.
Mike Skill:
It was in Humble Pie where it was rhythm and blues. It was in Small Faces with and without Rod Stewart. It'd become this long drawn-out thing. Led Zeppelin, I grew up on this stuff. I learned how to play Led Zeppelin and all that stuff in 1968. Our heart, our soul was in the stuff before that, the psychedelic stuff coming out, Pink Floyd, the first two albums, The Move which became Yellow.
Doug Burke:
All the influences?
Mike Skill:
Yeah. The Pretty Things, Rolling Stones.
Doug Burke:
The Flamin' Groupies you mentioned once. I had to look them up.
Mike Skill:
Groovies.
Doug Burke:
The Flamin' Groovies.
Mike Skill:
They were from San Francisco. That's another story that goes with one of the songs, so there's this whole seeing the mod scene happen, and the Beatlemania scene happened, then the Bruce scene was happening, then the mod scene was happening, then it became the psychedelic scene. This was all in England, and it was spreading around the world. It was on the West Coast in California. That's where we were. We were The Kinks and The Beatles. It was a simple song, simple melody, simple subject matter, and just like Rick Nelson and Buddy Holly we were taking... All these bands were doing these long stretched-out enormous songs. Yes, they had four albums once, four records. MC5 was coming out, and Iggy and the Stooges. No one in the US was ready for that, and they still aren't. They won't even put the MC5 in the Hall of Fame. They were too radical. Detroit was animalistic in a lot of ways.
Doug Burke:
You guys were this response to that progressive rock thing. I think The Ramones in New York and Blondie also had this two-and-a-half-minute song, heavily structured thing. And, The Sex Pistols were doing it in England at the same time, and The Clash was doing it in England. And, you were part of this Detroit crowd that moved to New York, and tapped into it, and got this song, What I Like About You.
Mike Skill:
Well, we were totally Detroit. We're totally about Detroit, but we were pulling in all this stuff. We were all feeling this same thing at the same time in LA, in New York, in London, and in cities around the US, Detroit being one of them. It was a change in shorter songs, melodies, banging your songs out even with the punk thing. And, there's a lot of bands that didn't go farther than a few records that were great bands out of Boston. I think there was a band The Third Rail and The Real Kids out of Boston. I'd have to go back and look at my list.
Doug Burke:
Obviously, The Cars made it to the big time out of that scene.
Mike Skill:
Right, but there's a ton of bands coming out of LA and Philly, The Nerves, who only reached one album, and then it was Paul Collins and The Beat and all that.
Doug Burke:
God, you guys had your ears open to everything. Interesting.
Mike Skill:
Yeah, and then San Francisco, you had Crime, and you had X, and all that stuff was happening. What opened my eyes that we could do it too was the whole idea of shorter songs, the punk scene, and then The Jam, the way they looked with their mod look again in 1977, '78, and then The Flamin' Groovies put out, it looked like a Beatles record. It sounds like a Beatles record. Dave Edmunds produced it.
Doug Burke:
But, you guys went with the red leather-look, or the pink leather, and I read that you did that because they were throwing bottles and other stuff at you, and it was easier to clean. Is there any truth to that, or it was just you like the leather look, or it was some combination of the two?
Mike Skill:
Not quite, but it was close. That's a matter of four or five years apart. We started with resale shop clothes from Salvation Army. The stuff was skinny, lapels, skinny ties, small collared shirts, peg leg pants, and Beatles boot. Those things, by the time we finished the show, were all tattered, and wet, and falling apart because they were the 1950s, 1960s. They were iridescent sits. They'd shine different colors, and they'd fall apart.
Doug Burke:
Well, you'd break a sweat in your show back then, and you still do, right? It's still a workout.
Mike Skill:
We got into the music so much that just playing we were drenched. We were drenched, and the clothes were falling apart, and we needed something stronger, so we went to vinyl. Around '77, 1978, we had someone that we knew, and they sold red vinyl, white vinyl, black vinyl, black vinyl with white polka dots with jackets. We were totally in a Roxy Music kind of thing. Roxy Music had a great look, Bryan Ferry, bowling, all the glitter, so we weren't afraid in the clubs to come out in vinyl, black vinyl, pink vinyl, red vinyl, and we did it. It was just mainly for durability. Then when we got signed, we had some money, so we said, "Let's do something like Motown, get suits made, but let's do something that's more rock," so it was vinyl and leather. We had a girl that we knew who sewed leather. She did stuff for the Funkadelic, George Clinton and the folks that worked with him. So, we got signed, we decided on suits like Motown, short jackets, the same cut because in the '60s you could get leather jackets in different colors, and we just took it to the next length. You could get green, and red, and blue. Walking around Detroit, you'd wear a blue or red leather suit coat in the '60s, but people were really into clothes back then in the '60s, walking down the street just going shopping back then. We took that mantle, and that's what we flew with. We flew with the leather. But, unfortunately, the rebel in me, the loudmouth, and the guy with the spark and the attitude, I didn't want to do that every record. I also wanted that punk raw attitude in there too. I didn't want it to be just clean and sharp. It had to have that torn shirt here and there, beat-up boots, wrong hair, messed up hair.
Doug Burke:
You never did the Mohawk, or the piercing of the cheek, or anything funky?
Mike Skill:
No. We didn't get that far, but we had the energy and the attitude of the MC5.
Doug Burke:
You definitely had the energy and the attitude. You guys broke a sweat onstage, and I imagine you still do in your shows.
Mike Skill:
Well, when you come up with easy songs like What I Like About You, it's easy to move around the stage, and do things, and perform.
Doug Burke:
And, get the audience fired up which is what happens at your shows and what did happen then, on fire. Do you remember, what were the best places where the crowd just lit up? Do you remember?
Mike Skill:
Everywhere was really good.
Doug Burke:
Australia loved you people. You guys were huge in Australia.
Mike Skill:
Number one, What I Like About You and the record, Japan, and France, Germany, Holland. Holland, What I Like About You was climbing the charts before we did the video. They called us up to the video. Canada, it went to number one. It was working. It wasn't in the charts, though. In Billboard charts, it went to 47, 48. It was the third single off the first record. We spent three years on the road, going everywhere. We got signed by Nat Weiss, Emperor Records, a new label. It was a custom label, an independent label of Epic Portrait which is a custom label of Epic TBS, so we were a custom of a custom, an independent of and independent. You couldn't get more independent. They latched onto the three songs, Tell it to Carrie, When I Look In Your Eyes, and What I Like About You, and they all reached the top 100. What I Like About You is number 47 and started falling off the charts. The management went and talked to the label. They came back and told us they wanted us to do another record, and we just put out the first record. We toured the United States with the first record. We toured with Cheap Trick. We played with ZZ Top somewhere and Ted Nugent in El Paso, Texas. We played intermittent shows with Talking Heads and whoever was on at the time. We did The Police tour just before our record came out. Police were playing small, 100 seat clubs like we were. We were racing to Toronto, down the Queen’s highway. They got stopped, we didn't. We're laughing.
Doug Burke:
You're waving at Sting as he's pulled over by a cop and Andy Summer? That's so funny.
Mike Skill:
Pretty much.
Doug Burke:
You did this first record. You're having this big success, so the label's putting this big pressure on you to give them more of the same perhaps? Get out another record right away.
Mike Skill:
You need new songs. Wait a minute. We haven't conquered the world yet. We haven't gone to London. We haven't gone to England, but we followed what the management wanted us to do. And, we had spent three, four years writing the song for the first record. Now we had to come up... Okay, the first Romantics record came out in '80, the first album of the '80s, I guess.
Doug Burke:
It was. It was released on January 4, 1980, in the UK, and it was the first album released in the decade.
Mike Skill:
I was just reminded of that. I forgot fully about that. It came out, and it was slowly dipping off the charts. I don't know why they didn't put out a fourth song, or we should have jumped on the tour right to Europe, right to England because it was picking up on the scene there. We're playing the Whiskey a Go-Go, and we got a call that the record is climbing the charts in Europe, in Holland. They're going to come over and film us for a video, so two guys came over with one camera, cool dudes. They came over to Whiskey a Go-Go. First time playing the Whiskey which is big, big time for us. They came into our soundcheck. They wanted to do What I Like About You and, I think When I Look In Your Eyes maybe. We wanted to look like big faces, right on the mic. We wanted to look a little bit like a raw version of Hard Day's Night, more attitude, so they filmed close.
Mike Skill:
They filmed from 20 feet away and then way out in the audience, and they did it in 20 minutes, and they're done. It didn't cost anything. Years later, we're spending $40 thousand on videos or more, definitely more, and that was it. That took off, and it was the perfect vibe for the song being black and white. We wanted it black and white-ish, red, black, and white, red shirts.
Doug Burke:
Did that become the MTV video?
Mike Skill:
Yeah because they were still doing videos in Europe. They still had -
Doug Burke:
And, MTV needed you badly and was just launching at the time?
Mike Skill:
It wasn't even there yet, yep. It was going to Europe. Videos going to Europe. It was in Holland, and London, and Australia, and Japan. All those countries still had TV shows where they played videos. It took off. It went to number one in those countries, and it came back to us. Next thing you know, I think it was the next year, the end of the year, MTV started, so then it jumped on that. That's what really kicked it into the vibe. It wasn't a number one hit in the US. It wasn't number one on Billboard. Like My Sharona, it didn't have magazines playing hundreds of thousands of dollars to print My Sharona by The Knack on Billboard, all these newspapers everywhere.
Doug Burke:
It didn't have the big label promotion behind it?
Mike Skill:
We didn't have that. We were on the road, on the road, on the road. We love The Knack, that's not the point. The point is we were a working-class band. That's what the point is.
Doug Burke:
With great music, with a great hook, and a great song, at least one great song, more than that, and a great act to watch. The energy of these shows is legendary. You had to wear leather suits because you wore them out. You sweated through the other ones.
Mike Skill:
There was no band like The 5, like James Brown, it was a show, and we were still into a show. A lot of bands, it wasn't really about that too much. We still had that Motown... We wanted to make sure a different person was always singing. We wanted to make sure we were moving around on stage and not greeting but involving with the audience, bring them into it, and it had to be songs that were short, and they could go home, and walk out into the parking lot, they could sing the song, they could remember the chorus. Now, how hard is that? You see bands now with five guys and no one sings, no one sings backup. I don't want to give anyone any ideas because that's a great formula.
Doug Burke:
They've been copying you for years.
Mike Skill:
No, no, no. It's just it was our formula.
Doug Burke:
The second record, you take a hiatus of sorts. You leave the band. They cut a record that...
Mike Skill:
I was fired.
Doug Burke:
You were fired, and then they bring you back. You co-write Talking in Your Sleep.
Mike Skill:
Well, first we were in that Whiskey a Go-Go thing, and then we were either touring England, London, or we were going to Australia. We went to Australia. We had just recorded the second record, National Breakout. I had to come up with ideas for songs, new songs, that I didn't even know what it was going to be. And, none of us did when we worked together, but usually, I would come up with a guitar part, a thing, an idea, and say, "Here." We'd gel it, and we'd have an album. It was actually, I think, traumatic having to go back I the studio and come up with brand new stuff. It wasn't conducive to really good vibes. It was in the whole organization, and then we went to Australia. The songs were brand new. We rehearsed for three or four weeks, went to Australia, and I wasn't playing it exactly like I should have. I thought I could go on and just wing it. It wasn't the best. It was okay. The show was good, came back, and there was a bunch of attitudes. I always had a way to rub the management about loyalties, and they didn't care for that too much, so I was gone. They did a record that didn't have the sound of The Romantics because it didn't have my guitar parts, my guitar sound, and the same type of ideas. It didn't show up, so I wasn't really playing. I was hearing a lot of new music coming out of London, it was new romantic bands, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Ultravox was around before that, but all these new dance-sounding bands. Production got more emphasis. The production of music jumped 100% because in the punk days, it was just raw. Get in the studio, bang it out, it was raw, the rawer the better. Now, you're coming back to a whole different thing, so I got a call that they wanted me to come back. They were either going to get me back or get someone to write songs. They were going to hire somebody to write songs, a songwriter to work with the group. So, they called me, and I agreed and went back in the band. After their third record which was without me, the fourth record was In Heat. That's the one.
Doug Burke:
Tell me about Talking In Your Sleep. Let's talk about this. Was this about a person in your life?
Mike Skill:
No.
Doug Burke:
No? Okay. What I Like About You was about every girl that was in the audience when you were making the song up on the road, it sounds like.
Mike Skill:
Jimmy finalized the lyrics for What I Like About You, so whoever he was dreaming of, and then Talking In Your Sleep is whoever he was singing about there. First of all, National Breakout went out to number 75 or something. It didn't get received that great. It had a more live sound. We went into the studio and wanted it to be more live and rawer, but everything was changing a little bit. There were great songs on there, but we were playing them faster, we were opening shows for The Ramones. We're banging out songs harder and faster, so the songs were written a little bit quicker on the beat, and the production was a little different, so it didn't really kick. Anyway, I'm fired, gone, and I'm asked to come back. We did rehearsals, I came back in, we rehearsed for a month. We went on the road with a bunch of new songs. Talking In Your Sleep was nowhere, but Rock You Up was there, maybe a couple of others, not too many others, two or three others. Then we had to start writing again. We had to start writing for the In Heat record, and I had this jam, the bass part. Jimmy had the groove, I had the bass part. We jammed with it, and jammed with it, and jammed with it. It didn't really go anywhere. We would do, it's called a one, four, five. We'd do just a straight bluesy thing, but the bass part was something, and the groove was something. We did pre-production for In Heat. We had all the songs. We went in the studio, and we recorded all the songs, all the backtracks, all the vocals, and the producer comes in and says, "We need one more song," and we did have a song. He goes, "Mike, what about that song you had back in Detroit." We're in the studio. We actually came up with Talking In Your Sleep in the studio.
Doug Burke:
Did you finish the song in the studio?
Mike Skill:
Well, no. We actually took my bass part and the drum part, and we messed around with it. The producer, being the genius that he was, was really good with music, and songwriting, and harmonies. He'd help us make sure we were finishing a melody off the correct way, on the right note, and taking the third out in the vocal, or adding a fifth where you have ghost notes instead of singing a note. You can hear the note, but it's not there. So, he got the keyboard, wrote it there, put it in his control room, and me and Peter Solley, Jimmy were running through stuff. We were talking together close, we're huddled. What about these chords? What about this chord? What about that chord? Pete's doing us on the piano, and he's going like that. I'm like, "What about this? Turn around?" It's a thing, and in the meantime, Jimmy I think he's thinking of words and titles. Then we finally get the arrangement. Then we agreed on a melody for the chorus. First, it was... That's all we had from the piano and the guitar. Someone goes, "I hear the secrets that you keep when you're talking in your sleep." Someone said it, I don't know who said it. We're all throwing stuff around back and forth, and it came out, "I hear the secrets that you keep when you're talking in your sleep."
Doug Burke:
Was there an instantaneous feeling like, "That's it! That's the title of the song, that's the whole thing of the song?"
Mike Skill:
Yeah, exactly.
Doug Burke:
What's that feeling like? I'm always looking for the words to describe that feeling on this show.
Mike Skill:
For me, I'm not thinking that far ahead. I'm still going, "Okay, what's going to come next?" I'm thinking, "Okay, so how are the verses going to go?" I'm more, "That's down, now let's see."
Doug Burke:
That part's done, what's next?
Mike Skill:
How are we going to get from the beginning to that?
Doug Burke:
Okay, interesting. Your mind is working on the bigger picture of the whole song, but you know that piece is locked down, and that's great.
Mike Skill:
I'm not relaxing, and the keyboard's still there, and I'm always still thinking of intros to it too. You get the groove, you jam on it, you play it, and then probably a melody came somewhere, so that's where the verse came from. "When you close your eyes and you go to sleep." That's Jimmy, Jimmy working his mind, and I think he took those few things there, probably might have even had a sketch. I don't know how far along he was on the verse, and I think he was going to sing it. Jimmy was going to sing it. I'm sure he had a first few lines. We were done that night, that day. We went home and went to the hotel. We're in Florida, North Miami Beach, the old 1950s hotels. The Sahara with a camel out front, palm trees, a desert thing, all those '50s hotels right on the water. When you get up at 9:00 in the morning, one room would have all the bagels and cream cheese or whatever, coffee, toast, or whatever. We'd go have that at 9:00, and then we'd go to the studio at 11:00, a few hours of pool. So, that's what we did the next day after Talking In Your Sleep. He had finished up all the lyrics. We laid down the track. We probably did that track that day, so it was probably one day for the whole thing to come together the backtrack, but we needed a hook. I'm spot on for hooks. I can come up with a guitar hook and all that. I think Coz was trying something, and I'm always like, "I can do it on guitar." The Who has Substitute. That's my kind of rhythm, like What I Like About You, like Can't Explain, and The Hollies where they have the control string in intro of a song, or The Beatles where they have these intros. That's where I'm good at on guitar. I can hook to the melody and devise it where it's different than melody, but it's an intro. I started doing that kind of thing with Talking In Your Sleep. It was me and Coz, but that's my forte is those little hooks.
Doug Burke:
It's magical. So, when you're done with the song do you know it's a hit?
Mike Skill:
No, we're not thinking that. We're thinking, "Well, it was a good day in the studio. We got songs done. We're finished with the record," but we're leaving, and the guy that sweeps up, and straightens up, and cleans up the chords and everything in the studio, this black guy that's been there for years, been there for three years and helps out the studio, anything you need, and he goes, "That songs a hit, and I know the hits, and I've called out a lot of hits." He goes, "That's your hit." We go, "Oh, okay. Okay, whatever. Thank you. Thanks for the accolade."
Doug Burke:
He knew it.
Mike Skill:
Yeah, he knew it. We were too close to it. You're too close to it. Your mind is still in the making of the record, doing the work for the ingredients of the soup.
Doug Burke:
Talking In Your Sleep has had 56 million Spotify plays to date and counting.
Mike Skill:
I don't like hearing that stuff because now when I go write...
Doug Burke:
You happen to have written some great songs, Mike. That's why you're on the show.
Mike Skill:
I don't think about it. When I'm doing an interview, and they bring stuff up like that, it automatically goes to that side where I go, "I'm not opening that door."
Doug Burke:
So, let me ask you a different question. Have you ever been in a karaoke bar where they've played either of those two songs?
Mike Skill:
Oh, yeah.
Doug Burke:
Have you ever gotten up and sung?
Mike Skill:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
You have sung to your karaoke bar?
Mike Skill:
Sure.
Doug Burke:
Your own songs? What's that feeling like?
Mike Skill:
We're vibing, and having drinks, having fun.
Doug Burke:
And, they have your song on the karaoke list, and someone punches your number, and you get up?
Mike Skill:
And, you think you're smart enough to go up there and do it.
Doug Burke:
You probably know the words. That's great. I would have loved to have seen that. I asked that question because I did see Mac Davis sing Baby Baby Hooked On Me in a karaoke bar once, and I was like, "I've got to ask songwriters if that's ever happened to them." Do you remember where you were the first time you heard a Romantics song on the radio?
Mike Skill:
Either we were on the road and The Police, we were on that tour, and we were driving or something. Dire Straights were just coming out, and Police were out, and then Romantics came on the radio or something.
Doug Burke:
And, that's the first time you heard it on the radio?
Mike Skill:
Yeah, upstate New York, or on the way to New York, or Boston, or on the way to Toronto or something, somewhere.
Doug Burke:
Did you keep driving or did you pull over?
Mike Skill:
Oh no, we pulled over for sure. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Didn't want to lose the signal in upstate New York on a HAM radio or something.
Mike Skill:
I usually set that stuff aside, and I'm back, and my feet firmly on the ground, and my head's in the right spot, and then I write. I'm still the kind of writer when I wrote in the first early days of Romantics. I was unsure of things when we went in and did the second record because everyone's telling you, "It sounds great. You sound great. Great, great, great." My head was not... I didn't know what was good and what wasn't good at the time, so what was important was in my head again.
Doug Burke:
In some respects, it was good to have a hiatus and a break to re-energize your creative muse?
Mike Skill:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
One of the other hit songs you wrote was One In A Million. Can we talk about this one?
Mike Skill:
We were having some business meeting at the manager's condo. The music came to my mind for One In A Million. The whole thing was in my head, and I just kept it in my head until I got home, and worked it out, and then brought it to the studio.
Doug Burke:
Do you ever forget those melodies when they come to you?
Mike Skill:
Yeah, not now though. I got my phone.
Doug Burke:
One In A Million, this is a real group co-write. It sounds like a lot of the songs were real group co-writes. You guys really had a real collaborative relationship.
Mike Skill:
That was the only song that me and Jimmy sat down, and we actually came up together, so that's interesting right there.
Doug Burke:
On One In A Million, it's credited to Wally, Jimmy, and George, and yourself.
Mike Skill:
Well, yeah. Sometimes you give credit to people who really didn't take part. Management's thinking it'd be nice. Give a chunk to him too.
Doug Burke:
I spent the weekend listening to your new stuff which we're going to talk about and the full Romantics repertoire that's out there that I could find, and you guys never stopped writing about girls. Every song is about a boy chasing a girl. Was this an obsession for you guys as a group, or was it by design? All we're going to write about is write about girls. That's what the radio wants to hear is guys writing about girls, and that's what we do.
Mike Skill:
21 and Over is a song about being 21 and over and not being able to get in a club.
Doug Burke:
Okay.
Mike Skill:
I don't know if he alludes to a girl being in the club.
Doug Burke:
Well, why do you want to get in the club? You want to get in the club to meet the girls, right? It's always in the song.
Mike Skill:
National Breakout, I think it's about radio and press. The title came from Billboard National Breakout, and I think they took an aversion to that because National breakout was a chart, and if you were a national breakout, you were cooking. I think they took the aversion that we called the album National Breakout, like we were going to be on the national breakout chart, and the song was called a national breakout.
Doug Burke:
Yeah, I was just looking at Be My Everything, Make It Last, Mystified.
Mike Skill:
Take Me Out Of The Rain probably ended up being about a girl.
Doug Burke:
You guys liked the girls, I guess. Was this an inspiration or was it by design?
Mike Skill:
Well, like I said, when you're six, seven, eight years old you hear Buddy Holly or whatever it was, and you hear Buddy Holly, you hear Elvis. We grew up really young, but we still heard those titles, and that stuff seeped in later to when we're teens. That's the way it was. Motown was all about that, so that's what we were writing about. Punk bands were writing about something else sometimes. That's another thing that I would talk about when I was the upstart. Come on, we need to get maybe a little more political and a little more what's going on, but we tried to stay away from it. We might hit on that, but it didn't work.
Doug Burke:
Did you try it, and it didn't work, tried to go in a different direction, and it didn't work?
Mike Skill:
Well, I would try that. My development wasn't completely there like it is now for coming up with lyrics, melody, titles, intros. Now I can do the whole song, and I can write anything I want, '67 Riot, and It Could Be Better Than This, another song about coming together.
Doug Burke:
This is one of my things on this show is that great songwriters like yourself don't stop writing great songs unless something gets in the way in their life. It's a skill. It's this unique thing. I call it the invisible language, this marriage of sound and words that combine into a song that evokes an emotion of some sort in a listener. That's my definition of a song. Not everybody has the capability of writing this invisible language, this combination of words and sounds. You have sent me two great songs, that like a great songwriter, you're capable of writing, and we're going to share them with our audience if that's okay. The backstory on them, the first one I want to talk about is Not My Business.
Mike Skill:
Not My Business, the title came up in a conversation I was having with Cyril Jordan. He was talking about something, and I go, "That's not my business," and then I logged it right in my head. I'm like, "That's my title for something." We had been talking about getting together, exchanging ideas for songs before that, so I logged that away. I was going to see The Flamin' Groovies, and that happened backstage in the middle of a conversation. I said that, and I kept the title in my head. It's funny how these things happen. It's very unexplainable how sometimes it's very eerie. It comes out of nowhere. It's really how things fit together when it shouldn't fit together. There's this other thing happening, and then the song, and the melody, okay that fits, and then the groove fits, and then I'm coming up with a word here, and a word there. Next thing you know I've got a line, a second line pops in, and then I've got a whole verse. I get a verse, and I say, "Well, I'm keeping ongoing." Just keep ongoing. I always tell myself to keep on writing. Don't pick up the pen, don't stop. Write what keeps coming to your head, and then I take it, and go to the next phase. I might not get a chorus. I might get a build-up to a chorus. It's something, something in there, and I've got it, and then I'm editing. On '67 Riot, I really had to edit that. On Not My Business, that took a lot because I put myself in a position. I made the verse a long verse, like Jagger in Get Off My Cloud. I put myself in a position to do that, so I had to work on it a lot to build from one idea to the next idea, the first subject matter, to the next what's happening, and why this is happening, and what's going to happen to her or it. Well, it's going to go bad for her because she never cared before, and she's in a fix now. She's been hanging out with everybody, and now she wants to get right with things, but really still off track and not agreeing she has a problem. I don't want to get into what it's about.
Doug Burke:
It's up to you. If you want to talk about that, we can.
Mike Skill:
It took time to make everything fit together. The verses were long. The Not My Business part came up first. I wanted it to have the same movement as a Stones or a Who thing. It's got that '70s Small Faces, Who thing, the way the melody goes with the chords.
Doug Burke:
The guitar work on this is stunning, and it has so many layers. The guitar break in the song is super cool. It's this fuzz tone, but then you layered some really clean, pristine notes through the fuzz tone guitar on top of it, and then that fades out, and the fuzz tone comes back. Then at the very end you break it all apart, and you can hear all the components of your guitar work individually as you fade out. I was like, "This song is so cool from a guitar listener's standpoint." I love it.
Mike Skill:
The Stones, Rod Stewart, all those guys back then, they used to do that in the studio. The tape would keep rolling, they'd keep playing, and I wanted to have that kind of flavor where it just bled off the tape, bled at the end. The thing is, like you're saying, is my sound has that tinny guitar sound from the telly, another layer underneath that is a more Fender. One's more of a box tone with the bell tones, and then I'll run into a Fender or a Marshall to give it a little bit of that, but more of an attack, the kick. And, I'll double up the clean part, and then the other part I'll just all out, and the rhythm's got to be more direct, and freer, more rebellious on the long one. I didn't want my solo in it. I could have written a solo there. I knew that what I had written would have fit perfectly for the song, but then the song would have sounded like all me. So, I talked to my friend from Detroit, Ricky Rat. He played with the Dead Boys. He was on the Dead Boys tour a few years ago, and he did two tours with them, and then they broke up, unfortunately. He's just a straight raw rocker, like a Johnny Thunders, but not Johnny Thunders. He's himself. He plays a group in Detroit. I'll think of the name. It's Trash Brats, and they were a Detroit raw, dirtier version of New York Dolls.
Doug Burke:
Ricky Rat and the Trash Brats, doesn't that sound like a band you want to see in a dive bar in Detroit? I would love to be there.
Mike Skill:
He's got great music. He's a great writer, great songwriter. I knew he was the right guy for this. Called him up, he came to the studio, and it laid it down in three takes. I'd go, "This is what we need. I don't want to tell you what to play. Do what you got, and put it on there." He did it, and it fit perfectly. I would have done something different, and I didn't want that.
Doug Burke:
And, you had Brad Elvis on the drums with The Elvis Brothers and also The Romantics, so you had a nice backbeat on this, the drums and the power chords to open the song. They draw you in, a great song, Not My Business. Now, this is a Mike Skill song that we're releasing or has been released, except I hear... If you were to pitch this song to any contemporary band out there to play, who would you like to cover this song?
Mike Skill:
It reminds me of that Nicky Hopkins and early Rod Stewart era mixed with bootleg Rolling Stones or something.
Doug Burke:
I was driving around listening to this today, and I was like, "Oh my god, I can hear The Jonas Brothers doing this."
Mike Skill:
Oh, wow. Interesting.
Doug Burke:
I was like, "Oh, I wonder how Mike would react to that. If he would hate it, cut the interview off if I suggested that."
Mike Skill:
Hey, that's your opinion. That's not my cup of tea.
Doug Burke:
I was like, "This could be really cool." Not My Business with The Jonas Brothers. This is something you could picture them saying, and they have multiple guitars. I can see them doing this.
Mike Skill:
I can hear Black Crowes doing it.
Doug Burke:
Oh, yeah.
Mike Skill:
There might be a way that Social Distortion could do it in another form.
Doug Burke:
So, let's talk about '67 Riot. This feels to me like something I wish I had heard a lot of from you and perhaps The Romantics. The Clash did Sandinista!, the political record, in that era. The theme of this is the Detroit '67 riots which I wasn't as aware of as I should have been, but the theme of what caused those really haven’t changed much. Yesterday, we had the George Floyd trial come back with a guilty verdict against the policeman, Derek Chauvin. Maybe we've made some progress in that regard in that issue. Tell me about the '67 riots in Detroit, and what that meant to you, and why you did this song. You brought Wayne Kramer, who is a founding member of MC5 on the record with you. For those who don't know MC5, it's this legendary band that did a lot of politically activist songs, so this is right up his alley.
Mike Skill:
Yeah, they were at the Democratic Convention in 1967 when the whole world was watching, when the riots happened, when they were beating heads in.
Doug Burke:
That was '68, and I read today for the first time, they were playing. Neil Young was supposed to show up and play, and he no-showed. Everybody no-showed, so the MC5 played for supposedly eight hours?
Mike Skill:
They played for a while, and then the cops showed up, and that was it. I think Jefferson Airplane was supposed to play.
Doug Burke:
Yeah, a whole bunch of acts was supposed to show up, and the cops showed up, and riots broke out, so they were the only act that actually played at the Democratic Convention outdoors.
Mike Skill:
Outdoors at Grant Park, I think it was. Mayor Daley was going to knuckle down on everybody. I remember watching it on TV.
Doug Burke:
And, you remember the '67 riots as well. So, tell everybody what happened in the '67 riots in Detroit.
Mike Skill:
Detroit is a union town. Detroit's a working-class town. Like I said before, 24 hours a day building cars back then. They had their problems with racism, and they had their problems with inequities. It's not right for me to lay it out because it doesn't happen to me, until I grew my hair long. Then I knew what it was like to see the Big Four come up to you. Big Four was a unit with four caps in a Dodge, unmarked car. The shotgun was standing up between the four cops, and they would come up, and they could frisk you. They bugged us. Our hair was to our shoulders. We were 16 or 17, and they stopped us. We were just punk kids with a band who played guitars. We didn't know how to find pot yet. We didn't know.
Doug Burke:
You didn't have anything to be busted for?
Mike Skill:
We were afraid of that stuff. We were still afraid of it. Back then it wasn't around. You had to go to a college, or you had to go I don't know where, so that's as close as we got to any cops, police bugging us. Detroit had a lot of this stuff going on because in '62, I think it was, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King came to Detroit, and they marched down Woodward. It was 100 thousand people, and it was mostly black folks, 99% probably. It freaked out everybody in the east side of Detroit, everywhere in Detroit. I just recall the attitude. People started moving out of Detroit. That's when it really started. Then it really snowballed after the riot, moving out of Detroit. I was in a working-class neighborhood, and maybe five blocks over was a black neighborhood. We all played baseball. We all ran into each other, and it was all very warm and welcoming. People from all cultures in our neighborhood and different religions, Muslims, everything, all kinds. Anyway, so by '67 there was a lot of heat going on, as everyone knows. I don't have to talk about that. Families were celebrating soldiers coming home from Vietnam, and it was called the blind pigs. They called them a blind pig in Detroit. They were having their fun and everything. It was 4:00 in the morning, and cops came in. One thing led to another, and I think 44 patrons or people were shot and killed in the end of it all. Next day, that's when the riot happened, but previously to that, a week before at a motel about a mile away, there were some teens. They were at a motel, white girls, black guys hanging out. They didn't like that. Cops came in, and there were some shootings there as well. It's a continuous thing that happened then that's still happening today.
Doug Burke:
It's hard for a story like that not to affect you as a songwriter, so this has been hanging in your memory?
Mike Skill:
Yeah. I was outraged at the time because I was getting political around that time, '67, with MC5, and the war in Vietnam, and ban the bomb and everything and peace. Everyone was for peace and marching. We were out missing school. We would go down to the university in downtown Detroit, Wayne State. Anyway, it was something. That whole thing is part of me still now. I still have that rolling around in my head. The Beatles, John Lennon was part of my growing up politically, and Angela Davis, and that whole kind of thing, so I'm right in there. Now I'm more I do my music, and that's what I'm about. I didn't go into the political side.
Doug Burke:
But, this song is a political song, so you're in it now, and you're writing about this memory.
Mike Skill:
I grew up, and we had the Bush administration, and you had Reagan in there, and this whole thing all the way up. I'm frustrated and thinking, "There was a silence." People weren't protesting anything in the '90s and 2000s. There was no awareness of anything, and I'm thinking, "This stuff's going on." And, I'm thinking, "I've got to pay tribute to the riots in Detroit by the title, '67 Riot." Over time, I just built that whole thing. I had this groove for the guitar. I think I came up with the idea in the '90s, and it seeped over into 2006, and that's when I started writing lyrics. I finished it up around 2010, and then I recorded it at my other little studio with friends. I look back on it now, and I think, "Wow, those lyrics are good." The lyrics laid out really well. The second part, the bridge part came out of nowhere. The guitar part that builds, and builds, and builds, that came out of nowhere. Then I just laid down a Stratocaster through an echo, delay, and the groove I was singing permanent funkadelic on the one. Then you go up and back. That whole part just came out of nowhere. Sometimes it just happens. But, I always wanted to write something for that title, and it came out the way I wanted it to.
Doug Burke:
So, what made you invite your friend Wayne Kramer from MC5?
Mike Skill:
Chuck Alkazian up at Pearl Sound in Detroit, I gave him all these tracks that I'd done five, six, seven, eight years ago. I met Chuck, and he said, "Great, send me some music." I sent tapes to him. They were already mixed, and he just remixed them. He goes, "You like Wayne Kramer?" I go, "Yeah, I'd like to ask him in." "Just call him!" I go, "No, I don't know man. He wouldn't want to do that." It's one of those things. He's one of your idols. He's one of the guys I listened to when I was 17 years old playing guitar, him and Fred Smith, Ron Asheton, all these guys. It took me a while. I took a few weeks, and I called him from here in Portland. I was recording with Chuck in Detroit. He said, "Send me the track over, and I'll check it out, and sounds good." I said, "Wayne, do what you do on guitar," and I gave it to him and sent it. He laid down this great track, sent it back. I didn't do anything to it. I didn't even turn it down.
Doug Burke:
You didn't do anything to it.
Mike Skill:
I didn't want to touch it. I wasn't going to go, "Oh, we don't want that part. Maybe we'll take out that part." I didn't do that, I just said, "Chuck, we just got to go with it and leave it the way it is." We just turned it up and left it.
Doug Burke:
Nice. So, I would love to hear Wayne, you, and Tom Morello do this at the Kick Out The James concert that they do or one of Wayne's activist concerts that he does with Tom Morello. I think if you took Tom Morello and the two of you, oh my god, it would just...
Mike Skill:
That would be fun.
Doug Burke:
That'd be insane, top of the charts.
Mike Skill:
I jumped on stage with Wayne in Portland here. MC5 played, and I jumped on Sister Anne I think it was by Angela Davis. The crowd went for it, and it was good.
Doug Burke:
Awesome. I would have loved to have been there. Hey Mike Skill, I don't know how to wrap this up. I've been so thrilled to get to know you and get to know your music. It's such an honor to have you on the show. Is there anything you want to promote or plug, or say to our audience?
Mike Skill:
I guess this is the thing that's coming from my heart, the stuff that I'm doing now. With Romantics, everybody used to sing. It barrelled down to two guys singing, and then my voice is back out, so these are songs I came up with, lyrics. The first thing I did was Dark Side of Your Love which is really another good song. It's a minor key song. You could look that up. Dark Side of Your Love, Carrie Got Married, Not My Business, My Bad Pretty is another good one. I released those songs last year.
Doug Burke:
They're all out on Spotify. We can get them on Spotify?
Mike Skill:
And, MikeSkill.com. I've got a new one coming up. We just did We Got Your Rock'n Roll which is a song... Like I said, Detroit in the '70s was a vacuum. There was nothing there, no clubs. No one was going down there. Bands would come to town and go out of town. No one would go downtown, just the artists and musicians were down there, so I was writing about this vacuum, and all we had was the music, the rock and roll. We Got Your Rock'n Roll comes from that time. That's all I had, so that's We Got Your Rock'n Roll, and a new one's coming out next month, So Soul Alone, a little bit of a Steve Cropper. Steve Cropper meets Velvet Underground I would say. It's got saxophone with horns on it. That's a cool one that's coming up.
Doug Burke:
Are we going to see a Mike Skill tour?
Mike Skill:
When I can. I've done a couple of benefits. I've done some benefit for Sylvain Sylvain and then I did the Detroit Music Awards, but I haven't put out for myself any money or toured.
Doug Burke:
I know, but we've had COVID, so hopefully, we're coming out of that. Is it possible The Romantics will be back out there on tour again in the future sometimes?
Mike Skill:
When we can pull it off safely and without getting sick. I've done both vaccinations, so my family and I are on our way for that. We just want to do what we're supposed to do, and not get sick, and hopefully, everything comes out all right for the country and everybody.
Doug Burke:
Well, I got to thank you. I got to thank our listeners. I got to thank my DJ Wyatt Schmidt in the sound booth for making everything sound great. Thank you, Wyatt. We're so grateful to have you on the team. You can listen to DJ Wyatt Schmidt on his EDM recordings on Twitch. I encourage everybody to follow him. MC Owens and Lauren in our social media group, thank you for all your help. Thank you to all our followers on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. We're very active there posting these type of recordings and things, highlights from these shows out there for you to follow. Thank you everybody for listening in. Thank you, Mike Skill
