Renowned New York City guitarist and singer-songwriter Steve Conte (New York Dolls, Michael Monroe) is back with his latest release, The Concrete Jangle , on Stevie Van Zandt's Wicked Cool Records. The new album includes 10 tracks of what Conte describes as the 60s meets 80s power pop about truth versus misinformation, entitlement, boredom, addiction and loss, and love and lust, of which half is co-written with Andy Partridge of XTC fame, who also happens to be one of Conte's musical heroes. The lead single "We Like It" is a who's who of rockers that all contribute their unique voices to the backing vocals, including Marshall Crenshaw, Steve Lillywhite (Ultravox), Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols), Ian Hunter (Mott The Hoople), Simon Kirke (Bad Company), Marc Broussard, Palmyra Delran, and The Sopranos' Michael Imperioli. Conte plays a multitude of guitars and other instruments and brings a bunch more of his famous friends and musical talents in on the action. Co-producer Andrew Hollander plays piano and Mellotron, while keyboard whiz Rob Schwimmer adds an authentic 1960s Ondioline as well as Theremin and synthesizer sounds; trumpets by Chris Anderson, cello by Mark Stewart, and drums by Prairie Prince (The Tubes, XTC, Todd Rundgren), Thommy Price (Joan Jett, Billy Idol, Mink DeVille), and Brian Delaney (New York Dolls). Even brother John plays bass, and his two sons, Zia and Baz, sing backing vocals. This latest project is clearly a labor of love. Conte stopped by the LifeMinute TV Studios in Times Square recently to discuss the new album and enthrall us with a history of his varied musical background, which includes, most famously, his stint as the new lead guitarist for the reformed New York Dolls in 2004 with original members David Johansen, Sylvain Sylvain, and Arthur "Killer" Kane.
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00:00 Hey, I'm Steve Conti and you're watching Life Minute TV.
00:02 Renowned guitarist, singer-songwriter Steve Conti has been in the New York music scene a long time,
00:16 from his gig as the lead guitarist for the Reform New York Dolls to collabs with everyone from Eric
00:22 Burden of the Animals to Billy Squire, even a stint as Paul Simon's rehearsal vocalist. He
00:28 gained global acclaim through his work with Japanese composer and artist Yoko Kanno doing
00:33 soundtracks for anime series. Now he's just released his second solo album, The Concrete
00:48 Jangle, 10 tracks of what he describes as 60s meets 80s power pops about life.
00:54 Conti plays a multitude of guitars and other instruments and brings a bunch of his famous
00:59 music friends in on the action too, like Ecstasy's Andy Partridge, who co-wrote and
01:04 produced the record, Marshall Crenshaw, Ultravox's Steve Lilliewhite, Sex Pistols' Glenn Matlock,
01:10 Mott the Hoople's Ian Hunter, Sopranos actor Michael Imperioli, even his brother in Tucson
01:16 sing backing vocals. This latest project is clearly a labor of love. This is a Life Minute
01:22 with Steve Conti. It's a jangly sort of power pop rock and soul record with a little psychedelia in
01:28 it. Gets to show my Beatles side, which has been in my blood since I started writing songs at 10
01:34 years old. And 10 tracks and five of them you had some help, right? Yes, I had some help with
01:41 my hero Andy Partridge of XTC, who was a genius songwriter. He's up there with, you know, my top
01:47 10, you know, Lennon McCartney, Jagger and Richards, Townsend, and you know, Andy's right up
01:52 there with them. So it was amazing getting to work with him. How did that come to be? Have you been
01:57 friends? We had some mutual friends. I had a guitar maker who built him a guitar as well.
02:04 And so that guitar maker gave him one of my records and he really liked it. And then I became
02:11 friends with Steve Lilliewhite, who was a big producer. He produced quite a few XTC records,
02:15 also produced Stones, U2, Dave Matthews. One day, Steve and I were chatting on Twitter and the
02:21 subject of XTC came up and he said, "Oh, you know, Andy's on Twitter. We should bring him into this
02:25 conversation." And next thing I know, Andy is tweeting with me. I was going through his town
02:32 on tour, Swindon, England. And he said, "I hear that you're coming to my town. I'll buy you lunch."
02:38 But I tell you why. Because he said, "You stole my dream gig." Guitar player in the New York Dolls.
02:44 So apparently he wanted to be in the New York Dolls when he was a youngster. And
02:47 I had no idea about that. All right. So 10 tracks. Tell us about your five tracks.
02:54 The tracks that I wrote without Andy? Yeah. Well, I really had to up my game because
02:58 writing with one of the greatest songwriters, living songwriters, I really honestly believe
03:04 that I had to bring my A game. So I picked some of my more melodious, beatily kind of things
03:10 that would go along with the five songs that Andy and I wrote. And actually when I played them for
03:14 Andy, I played Andy the whole record. He went, "Hey, I really like that song, 'Decomposing a
03:19 Song for You'." I have one of my titles. And he said, "How come I never heard that?" I said,
03:31 "Well, it was already done. I didn't bring it to him." Because when we started writing,
03:37 we wrote everything on Zoom. So because he was in England, I was in the Bronx. I would go to the
03:43 Zoom session with at least two or three ideas. We didn't want to just be sitting there on the
03:48 computer. Well, what do you want to do? Yeah, I brought a bunch of ideas and he had a bunch of
03:52 ideas and we combined them. But the five songs I wrote without him, I think stand out pretty good.
03:57 And you play a lot of instruments on it too, right? Not just the guitar.
04:01 Yeah, I play guitar. I play mandolin. I play keyboards. I play some pianos, some B3 organs,
04:09 melotrons, strings. I mean, it's amazing what you can do with digital recording equipment. I mean,
04:15 it's a very analog sounding record and it sounds like it could have been made in 1973. And I'm not
04:22 a real keyboard player, so I could do it and make mistakes and then fix it. But I had some proper
04:29 keyboard players to play with me. My friends, Rob Schwimmer, who played with Simon & Garfunkel.
04:34 Tons of other people. Andrew Hollander, who co-produced the album with me. Mark Stewart on
04:43 cello. Chris Anderson on trumpet. And I think pretty much all the vocals are me, except I have
04:50 my latest single called "We Like It" where I have about 60 singers on it. Yes, I saw that.
04:54 Including Ian Hunter and Marshall Crenshaw and Danko Jones and Glen Matlock from the Sex Pistols.
05:02 And Michael Imperioli. Michael Imperioli from the Sopranos, of course.
05:05 I just basically, you know, went through my phone book, you know, and I said,
05:18 "What could I get?" Because the song, it's about a politician making all these crazy promises
05:24 to people. And I wanted all kinds of different people. I just went through my book and I said,
05:28 "Who would be good for this?" And I got 60 people. And I'm doing a video now,
05:35 and quite a few of those people sent me clips for the video as well.
05:38 And what about the two videos that you have out now?
05:52 So I have "Girl With No Name," which is one of my songs. We filmed it right in Times Square,
05:58 a lot of it. And then I have this company, these guys in England, or Scotland rather, that
06:04 do all these crazy post-production graphics, digital stuff. And it's amazing. So I give them
06:10 the film and then they do their magic on it and put lyrics to it. And it's, you know,
06:15 floating across the screen. It's really cool. And then the first one, "Fourth of July," was
06:20 one of the Andy Partridge co-writes.
06:21 That was done with the same team of guys. Modern technology, you can film this stuff on green
06:41 screen and then put yourself anywhere you want. What drives you creatively?
06:46 Music. I'm one of those guys where I'm a singer, I'm a songwriter, and I'm a musician. A lot of
06:53 people are one or the other. I foolishly tried to master all three of those things. Songwriting,
06:59 you know, each one is a whole lifetime's worth of work. I set my goals high early on. So,
07:06 you know, I wanted to be a songwriter like Lennon and McCartney. I wanted to be a singer like Paul
07:11 Rogers or Rod Stewart. I wanted to be a guitar player like Jeff Beck or Jimi Hendrix. I came in
07:16 somewhere, you know, in between all that. So, yeah, not too many lead singer, lead guitar player,
07:24 songwriters that I can think of out there. Mark Knopfler, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton.
07:28 I don't really know who else.
07:30 So you always knew you wanted to do this?
07:37 Yes.
07:38 From a young age? How old were you?
07:41 I heard the Beatles "Revolver" when I was six, and I was just fascinated. But I wanted to be a
07:47 drummer, so I was a drummer first. I wanted to be Ringo. My brother was a guitar player, and
07:52 within a couple of years, I think, yeah, I was about 11, I picked up his guitar and I just
07:59 discovered I could write songs not even knowing what I was doing. So I said, "I better switch."
08:04 And then I became really good on guitar, and he switched to bass. And the two of us, he plays on
08:10 my whole record, John, my brother John. Yeah, he's an amazing bass player. Our first album we recorded
08:15 in the family living room when I was 11, he was 10. We both played drums and guitar. We switched
08:21 it off. We wrote all the songs. And I designed all the album covers. I would draw the cover art.
08:27 That's so cute.
08:27 Yeah, so lifelong obsession.
08:31 Did you ever have lessons?
08:32 Guitar lessons? Yeah, we both took guitar lessons from the same person. But in the beginning,
08:37 it was like reading the little Mary Had a Little Lamb out of the book. It was really boring. And
08:43 then one day I learned Johnny B. Goode solo from Chuck Berry, and that was it. And then went back
08:49 to another lesson out of a book again. And then 20 years later, I actually got to play with Chuck
08:56 Berry a whole night.
09:10 And your mom's a jazz singer?
09:11 My mom's a jazz singer, yes. She was in Mary County.
09:14 Right. So how did she feel about you guys going into this?
09:17 Oh, well, she used to talk about have something to fall back on. But I said, "But you didn't, mom."
09:25 Because she raised four kids, a single parent with a singing job. So I thought, "Well, it's doable.
09:34 I don't have any kids. I can get out there and do this." So I never gave it a second thought, really.
09:40 And then how did you end up with the... What happened from there?
09:49 Oh, well...
09:50 Into the Myrk Dolls.
09:52 Between ages 10 and when I came to the city. I played with a ton of bands. I toured
09:59 through the '80s and '90s. I had my own band, Company of Wolves, and we were signed to Mercury
10:04 Records, an original band of my songs, co-written with the singer Heath. I toured with Blood,
10:11 Sweat & Tears, the jazz rock band. I worked with all kinds of people, Billy Squire, Paul Simon.
10:17 That was a crazy gig. I was Paul Simon's stunt vocalist for rehearsals when Paul didn't want to
10:22 sing. It was me. Willie DeVille was another one from Mink DeVille. And then right after I played
10:28 with Willie, I got the call from David Johansson saying, "I'm putting the Dolls back together for
10:32 one show. Do you want to do this?" He said, "I got your name from... I asked a couple people,
10:38 and they all said, 'Don't call anyone else. Call Conti.'" So we met, we had lunch, and I didn't
10:46 even play no music, and he gave me the gig. - Oh, that's something. What was that like?
10:50 - The first gig, we played Royal Festival Hall in London, and it was Chrissy Hinde and Bob
11:00 Geldof and Shane McGowan and Mick Jones from The Clash, and everybody was knocking on the
11:05 dressing room door, just fawning over us. I didn't know what to expect. They were like,
11:11 "You really filled Johnny Thunder's shoes." I mean, I wasn't a Johnny Thunder's fan. He's the
11:18 original guitar player from The Dolls that died. But I guess I have the Italian nose, hair,
11:27 and... Not nose hair, but nose and hair. And I guess it looked right, and I had used similar
11:36 guitars in Amstead and kind of play hard if I have to, so it worked. It worked well.
11:42 - That's interesting that you weren't a fan, but...
11:45 - Yeah. I mean, to me, Johnny Thunder's was a combination of Chuck Berry and Keith Richards,
11:50 who were two of my favorites, too. And then I got into a lot of jazzier guys, kind of the West
11:57 Montgomery and John Schofield and Jeff Beck and John McLaughlin and all these kind of crazy
12:05 jazz fusion. And I went to school and I studied with real jazz pros. But then when you get out
12:15 and you get back into the real world, I've always loved writing songs and singing and
12:20 having my hair long. So I wasn't gonna put a suit on and go play jazz, but it's a commitment to
12:31 jazz. I went back to listening to what I grew up loving, Beatles, blues. J. Giles Band was one of
12:39 my favorites growing up, too. So I went back to all that early, really simple stuff and just
12:46 kind of peeled back all the education that I got. - Yeah, you sure got a lot. Very eclectic.
12:53 - I think it's my best album ever. Not just because of writing with Andy,
13:07 but because that elevated my writing, too.
13:22 - To hear more of this interview, visit our podcast, Life Minute TV on iTunes and all
13:27 streaming podcast platforms.