Jon E. Love – Jon E. Love & The Haters – Uber Rock Interview Exclusive
Written by Eamon O’Neill
Sunday, 15 February 2015 04:00
It has been quite some time since the rock world has heard from Jon E. Love. As a founder member of Los Angeles sleaze rockers Love/Hate, the guitarist first came to prominence along with vocalist Jizzy Pearl, bassist Skid Rose and drummer Joey Gold on their explosive 1990 debut ‘Blackout in The Red Room’. Although they seemed destined for great things, sadly it wasn’t to last, and following a second album, Love quit the band. With the exception of a couple of short-lived reunions with the band, the guitarist has remained quiet, that is, until now. The years of rock ‘n’ roll debauchery may be behind him, but with 2015 seeing the 25th anniversary of the release of ‘Blackout In The Red Room’, Jon is back with his new band ‘Jon E Love & The Haters’. Here in an Uber Rock EXCLUSIVE, he talks at length about the new band, what being in Love/Hate was really like at the height of their success, and what brought them crashing to the ground. Wasted in America: Eamon O’Neill.
Hi Jon, how are you?!
I’m doing great Eamon, thanks for reaching out and contacting me. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve been approached to discuss topics involving my career and past.
It’s been 25 years since ‘Blackout In The Red Room’ was released. How does that make you feel?
Blessed that I’m still around to actually reminisce about it! ‘Blackout’ was an anthem of how the four of us lived and survived in Hollywood when we were young and naive. At that time the world was our oyster and we devoured all the trimmings that came with it. Being signed to Columbia was like winning the Lotto and not having to pay taxes. I have no regrets – I just wish I had the wisdom then that I have now. And a few less wrinkles!
You’re playing two special shows in LA to celebrate the anniversary. What prompted you to do it now?
Basically I just felt that it’s time to play the music that we made back then and have fun doing it. In a perfect world it would be with the other three guys, but people change and have different priorities when you have children and mortgages to pay. Playing Love/Hate songs is like riding a bike; at first it’s a little scary but then you go, “hey I remember how to do this!” These Jon E. Love & The Haters shows are just my way of saying thanks for remembering us. Let’s get together and have a few laughs and raise a glass to honour the past.
You’ve assembled a new band of well-known names to perform the shows. How did you come to hook up with the members?
Cordell Crockett [from Ugly Kid Joe] has been in the loop for decades, being a close friend of mine and actually an alumni of Love/Hate, so it was an easy choice to ask him since Skid was not available. Mike Dupke [drums, most recently seen in WASP] played a few shows with Jizzy and I a couple years back, and is a great drummer and very professional in his approach to playing our catalogue. The hard part was finding someone that can sing like Jizzo. Replacing singers is difficult because it’s much more than just having someone sound like the original voice. The attitude, timbre and inflections are all a part of what made us sound like we did. I asked Colby [Veil – vocals] if he would like to do a few gigs and see how it pans out. People will be comparing him to Jizzy, so he probably will have the most challenging job. I don’t take this too seriously, but would like us to perform with integrity.
The press release that announced the shows states ‘there will be no backing tracks to fill in the holes’. Is that statement aimed at anyone in particular?
(Laughing) Yes, at all the bands that pretend that fans don’t realise they are doing it. I get why they do it, but if I want to hear a band sound just like their record I’ll just stay home and play it. I prefer to hear the pure performance of bands that can actually perform live without a machine disguised as ‘the man behind the curtain’. Back in the day Love/Hate actually turned down an opportunity to perform on Top of the Pops on UK TV because we would’ve had to perform to a pre-recorded track with just live vocals only. We refused to do that and they wouldn’t budge.
I want to take you back to the original band. Love/Hate signed to Columbia Records before recording ‘Blackout In The Red Room’. What was it like signing to a major label?
That was probably the best year of our lives; finally getting a record deal and having the chance to really record with a decent budget. The industry is known for being shut down during the holiday months from December to February, but we signed our deal with Columbia on Jan 4, 1989. We were the house band at the Whiskey a Go Go for almost two years, and there was a real buzz, and it just kind of avalanched with offers coming from every major label in town. We were getting offers from labels that hadn’t even seen the band live. We set up a private showcase for [Producer] Tom Werman and when he said he wanted to produce our first record it helped us to negotiate a very handsome six figure deal.
Tell me about the recording the of the ‘Blackout In The Red Room’ album.
We went into Studio 101, which is the same studio that Metallica spent a year recording the ‘Black Album’ in, and recorded all the basic tracks there. Within the first few days, I noticed Werman was always on the phone in the producer’s lounge talking to someone, instead of being in the control room with [recording engineer] Duane Byron. Werman had been very successful the previous year, with four top 10 songs in the charts and he brought in the same team that did Motley’s Girl’s ‘Dr. Feelgood’ album. I had recorded the demos for the album and basically between Duane, another recording engineer called John Purdell (R.I.P.) and I, we tried to take what I had done and improve it. After we had done the basic tracks we went to Oceanside Studios to do overdubs, and planned on mixing at another place called Conway Studios. We wasted so much money. Werman and I had a big tiff over what kind of multi-track machine we would use; I was adamant about using two old desks that had what I considered ‘magic’, and he insisted that we use this new digital thirty-two track recorder. He won, so we had to rent this machine for the whole period of doing the record. Not only did we pay him a five figure sum plus four percentage points of future sales for his work as a producer, but it later turned out that he was part owner of the machine, so he was therefore getting kickbacks for that too! I guess he needed to milk it as much as he could. So his team mixed the record and delivered it to Columbia, but David Kahne, the A&R guy at the label said that the mixes didn’t have the impact that my engineered demos had! So we went into another studio and spent another five figure sum remixing more than half the record! All of those remixes were trying to emulate what we had done for free on a little four track cassette. After all that we almost used a doctored version of my demo for ‘Blackout In The Red Room’ itself, as the lead-off single. True story!
Skid was the band’s predominant songwriter. How much input did the rest of the band have into the songs?
I’d like it to be known that each member had input in every song we ever recorded. People seem to think Skid wrote everything just because his name is shown in the credits on the records. I actually own one third of the whole catalogue, but I am not listed on the writing credits. Skid was a student of mine years before Love/Hate was even formed, and I engineered and did all of the four-track and eight-track demos that we did. Skid would come in with stripped down versions of tunes and then all four of us would help arrange and add our own skills to the songs. Joey had great ideas on song arrangements, Jizzy had input on melodies and harmonies and I had strong input with the layering and guitar parts that would take his limited chords and structures to the end results. This is a sensitive topic to discuss because I resented Skid and his Napoleon-esque attitude that he wrote everything. He actually signed a publishing deal with Sony for a catalogue of one hundred and thirty songs which were songs that he and I had wrote together years before Love/Hate even existed. To this day I have never received a cent of my one third of the publishing revenue.
The band received a lot of support here in the UK from the likes of Kerrang! and Metal Hammer magazines. What was it like coming to the UK for the first time?
I love the UK; the fans, the history, the food – well maybe not the food, (laughing). As a kid I was heavily influenced by the British Invasion and all of the great British bands – the early rock ‘n’ roll. My first time in London I was like a kid in a candy store; there is much history and so many sites and venues that I had dreamed of going to. When we finally got there the fans were so welcoming it was surreal. Fans in the UK are so different from fans in the US. My feelings are that people in the UK actually appreciate quality music rather than the latest fads that are prevalent. I hope to come back in the future, even if it’s just to have a vacation, and maybe bring my daughter and let her experience what I did so many years ago.
You made two very memorable videos on the first album; ‘Blackout In The Red Room’ and ‘Why Do You Think They Call It Dope?’ What do you remember about filming those?
They were long, repetitive days. Shooting videos is like lip-synching, and although they are a great tool to promote, they are boring to shoot. The ‘Dope’ video was cool because it has the Twin Towers in it before they were blown up. Back then the budgets were astronomical – I would have rather bought a nice house than spend that kind of money! MTV was new and we had to conform just like every other band, but it’s cool to watch them sometimes and remember the past.
You got to tour with AC/DC. That must have been awesome.
That’s an understatement! That was the biggest tour we had ever done, and it was the biggest grossing tour of the year. Playing with AC/DC was just insane; large sold out venues every night, an incredible stage and a great crew. Who wouldn’t want to do that!? I will always be grateful that they chose us to do that leg of the ‘Razor’s Edge’ tour. Our manager told us that Angus had personally chosen us to open for them out of all the bands that they wanted to get on that tour. We even got paid instead of buying on it like so many bands have to do nowadays. Those were good times!
Were you a fan of AC/DC, and did you get to meet any of the band?
Of course I was a fan. At the time we didn’t really get to hang out with them too much. Malcolm was getting sober and he had his own tour bus that he rode on because he didn’t want to be around all the booze and drugs. That tour was very businesslike. They had an incredible crew and the machine was almost corporate. We did finally get to meet them in their dressing room just before the show at Toronto Skydome. When I shook Angus’s hand I could see the little horns pop up on his head! (laughing) I learned a lot from touring with them. They are the epitome of what a real rock ‘n’ roll band is about. With the status of Malcolm now I feel that it was probably the coolest tour I have ever been involved with.
During the recording of second album ‘Wasted In America’ the band were offered the opening slot on the European leg of Skid Row’s ‘Slave To The Grind’ tour. Under pressure, first single ‘Evil Twin’ was apparently rushed out. Is this correct?
‘Evil Twin’ was forced on us as a single because the label felt we needed something out to capitalise on the tour. They had to get something out and it just felt like a bad decision at the time, but our hands were tied.
That Skid Row tour was reportedly incident filled. Was it as debauched as it has been made out?
It was fun! For me, the ‘Slave to the Grind’ tour was probably the haziest of all of them. Well, that and Ozzy’s ‘No More Tears’ tour, which was pretty wild too with Zakk [Wylde] and Randy Castello (R.I.P.). On the Skid Row tour, both bands were on fire, and it was Saturday night every night; who could out-drink, out-fuck each other, etcetera every night. Those guys knew how to party. They treated us very well, and it was a fun tour all through Europe. Sebastian Bach [Skid Row vocalist] was bigger than life, and would always bait us into being ridiculous. We tore the living shit out of some bar in Paris one night and almost had the whole band go to jail. Then Seb says “Let’s go dig up Jim Morrison’s grave”. I’m not even sure that he was joking.
At the end of the ‘Wasted In America’ tour the band were dropped by Columbia. It was around this time that you left. What prompted your decision?
I left for several reasons. Skid was out of control, using the band’s money to finance some stupid film he wanted to make starring Jizzy with Data Clan’s [forerunning band to Love/Hate] old singer Hollis as his camera-op and side-kick. Hollis was allowed to come on the road with us as Skid’s bass tech, but he was such an alcoholic that he couldn’t even do that job. So all of a sudden my guitar tech was doing two jobs, and Hollis was running around trying to be Francis Ford Coppola! It was ridiculous – a blur of alcohol driven madness. Skid had the idea to crucify Jizzy on the Hollywood sign for part of his film, and I wanted nothing to do with it from the get-go, so I was ostracized as the party pooper. On top of that, with no platinum record sales in the states, Sony stopped all promotion for the band, so I knew the deal was going to be dissolved and that there would be no third album with Columbia. Jizzy hated me and I hated him, so he pulled a little power play with Skid and Joey, saying that if they didn’t fire me he would quit. So when we got off the plane at the end of the tour I made up my mind to do them a favour and quit myself. Skid called me up to tell me, but before he could even say anything I told him “I’m out”. Good luck and good riddance – there were too many betrayals, lies, deceit and too much wasted money. It was painful because Skid, Joey and I had been together since high school, but I’d had enough. I was slowly killing myself with alcohol and drugs and knew that I’d be dead if something didn’t change. With no respect from my band mates and some ugly meltdowns it was all just too much for me, so I bailed. We had demoed most of what became ‘Let’s Rumble’ and I knew I’d get screwed again so I just said “fuck it.”
You re-joined the band for 1995’s ‘I’m Hot Happy’. Jizzy Pearl has said that the album was aptly titled. How were things in the band at this point?
It was still tense. I had never forgiven Jizzy and Skid for their bullshit, but thought that maybe we could get past our differences and try to save what was left of a great band. Skid was a little more humble, and I thought that if he and I could collaborate again we might be able to record another album as strong as ‘Blackout’. But then he and Jizzy had a huge falling out and it turned into Skid hating Jizzy instead of me. I was laughing inside, but I was determined to not rock the boat and be blamed for stupid shit. Meanwhile, Joey was sitting there being the peace maker, but it was obvious the band would never be the same. The magic was gone and we were all too stubborn to recognise that.
The band seems to have fallen apart soon thereafter with the recording of the 1997’s unreleased ‘Living Off Layla’ album.
Skid and Jizzy were no longer working together. Jizzy started another band with Joey playing drums, so Joey was drumming for both Skid and I in Love/Hate, and in Jizzy’s new group. It was weird; Skid and I would be demoing at Soulhouse West studios,
and in would come Jizzy and Joey, rehearsing with his Sineater’s thing. Skid, Joey and I employed a female singer named Moe, and started performing under the moniker Skoe. Then Moe got hired to be in the theatrical production Cats, so that ended that. Meanwhile, Skid decided to hire Mark Torien of the BulletBoys to finish the vocals for the Love/Hate record. At this time I decided to go into rehab to get my shit together to save my marriage, and Skid and Jeff Robert who was producing mixed the record while I was there. The mixes were horrible with Skid in charge, so I really don’t consider it a piece of work I’m proud of. Skid named the album after Jizzy’s girlfriend at the time because he felt Jizzy was living off of her and wanted to stab him in the back. That’s the politics of a rock band. I find it quite humorous now when I think back about that time of our lives.
Do you think that the original members will ever put aside their differences to tour again?
That’s very doubtful. Skid lives in the Philippines now and says he’s happy there. Joey is a family man and has an incredible job associated with Homeland security here in LA. Jizzy and I don’t talk since he hates me for making him change his solo album to not have it be a Love/Hate release. I have been accused of being an asshole for making him change the name of the release, but what people don’t realise is that the deal he offered me to play on it was not something that I felt was a fair offer. He’s painted me out to be someone that was trying to milk the cash-cow. He wanted me to sign a work-for-hire agreement so I’d have no percentage of any profits generated from it. He’s singing for Quiet Riot now, so more power to him. I don’t have a problem with him playing the songs and having fun. I never saw a penny from all the tours he did using the name, not one cent from merchandising, nothing. But business is business, and I respect Jizzy. I just didn’t agree with his terms.
Bring things back to the present, is there a chance you might bring Jon E. Love and the Haters to the UK?
Only time will tell. I plan on recording a new set of original songs with my guys and if it’s financially feasible to come over then we may. If not, then like I said, maybe I’ll come over and bring my daughter and play a few gigs just to have fun. The music business has changed so drastically that it’s hard to keep a band on the road and make money.
Is there anything you’d like to add?
If you’re local in LA in March come down and have fun with us. Joey is scheduled to get up and play a few songs with us, and Darren [Householder, the guitarist who replaced Love in Love/Hate] will also be there to play a few from the record he performed on. It would be great to have all four original guys play together, but on this anniversary it just doesn’t seem likely. Maybe by the time ‘Wasted In America’s anniversary comes around we can all try and do it again.
To keep up to date with all things Jon E.Love, visit:
https://www.facebook.com/JonELoveandTheHaters
Jon E. Love is endorsed by Engl amplifiers, Ernie Ball/Musicman guitars and strings. Dana Guitars.
Photos by Sean Foder
