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Steven James
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But not
much has been heard from Steven James since the ‘classic’ Dogs
line-up combusted in the mid-1990s. Frontman Tyla has carved a niche as a
solo artist (latest news is that he is now releasing albums as a
self-styled wandering gypsy minstrel under the pseudonym Gabriel
O’Keefe!), as well as recording and touring under the Dogs D’Amour name
with a selection of hired-guns. Meanwhile, drummer Bam Bam got married to
Share from Vixen, together forming the band ‘Bubble’. Jo Dog recorded the
‘Sun Down Yellow Moon’
album with Paul Black from LA Guns, and Darrell Bath (guitarist on the
‘More Unchartered Heights of Disgrace’ album) has kept himself very busy
with any number of projects, including a critically acclaimed solo album
and collaborating with Ian Hunter of Mott The Hoople fame. And then there
were the ‘Happy Ever After’ album and Monsters of Rock Tour ‘reunion’ gigs
with Tyla, Bam, Jo, but with the aforementioned Share (doing an excellent
job) on bass. So whatever happened to Steven James and where is he now?
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The Dogs D’Amour story has been documented elsewhere, so let’s fast forward to the early 1990’s and your brief side project with American guitarist Adam Bomb… “Adam’s manager was David Krebbs, who was also the Aerosmith manager and he got Adam a support slot with the Dogs in Europe. He ended up touring with us around Germany and Holland, and we got friendly. Whilst with the Dogs I’d written a lot of stuff that didn’t get used, so I thought of putting those songs out and I got a band with Adam, we got some good reviews but Adam is one of those love him or hate him type people – not necessarily you either love him or you hate him, I mean some days you’ll absolutely love him but then some days…..for example, he’s the only artist to ever be banned from the Geffen offices. When he was signed he was like a child prodigy really, fantastic player, he was a young kid and it was unbelievable, but they banned him from the offices.” So what happened with the Last Bandits? “We did a tour which included a gig at the Marquee club in London which got some great reviews, and we recorded in Hawaii for a couple of months, we did about four songs that I wrote on an album he put out. One was called ‘Down In a Hole’. There was no Last Bandits album though.” Then the Dogs D’Amour regrouped once more, to make the album ‘More Unchartered Heights of Disgrace’ … “Jo (former Dogs D’Amour guitarist) didn’t want to come back from America, so we got Darell from The Crybabys/Vibrators/Ian Hunter. We recorded at Haywards Heath, but were residential for six months at a place called Stanbridge, just outside Brighton. It was a big sandstone barn, everything set up constantly and a bar, music room. We were a really prolific band, we used to go and just rehearse and throw in two or three new songs every time. And we always recorded everything live, patch a few things up but keep the majority, including the vocals usually. So we did the album and video then went on tour for about three months.” ‘More Unchartered Heights of Disgrace’ was a great album but the band split up again not long after it was released. However I did hear a rumour that a follow up album had been recorded, and in the late 1990’s three songs, supposedly being the final recordings by that line-up were included on Tyla’s ‘Gothic’ solo album. Is there a ‘lost’ Dogs D’Amour album sitting in the vaults somewhere gathering dust?
“No.
Although Tyla has gone and done a load of solo stuff and some under the
Dogs name like ‘When Bastards Go to Hell’. |
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Were any of the songs on Tyla’s first solo albums ‘The Life and Times of a Ballad Monger’ or ‘Libertine’ actually unreleased Dogs D’Amour recordings? I heard some of these songs, such as ‘Bloody Mary’ were rehearsed and demoed by the Dogs at one time. “No, I don’t think so, I didn’t play on any of that stuff. The recordings which appeared on ‘Gothic’ were probably out-takes from ‘More Unchartered Heights of Disgrace, there was a load of stuff we did which wasn’t included on the album, ‘English Outlaw’ was another, that one was released as a b-side on one of the singles.” Back to the story, what happened after ‘More Unchartered Heights…’ ? |
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“Afterwards I got myself a flat in Brighton, and formed a band called ‘Mary Jane’ which eventually changed name to ‘Slyder’.” I was lucky to have seen this band play in a town centre pub when they undertook a UK tour shortly after the Dogs had had their day, circa 1994. It was a great rock n’ roll band, which included both Steven James (finally back on guitar, eight years after leaving The Gunslingers!) and Bam, in the line-up. A little funkier than the Dogs, but with a bar-room rock n’ roll vibe which brought to mind The Faces. “Yes that was it! Really amazing guitar riffy, funky….we were listening to the The Meters and James Brown, all sorts to begin with.”
“We were doing really well, Sony had come down to a gig and there was all sorts of deals on the table, we’d just done a little tour, had about 30 songs and were doing some great gigs…” So Steven James was all set with three albums worth of material, a possible major label deal, and importantly a great new band with a real ‘vibe’, who could cut it live, as anyone who was lucky enough to catch a gig will testify. So at this point you’re probably reading this trying to work out why you never heard of ‘em, right? Back to Mr James…. “…but it went a bit sour... all of a sudden the singer, Lee Evans (not the comedian!) just decided he didn’t want to do it anymore. I’ve never seen or heard from him again to this day. He just disappeared, went to Manchester back to his parents and I’ve never spoken to him. Tried to contact him a couple of times. That just finished it for me because I’d put so much effort into it. So I had a dormant period and got into woodworking, started making chairs. I just wanted to get away from the music business completely. But a friend of mine, Mark Chadwick from the band ‘The Levellers’ tried to get me out of this doldrum type state I was in and said ‘why don’t you come on tour with us?’ so I ended up doing all sorts of stuff with them.” A conversation with the driver of the tour bus about making guitars, and the influx of cheap imported chairs from the Far East led Steven to a logical conclusion.
“I
realised that you could turn £200 of wood into a four grand guitar if you
had the ability…and around the same time I’d seen the chairs as I’d been
making for sale in
Brighton
for quarter of what it would cost me to make them in this country. I
bought a book in Edinburgh by Andy Manson, who built the three neck guitar
for Led Zeppelin, and his advice was if you want to build guitars, just
build one, and another, and another. So as soon as I got back I built a
guitar in about two weeks. Then I built more and more, a nice flame top
Les Paul for the tour bus driver, half a dozen Telecasters, and a Jimmy
Page replica Les Paul for Mark Chadwick (Levellers frontman) which he
still plays to this day. He loves it, it’s his main guitar. Then a friend
of mine had just opened a guitar shop in Brighton and persuaded me to come in and work over the Christmas
period and that’s how I got into the retail side of things. I ended up
there for eight years! The same amount of time as I was with the Dogs!
Weird, innit? I’d ever thought of it like that before!” |
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For the first two years at the shop Steven was still building guitars but because of the workload a decision had to be made, and he chose to focus on repairs. Then a few years later it was time for a new challenge. “I wanted to do it for myself and I’d always thought of doing it in Middlesbrough, I thought ‘right I’m gonna go back up North’. So I sold my house, moved up here, got married, and opened the shop. I want to make the shop successful, just to prove that I can do it and that you can survive here without being an out of town ‘supermarket’. I absolutely hate these people that don’t have a shop, just a website and a warehouse. They just shift boxes, they don’t care about what they’re selling, can’t even set a guitar up, it’s just a commodity…..boxes go in, boxes go out” |
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Every guitar in the shop, new and used, is ‘set-up’ by Steven personally before going on sale and you can of course try before you buy, something you can’t do if you’re buying over the internet. Steven also repairs and modifies instruments on the premises, and I’m pleased to say that did an excellent (and swift) job of fitting a couple of new pickups to my own guitar. I also spotted a few rare and vintage instruments on the walls which he’s refurbished and made playable again. “One job that stands out is a Hofner violin bass I switched from right-handed to a left-handed for someone, the guy was just blown away when he saw it, and he wrote me a letter saying he thought it was amazing. I’ve also fixed smashed up guitars that people thought were beyond repair. It never ceases to amaze people when I put back together an instrument which they thought was written off.” So after the glory days of The Dogs D’Amour, then the disappointment of Slyder’s unfulfilled potential, things seem to be turning out well again? “I’m at a point in my life now where I’m probably the happiest I’ve ever been. I’m really happy doing what I’m doing. You’ve just got to get in there and make it happen.” More info at: http://www.myspace.com/steven_james_guitars
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-FIN- -Alex Eruptor ____________________________________________________________________________________
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As
former bass player with those debauched rhythm and boozers Dogs
D’Amour during their late 80s/early 90s heyday, he toured the
world, appeared on ‘Top of The Pops’ (
Bam
returned to America but fortunately another great drummer (Jenny) was
found to replace him. An Irish band called ‘The Mary Janes’ got in touch
with the bands legal representation, but this was resolved amicably as
Steven “didn’t really like the name anyway” and so ‘Mary Jane’
became ‘Slyder’. Around 30 songs were written and recorded (still
unreleased to this day although Steven does have the tapes), and despite
the musical climate of the time (Machine Head, Biohazard, and the
post-grunge fallout), Mary Jane/Slyder managed to pick up good reviews in
the mainstream and underground rock press. 