When we hear a great record over the airwaves we often pay little attention to the journey behind it! Often prior to that hit record is a story of struggle, challenges, and triumph. In an increasingly difficult industry it’s a breath of fresh air when genuine talent lands on your doorstep. In 2009 Black Steel Rose crashed through my doorstep in a JCB! I was definitely listening. After catching up with manager Cara Santiago I knew it was going to be a great year for the band. I know its clichéd to say a band deserves to reach great heights. So I won’t. Take a snap shot into the journey, listen to the track, listen to more, and make up your own mind…
What’s the background on the band? When did the band form? Where they are from? Who plays what etc? What does the journey look like?
Black Steel Rose was founded about a year and a half ago by Marco Mancini (the lead singer, writer and producer of the band). He was born to do music and grew up in a family of musicians. Marco got his first record deal at the age of 13 and was primarily doing R & B (even wrote a song that went Gold for a female artist in Europe). He was stricken with colon cancer in 2000 and his career was put on hold while he went through a purely urbal treatment that Dr. Sebi created and he was cured. It was through and during that healing process that Marco came to be drawn into creating rock n roll. He said he’s never felt as inspired musically until he began writing and performing rock.
Marco is from the Dominican Republic and grew up in Indiana. The other members of Black Steel Rose are from all over: Drummer Godi is from Memphis. Lead guitarist Mike Workman is from New York, Grant (the sound tech) is from LA and Cody (rhythm guitar) was born and raised in Calgary, Canada and his family moved to Arizona when he was 8 years old. Me I’m from upstate New York (shout out to Penfield!) and worked in NYC then Boston, then Buffalo, then NYC again lol and now I’m in LA.
All the guys met in LA at The Dream Centre which is this amazing humanitarian organization that helps feed the poor, house the homeless, support recovering drug addicts and at risk youth. When they met and started collaborating, playing and writing together Black Steel Rose became the REAL band Marco had always envisioned.
Exclusive first look at the Black Steel Rose New Era hat
What were the early influences on the band?
The cool thing is given how diverse all the bands backgrounds are their musical influences come from all over. Musicians that inspire them are Muddy Waters, Etta James, Journey, The Police, U2, Steppenwolf, Guns N Roses, 30 Seconds to Mars and Thrice.
In the UK we have this image of bands practicing in their garage – Any truth in this?
LOL man they really did start as a garage band at Marco’s house. One night I remember they were just JAMMING HARD and all of a sudden a knock came at the door. I opened it and there were two police officers standing there. A neighbour had called in a complaint lol. But the funniest thing was when they looked at Marco they had this confused look on their face like wait a minute we just heard hard rock n roll shouldn’t this guy be doing R&B? It was pretty funny and they were like man sorry we have to ask you to turn it down: the music’s hot. LOL.
Each member seems to contribute a different piece of the puzzle – it sounds like a real collective of influences, ideas, and styles!
Seriously man. They are all different. Marco comes from a Rock n B style. Mike loves old school rock. Godi is the quiet animal on the drums. Cody’s the rock prodigy and Grant’s the ZZ top Harley ridin’ dude.
Can you give insight into a few highs and lows of the journey to where the band is today?
We’ve gone through a lot in the last year and a half. We had band members initially that weren’t dedicated and that was frustrating. We were a new entity so getting booked for shows was hard especially in LA. We were scammed by “festivals” claiming to be able to help launch us but only ended up taking our money and doing nothing. We’ve all slept in cars and on friend’s couches to save enough money to record. But something changed for us when the new band came together. The energy changed and it happened so organically. We knew this band was what we were all born to do and be apart of. When we came to that realization doors just started opening for us. Bing (Snoop Doggs brother) came to the studio and after he heard them said “Cara you realize this is a $100 million dollar band right?” I said “yes I sure do” lol. And Kern Brantey (who is NeYo, Lil Wayne, Young Jeezy and even Beyonce’s musical director) when he was in town for the American Music Awards he came to the studio and after hearing the song “Release Me” said “this in an anthem band. I can hear this music being played on every radio station around the world.”
We got on and played at The Bamboozle Left Show earlier this month, which was headlined by Fall Out Boy, 50 Cent, Thrice and Forever The Sickest Kids. New Era just did a limited edition 59FIFTY Black Steel Rose fitted cap for us (I mean how awesome is that?) lol. We just got a show opening up for the freakin’ Foo Fighters this summer (WHAT? Lol). A rock station in upstate New York gave us a shout out as “making serious moves on the rock scene and ones to watch”, Marc Ecko geared us up riotously with clothes and watches and Skullcandy rocked us with their banging headsets and helping us with Warped tour connections. The drummer for Steppenwolf is doing a guest appearance on our new CD, angel investors have come forward to help us with financial support and even Harmonix the makers of the Rock Band video game started following me on Twitter lol (trying to get our tracks on the next game release so fingers crossed). So yes we’ve had to struggle to make this dream a reality and sometimes felt like giving up but we didn’t and now the doors are opening up wide for us.
We’ve sold over 41k units of the current CD ‘Rock Gets A Paint Job’ and we did it all through our own social/fan networks via straight digital song downloads. That’s more than a lot of bands have sold that are signed to major labels.
We’re very grateful and do whatever we can to uplift other people that are struggling because we know that we’ve been blessed and we need to pass those blessings onto the next person.
So after overcoming these challenges what were your feelings in the studio when working on his new material?
The energy was amazing first of all. We recorded at Westlake here in LA. We walked in and all I saw was platinum after platinum albums lining the walls of musicians who recorded them at Westlake. Like Marilyn Manson, Mary J Blige, Janet Jackson, Quincy Jones, No Doubt I mean I was blown away. As we started recording the hairs on the back of my neck started standing up. I remember thinking “Cara you are witnessing the recording of an album that’s going to be multi-platinum.” That’s all I could keep thinking and I am still blown away by the music we recorded. The songs speak about pain, love, lost love, being young and going through hard financial times and hard breakups. There was such a total honesty about the work and the music just resonates on an epic scale. I can’t wait till we get the new album out this summer. I think it’s going to blow peoples minds.
What has been your best crowd reaction to date… where is the home venue?
I have to say the best reaction was at Bamboozle Left and it started before the gates even opened to the fans. We were on the MLB stage doing a vocal sound check. The only people around were other bands, vendors like from the radio stations setting up, festival workers and folks from Live Nation. When Marco started singing people just started to stop and turn around from what they were doing and watched him. Even another band that was doing their sound check stopped to listen. It was awesome. Then when we actually performed it was like a sea of people just started moving towards our stage…they just kept coming and coming then dancing and jumping around to the music. It was an awesome thing to witness. Our home venues are in LA: The Palmer Room is one of our favourite places to play out here.
Where has music taken the band? Tour? International fans?
They’ve played all over the world. Like in Japan, UK, Germany…Sweden. The coolest part about the internet is that we’ve gotten fan mail and shout outs from people on a global scale like kids from Serbia, Dubai, Norway even Africa which is totally dope.
I love the sound it’s really edgy and has a real summer feel… I can imagine driving with these songs on and nodding my head! What would be on the tour bus playlist?
Thanks dude… that’s how I feel too. I especially like listening to “Driving” while I’m driving because it just seems apropos lol but whenever I play “Release Me” really loud with my windows open people always stop and listen too. I love when that happens.
On the tour bus playlist I know we’re gonna be fighting over who controls it lol. Mike’s going to want Thrice all day, Marco will want Lil Wayne and Guns N Roses. Cody’s going with Iron and Wine, Lovedrug. Godi’s going to want Yellow Card, Hillsong and Blink 182 and then me I’ll have U2, Paramore, 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, Dead Prez, NeYo, The Killers, No Doubt and Linkin Park on HEAVY rotation.
What expectations do you have for 2009? Where do you want to be standing this time next year?
In 2009 I’m expecting Black Steel Rose to take over the world and be winning awards as well as serving our fellow mankind. I expect we’ll be walking red carpets at the Grammy’s, VMA’s, AMA’s and EMA’s. Where do we want to be standing this time next year? We will have a left foot on a stack of money a right foot on a guitar and our right hands on the Bible.
Any shout outs?
You know it! Big ups to God, our families, the entire Black Steel Rose Team, New Era Cap, The Bamboozle (Andrew Ellis you rock), the fine folks at Skullcandy, Marc Ecko the Dream Center and The American Cancer Society.
Black Steel Rose hooked us up with this hammer of a track!
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Black Steel Rose – ‘Say You Were’
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