The Romantics burst onto the Detroit music scene in 1977. If you would have told those young guys back then that they would achieve worldwide success with a number one single, a gold album, become staples in a music channel from the future called MTV, tour with the likes of Cheap Trick, The Kinks and The Cars and still be active in 2020 they would probably have laughed their asses off. They’d also never believe that a little song called “What I Like About You” would still be played on classic rock stations regularly 40+ years after its release. Well, the guys did achieve all of that and more.
Lead guitarist/bassist/vocalist Mike Skill has recently been treading the solo waters and having some impressive results. It started with “67 Riot” about the riots in 1967 that would forever change his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. Next up was “Not My Business” with its rich Detroit influences heard throughout. It was written by Mike with Brad Elvis (The Romantics & Elvis Brothers) on drums and Chuck Alkazian on keyboards/vocals. Additional guitar work is by Ricky Rat (Dead Boys & Trash Brats), back-up vocals by Rich Cole (The Romantics) and Meredith Lorde.
We recently sat down with Mike to talk about what was going on with his solo stuff. Wow! He took us down memory road and talked about his many musical influences which are so rich in many of the classics! We talked about his impressive solo stuff that he’s been releasing and, of course, The Romantics!
Hey man, how are doing these days?
Mike Skill/The Romantics: Well, The Romantics had a good group of shows coming up so they got canceled until next year I guess. I’ve been releasing my own stuff for the last year and a half or so and the first couple of things were kind of low key, I guess, just from my own site. Now, I have some involvement from some other people helping me out. I’ve been working with a really good producer out of Detroit by the name of Chuck Alkazian.
Chuck’s been a busy guy as well; we’ve done a bit of work with a lot of acts he’s been working with.
Yeah, he really keeps himself busy and is in that studio all the time. The last year and a half or so, we’d be out on the road and when I had time I would go up to Detroit and lay down guitars or vocals or whatever with him then come back here to Portland where I’m living now. I have a studio here at home as well and I can go in there at four in the morning if I want to and work. I ended up with some really, really good stuff and wanted to release some stuff. We did “67 Riot” which is about the Detroit riots in 1967. Detroit as well as the country was going through that with so many riots that year. I have another one coming out this year with Wayne Kramer from MC5 playing guitar on it and I’ll be doing a vinyl 45 for that one. I got some help from a promoter and released “Not My Business” which is out now, so that’s what’s been happening.
Having a studio in your home has to be a pretty cool thing. I guess back in the day, long blocks of studio time had to be reserved but now you can just go in your pajamas and work on stuff.
It really is and even my phone is. If I get lyric ideas, I just pull out my phone and the same for music ideas. The next thing I know, I have 100 ideas on there so I’m never short on ideas. I also have my iPad and my laptop and one has four channels on and the other has eight.
You grew up in Detroit and that had to be an amazing era to grow up for a music lover and for musicians.
Yeah, that was a long time ago. Motown was just coming around; I remember hearing “Shop Around” when I was little. It really felt local, like a place right down the road. There were so many studios and so much coming out at that time. There were all of these soul bands and then rock and soul with Ray Charles, James Brown and Otis Redding and that kind of stuff.
What a rich and inspirational environment to grow up in.
This was 1967, 68 or so and I had learned guitar before that but picked it back up later when 13th Floor Elevators came out and all of that stuff. That’s when I really started playing attention and would put my vinyl down on the turntable to learn the guitar solos from it. I would be in this little sunroom in my mom and dads’ house keeping them up all night. Yeah, it was a very rich environment.
Back then, you had to save about two or three or five thousand to get time in the studio so you had to be a cover band or have a job. I worked in a drugstore stocking the shelves when I was sixteen or seventeen to buy equipment. I worked in an auto-shop making chrome luggage racks for the tops of cars to make money to buy a bass. I could work all winter, from August all the way up until June and then go play music all summer.
Did you buy a bass first or a lead guitar first?
First I played a guitar from my mom; I learned to play the beat of “Satisfaction” when I was about ten. Then, I played drums with a lot of that early Stones stuff coming out. Then The Beatles, The Kinks, man I love the Kinks. My brother and I were going to the music store, which was the hallowed thing back then, and he was going to get a guitar and I was going to get drums. He said ‘the drums are a lot of carry around.’ I thought about it for about two minutes and I decided on a guitar. My guitar was really hard to play so I ended up playing his guitar all the time. We started meeting other people, other players and I discovered there was a bass guitar. Well, nobody else wanted to do it so I decided I would, but I kept guitar going.
In the 8th grade I met Jimmy (Marinos), the drummer from The Romantics. He had a band and I also had a band with my friends. We started playing together and we moved it into his mom’s basement. We got another guitar player around 69 who could play all of the Clapton stuff. We were just jamming all the time, the three of us, but we always wanted to find a lead singer. We learned to write and played a few gigs, but not much happened. The guitar player split and another came in who could play harmonica, but we were still looking for a lead singer. We could all sing backup, but not really lead. It was in our heads that we had to have a lead singer.
Eventually the Bowie, Roxy Music stuff started to happen and we really liked that. Then the glitter scene was all over Detroit with Mott the Hoople, T-Rex, Sweet and stuff like that. The glitter scene really grabbed us. Then you saw things like Lou Reed and The Ramones happening. The whole punk thing started happening and that kind of magnified what we could do.
Me and Jimmy had always stuck together and did stuff with the band. We pulled together with some friends at that time and jammed and played. The girlfriend of one of the other guys called CBGB’s and got us a gig. We got a truck and loaded up, drove up to New York and played to maybe 25 people. We watched the Motor City Rockers, kind of a punk, MC5 thing going on and caught a couple of more shows. You learn so much by watching; what works and doesn’t work. New York was a hot bed at the time and LA and London were both too far to go.
Once you had The Romantics lineup together, how long was it before you released your debut album?
Three years and a lot of driving (laughs). Our goal was to put out a 45 single and do some records so we got with these two guys who became our managers. We would rehearse and we had really short hair, our re-sell shop clothes of 60s silk type pants, greaser jackets and skinny ties. I came in with a few ideas on cassette and we weren’t sure if I was going to be on bass or what. We went into the studio and I ended up playing guitar because nobody else wanted to play like Chuck Berry. The, the guitar player that we had in high school came over and told us that there was a show coming up in about a month with the MC5 reforming and asked us if we wanted to do it. We ended up getting the gig opening up and all of the radio was there and label execs were there for their reforming, so it was pretty cool. We came out in our orange tone suits and were running all around the stage like punks. It went really well, but we didn’t have the 45 available. It was still another two weeks from coming out.
The record came out and got some airplay in Detroit. They used to have these homegrown shows on Sunday nights where they would play new, original music. For our third gig, somehow our manager got us a spot to open at the Pontiac Silverdome with Peter Frampton, Steve Miller and the J. Geils Band.
I was definitely going to ask about this one! I’ve heard stories about that and was going to ask if it was true!
Our third show in a place that seated 76,000! We were on pretty early, about 7:00, so it wasn’t packed but there were about 7000 to 8000 so definitely the biggest crowd we’d ever played for! It went over and we didn’t get booed off so it went great! We got a booking agent out of Detroit from that and we hit the road for the next two to three years. All of those little clubs really helped out all over. We came back home and the shows were packed and original music was back in Detroit.
We met Natt Weiss in New York and he was from a custom label Nemperor Records that was part of Epic/Portrait which was owned by Columbia/CBS so we were on an independent label from the beginning. He signed us and he was the attorney for Brian Epstein and handled The Beatles’ affairs here in the US. You go to some of these labels and they want the rights to all of your publishing, but we actually got all of ours, but then I had to get it back from all of our old managers (laughs).
Yeah, I read about some of that fiasco which caused a ton of problems for you guys.
Yeah, we had bad luck with managers for a long time and that haunted us through the 90s. Still, The Romantics continued playing and I met my wife when we played with The Tubes in 82 or 84. Then I moved here to Portland in officially in 97, but I was here most of the time in the late 80s. Now, here I am today releasing my own new stuff which really seems to be connecting with people. I was supposed to go back into the studio in March but that didn’t happen.
As for your new material, what type of plan did you have? Were you looking at just releasing singles?
I’m always working on stuff and putting songs together. I’m doing these digital releases and I’m going to be doing vinyl releases as well. I’m probably going to releases a few more singles, but I want “Not My Business” to carry on through the summer because it kind of has that summer vibe to it. Hopefully we can get a few more weeks out of it! It’s doing really well in Europe too! So, I’ll probably release a couple more singles and then maybe a vinyl EP or vinyl album. You really have to touch all bases. You have stuff streaming like on Spotify and you don’t make much but you have to have it rolling.
As we start to wrap this up, I have to ask you what Jimmy (Marinos) is doing now.
He’s back in Detroit and not doing too much. I haven’t spoken to him in a few months now. He’s a bit of a perfectionist with the songs and you end up playing the songs over and over and over and it takes the life out of them.
Any talk of a new album from The Romantics? Your last studio album was 2003’s 61/49.
At the moment, not that I know of, but once we get back together I always throw it out there because I have some stuff. The band is so tight. We might have one rehearsal the night before and ask what we want to add to the set, but that’s about it. Everything comes out like it’s just second nature.
I dig it and I know it’s all about timing, but you sir are a busy man right now.
Yeah, I’ve always wanted to do it and it just kind of happened. You know, that’s the best way for it to happen. The cool thing is I really respect The Romantics and I get so much respect from them. I can call them up and ask them for something and they say ‘yeah, we’re on it.’ I have to really commend them for that. We did a show at a school last year just outside of Cleveland, I think it was Dayton. We just drove there and did it! To have people near you who will just jump on board like that is great. Plus, they’re really great players too!
It sounds like it was fun and not just work.
Oh yeah! They were like ‘let’s do this song and how about this song.’
If you could go back and give the younger version of yourself buying that first guitar any advice, would you? If so, what would it be?
That’s a good question (laughs). You know, it happened the way it happened in a good way. We were always going to get there. I’m not sure if it was just the era and the kick in the ass we got from the British era and the Motown era. Then MC5, and the glam and punk. It was all around us and it was all we did. If I wasn’t in school, I was making music. The passion was there and it turned into my music thing.
