The band released its new album, 45 West 55th, on Friday, October 18, on the band’s WildRoots Records label. Let’s begin with some background information from the press release and then we will progress to the interview.
The band formed in the winter of 1979 in New York City. Bassist and vocalist Stephen Dees embarked on a taxi ride to 45 West 55th Street to meet legendary Santana drummer and future Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member Michael Shrieve to consider forming a band. After spending the afternoon listening to and discussing their musical ideas, they went to SIR Studios and jammed for several hours. By the end of the day, they decided to form the group that would become Novo Combo.
An exhaustive quest to complete the band lineup ensued, spanning two cities and numerous auditions in pursuit of the perfect lineup. Dees, residing in Miami, crossed paths with guitarist/vocalist Jack Griffith, adding a crucial piece to the puzzle. Returning to New York City, a myriad of guitarists paraded their talents, yet the missing element eluded them. Finally, a promising guitarist surfaced by the name of Pete Hewlett. Beyond his guitar talent, his vocal prowess rendered him an impeccable match for the ensemble. With the addition of Hewlett, the Novo Combo lineup was complete.
In the early 1980s, Novo Combo embodied a lively fusion of rock and pop, creating catchy, danceable tunes that captured the spirit of the era with their infectious melodies, punchy guitar riffs, and dynamic rhythms that captured the era’s essence. Their music was both radio-friendly and artistically spirited, blending catchy melodic hooks with a contemporary edge.
Their self-titled debut album produced several fun hits such as “Up Periscope” and “Tattoo,” each of which charted on the Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart in 1981 and 1982, respectively, along with the album track “City Bound E Train.” In 1981, The Detroit News honoured them as Best New Band of the Year, with “Up Periscope” winning Best Single of the Year. The Boston Globe also named them Band of the Year, and The Record (a Rolling Stone publication) ranked their 1981 debut album as the third best release of that year.
With the release in 1982 of their sophomore album, Animation Generation, the video of the same name climbed to #5 on MTV’s Video Countdown. Tracks like “Too Long Gone,” “Welcome Innervision,” and “Slow Fade” continued to spotlight their musical prowess, underscoring their artistic depth and range.
Novo Combo shared stages with legends such as Cheap Trick and Greg Lake and had the prestigious opportunity to open for The Who. Their lively performance at the esteemed Montreux Jazz Festival further cemented their status as a dynamic force in the music scene during that period.
The new album project came about following the passing of Dees’ close friend and former bandmate, drummer Eddie Zyne, who performed with Dees in the Hall and Oates band in the 1970s. As Dees was sorting through his vast stash of old tapes looking for recordings that featured his friend, he came across numerous Novo Combo demos.
“I started listening and thought, wow, that sounds great. In fact, maybe this demo version of that song is even better than what made it onto the record,” Dees recalls.
The tapes also included “some really good songs” that didn’t appear on Novo Combo’s debut. Dees says, “It reminded me of what a great band we were. Then, I got the idea that in our own humble way we could do an anthology-style release like the Beatles did.”
Dees went through all the tapes and made a huge list of “everything we had in the can.” Novo Combo was always a “very democratic band,” so all four members had input on the songs that made it on to 45 West 55th.
With all four band members now scattered across the U.S., they collaborated on “45 West 55th” via “a lot of Dropbox,” Dees says, citing the digital file-sharing service. Work on the collection included both production duties and fresh musical performances to augment the tracks in some instances. Bryan Bassett, a co-founding member of Wild Cherry and current guitarist with Foghat, worked with Dees on mastering the production.
The 45 West 55th project also includes two videos. While foraging through the old tapes, Dees discovered “one of those big, huge videotapes from back in the day.” The label contained the titles of two Novo Combo songs: “City Bound E Train” and the reggae-flavoured “Long Road.” Dees had vague recollections of an Italian TV crew filming the band performing those songs during a sound check before a club show.
When Dees was asked about his fondest memories with Novo Combo, he didn’t hesitate to cite the band’s earliest days, before their record deal and before MTV. “There were live gigs that were really good, where we were really nailing it”, he says, citing such clubs and venues as the Ritz, the Savoy, Trax, and the Palladium. “We were in New York playing around and auditioning for labels. There was a period for about a year when we were the hot band in New York City and on any given night we’d be playing, Mick Jagger, Pete Townsend, Steve Winwood, Kiss, and Aerosmith would be there to see us. We had that time, you know. It was exciting.”
Our interview is with Jack Griffith (Vocal, Guitar) — Hailing from West Virginia. In addition to penning songs for Warner Chappell, Fiona, and Revo Bop. Currently, he has his own commercial business studio, where he records bands and produces TV commercials. We started with a quick comment about how the whole scene in the US is, shall we say, very political at the moment. It is just impossible to avoid. What we wanted to touch on, although we don’t want to go into politics, is how the US political scene seems obsessed with political endorsements in a way that we (thankfully) just don’t see here.
Jack: I think we have a lot of media who look for it and a lot of social engineering going on. They use prominent people and their names to project a certain message. It’s media propaganda for their side and the arts get dragged in. They divide us on purpose, and it’s a shame. But I do feel people are more aware of media control and the same is true in the music industry, same game.
Given that Novo Combo has straddled two eras of music, the pre-internet and streaming vinyl/CD eras, and now the streaming eras, has that changed their approach to making music at all?
Jack: Yes and No. I remember how McCartney waited as long as he could before he would allow The Beatles music to appear on iTunes because an album used to tell a story and the sequence of songs was so important, a part of the art form. You didn’t want to break that up because of people streaming one track. But the age has changed and it is about one song now. Everybody will dip into the one or two songs they may like, so that aspect of the art of the album has largely gone now. All the greatest material from the sixties embraced the album. But we are clearly in the digital age now, and you have to follow it.
It has also changed how we see the charts and what charts actually matter. The days of knowing who is number one, or even who is number one, have gone. So, how do experienced artists like Jack Griffith view changing fortunes? What is their bar for an album release?
Jack: A hard question. We today just wanted to make a record again. We just wanted to make music again; I wasn’t interested much in all the marketing side, although I knew it was happening. The problem is that with streaming, artists don’t make the money with the record sales that they used to. But today I feel it is about selling those seats live and that is why older acts like the Stones are still out there on the road so heavy. If you are selling $450 a seat, that is where we are today. For us, it is more of a do it yourself situation; we do the work, get it out and house the project. There are more independent artists today than before, and they control their projects and music more.
There are some bands, perhaps Kiss notably, who refused to make new music because of this very situation. They would play live and tour but refused to make music for the sake of it. It makes us feel a bit sad!
Jack: Actually, as an artist, I largely agree with them. But they have success already and had their run at the top. Paul Stanley was on the road with an R&B band last year and I had the pleasure of meeting both Gene and Paul—smart guys!
We noted in the press release that Novo Combo opened for The Who at one point. That must have been a great experience?
Jack: The band did that one, but I wasn’t in the band at that point. I did hang with Pete Townshend around the time of his first album and he is a wonderful man. I have met some great musicians over the years. I used to hang out with Mick Jagger in the studio all the time too, and we spent some time together. With The Stones, decent though their last album was, “Voodoo Lounge” was their greatest in my opinion, I use that record all the time as a bar in the studio as the quality is wonderful.
The Stones, of course, straddle so many decades. We knew Novo Combo from a single called “Too Long Gone,” which came from an eighties album, a track with a solid eighties commercial rock feel. When the new album came out, it noted how the album was modern with a ‘nod to nostalgia.’ How difficult was it to get that balance right?
Jack: Remember, if you have never heard it, then it’s still new. Goes for anything. Someone discovering The Beatles for the first time; it’s new to them. We had music in the can that no one had ever heard and we had cut that in the eighties. We reviewed it and wanted people to hear it. Also, the guys were getting together and wanted to do a new record so we used some material in the can and revised it a bit and added the new material. We also put in a couple of live pieces, so we were trying to recreate the energy we had and rebuild it with new stuff. The listeners get real material from the era with new ideas.
“45 West 55th,” obviously a street, but what is the significance?
Jack: It’s in Manhattan. It was Michael’s apartment. When we went to New York to meet up and put this all together, we stayed at his apartment, as he had this amazing three-bedroom apartment and it was nice!
Do you have a personal favourite to sing from the new album?
Jack: I love our revisit to the song E-Train. I got to do a little guitar work on it and it wasn’t on the first time. I also like my tune, the opener, “Don’t Throw Your Love Away.” There is some good guitar work on that. “Don’t Throw Your Love Away” is a brand new track. It was a piece of music recorded in my home studio, and Pete and I got together. He helped me with the bridge and writing some of the lyrics, and we sang it together. Then the drums and bass were added, and it came together well.
There are a few musicians around who keep on going, and all power to them. We have just talked to the legend that is Suzi Quatro and she is celebrating 60 years in the business with some UK arena concerts. Would a younger version of Jack be surprised that he was still in there working in the business in 2024?
Jack: I used to see how it went. I think myself and the guys just felt we had unfinished business with this one; that is why we got together to do it. There was something still burning inside—a creative need. So that is the main reason we are here. And it felt just the same, we were back and it felt right. But, although I never say never, I don’t see us going on the road at all with it. We have some health issues in the band; Michael has had back surgery and he is still recovering from that. But who knows?
And videos?
Jack: There are a couple but they haven’t been released yet. We were playing, I think, in New Haven, Connecticut. An Italian television company was over and did some footage that we have. The plan is that we will edit and make videos. They are all but done, but we are waiting on a release date.
As The Beatles have dropped metaphorically in and out of this interview, was Jack one of those who was originally turned onto rock music by their appearance on Ed Sullivan? Jack has a wonderful Beatles picture in his recording studio!
Jack: At that stage I was a young boy, but for the evolution of modern music in the US, that was the greatest thing that ever happened. I had a little transistor radio in those days; I remember I was about nine and I went out into the yard. “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” came on the radio, and I felt like I was hit by a spark; I just loved it. But I grew up playing music in a musical family. My dad was a country singer so I was playing professional shows before I was ten. So my Dad wanted me to be a country musician, but as soon as I saw Elvis, Little Richard and then The Beatles, I was more, ‘forget about it, I want to play rock n’roll.’ In my early days, I would play a lot of R&B in the nightclubs. I was playing nightclubs from about 13 years of age and I would learn tracks straight off the Duke Box, and then I’d play them straight.
We mention the R&B, but we often think the influence of gospel in the sound that developed from the Black Gospel movement into singers like Elvis that then permeated into rock is often underplayed and forgotten.
Jack: I totally agree it started in the church, and then those who moved out of the churches into the Juke Joint, some of the greatest blues and dance music came through there. The slow blues became faster and then it developed into read. That movement from the south developed with folk into country and then rockabilly evolved. Then the Kentucky blue grass, which is a form of country, it is all fascinating—the evolution.
And look how bands like the Beatles were picking up American blues in the docks at Liverpool, then repackaging it, adding an extra chord or whatever and selling it back!
Jack: They were selling it back to us when many of us didn’t even know we had it! The racism of the day was blocking it from a lot of mainstream radio. Sad. I listen to BB and the old Delta guys. If you want to hear great guitar, listen to those older BB records. But I love Albert King too; he has such great phrasing.
And there we conclude a great chat about the changing face of music. Check out the new album, have a listen and rediscover the eighties within you!
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You can stream the album from here
By Mark C. Chambers
and
Stevie Ritson
