By Jim Barber
Veteran New York State metal band The Rods is back with a new album filled with crunching chords, powerhouse performances and songs filled with meaning, depth and intensity.
Wild Dogs Unchained is coming out Sept. 5 on Massacre Records in both digital and physical formats (CD and vinyl), and brings back the band’s creative core of co-founders David ‘Rock’ Feinstein on guitars and vocals, propelled forward by drummer extraordinaire Carl Canedy, alongside newest member, helping keep the bottom end rockin’, Freddy Villano.
Feinstein is a cousin to the late great, heavy metal legend Ronnie James Dio, and actually played in the band Dio created before being poached by exiting Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore for his new band, Rainbow – Elf. Much of his music business acumen, songwriting chops, understanding of the dynamics of being in a band and how to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in the entertainment industry he learned from Dio. And they were lessons he applied to The Rods 45 years ago, and which he continues to lean on to this day as the band marks 45 years since its founding.
“To me it feels good that we’re still around and making music after 45 years. It’s like anything, there’s ups and downs no matter what the band is or whatever kind of group you’re together with, you’ve got to get along with those people. In my early years, when I started playing with Ronnie in Elf, those guys were all five years older than me. Which was great, because I was just out of high school when I joined Ronnie’s band, so it was a real education for me because I got to see what they were doing and how they were doing it. They were the biggest club band around. They were playing five or six nights a week, so the longer I played with them I realized you had to get along with the people that are in the band and respect them. If you can get along and understand the little idiosyncrasies of the people that you’re working with, you’re probably going to be okay because you have idiosyncrasies too. And with The Rods being a trio, it wasn’t that difficult. Part of the longevity of being able to stay together and do things is the love of it, for one thing, and being able to understand and get along with the people that your working with,” said Feinstein from his home in Cortland in upstate New York, where he has owned and operated a popular restaurant, The Hollywood Restaurant for more than 40 years.
“When I got in Ronnie’s band, that was my first experience of actually having to write a song, When we rehearsed, I remember one time I wrote this song and told Ronnie, and we’d play it in rehearsal, and this was about the time of the first Elf album. I would start playing a little riff, a rhythm guitar riff and Ronnie goes, ‘that’s cool, that’s cool, it’s good,’ and we’d start jamming on it and all of a sudden it developed into a track, and then you add the magic of Ronnie’s incredible way of writing songs and coming up with lyrics and melodies. There were times later when I would come in with a track and maybe an idea for a title and Ronnie would take it and finish it with his lyrics and his concept. Back in the Elf days, I learned about how a band can be a collective thing. I might bring a song in, maybe Ronnie and Mickey Lee Soule wrote a song, or we wrote them all together. And even in the Rods, we’d do things together, and I made sure that everyone had a say.”
Feinstein talked about why he chose to write, record and release new music as well as revisiting a couple of classic tracks on the new Wild Dogs Unchained album.
“I think our last album [Rattle the Cage] and this new album have some great songs on them. And I think the songs are more meaningful. Carl and I talked about whether we should go back to the beginning and pick some of the songs that we really never did live and put together 10 or 12 of those songs, do a live show and record them and it would be something different. It would be the old songs, but done the way we play them now. So, I started listening to those older songs and granted, ‘Power Lover’ and ‘Crank it Up’ and others were some of our more popular songs. But I listened to a number of the others and told Carl, ‘some of these songs, I’m too embarrassed to sing the lyrics,’ because what we did back then, what we wrote back then, was in a different era. It was a different point in time. It was a different audience. And bands back then, we sang about sex, drugs and rock and roll. That’s basically what we geared our songs to because it was a part of the times. But for me to sing some of those lyrics now, I guess I could change them a little bit and make them not so dirty or whatever and it would be fine. But I find the music now that I’m writing is more mature because we’re more mature. I want to write and record songs about things that are more meaningful and have to do with today’s world rather than, you know, just partying all the time,” he said.
“We got a good response to the first song that the label released as a single. The title is ‘World on Fire,’ which is basically a song I wrote about the world today. In my eyes, it is on fire. And there’s another song on there, which is my favourite song on the album, called ‘Tears For the Innocent,’ which is about all these innocent people that are dying because of these senseless wars. I mean, wars have been going on for thousands of years and innocent people have been dying because of them. I grew up in the Vietnam War era and a lot of my friends that I went to school with died in Vietnam, or ended up coming home injured or committing suicide, or getting cancer from Agent Orange. And it hit me really hard when I see the Ukraine war and all the innocent people dying. And there’s more than just the Ukraine war, there’s other wars but all these innocent people and children dying because of that. So, that inspired me to write that song, which is a very important song to me. If nobody else likes it, that’s fine. I don’t care because I’m proud of that song. I’m glad I wrote it. It has good lyrics and it has a good message, just like ‘World on Fire.’
“There’s a few songs on this new album that mean a lot to me. I think in the last 10, 12, 15 years, especially since Ronnie’s passing [in 2009], and you know that I always respected him 100 per cent. As far as I’m concerned he’s the best, and his lyrics and what he wrote about, you know, were very meaningful. They weren’t bullshit lyrics. And after he died, I said, ‘you know what? That’s what I want to do. I want to take a new approach. I want to write songs that send a message, that are meaningful, that are about real things in the world. I want to feel good about what I write and I feel good about the songs on this new album.’ I honestly don’t know how many people are going to hear those songs. I don’t know how many people are going to get the message, because I’m only at a certain level. If I was like Mick Jagger or someone huge like that, then yeah, that message is going to hit millions of people. But it does make me feel good because I can sit, and I can listen to the songs and I can be proud of them. And I can say to myself, ‘that’s exactly what I wanted to say.’ And whoever listens to the music is going to get the message, whether they accept it or they like it or not, that doesn’t really matter to me, because I know it makes me feel good that I can send that message.”
There is a sort of connective emotional tissue between the songs on Wild Dogs Unchained, which Feinstein alluded to when talking about ‘Tears for the Innocent’ and ‘World On Fire.’ And there is the same intensity of playing, powerhouse vocal performances and insistent energy that also infuses all the songs.
“Having that same feeling through the album, it’s not something that’s planned. It wasn’t something I was thinking of when I was writing ‘World on Fire,’ ‘Tears For the Innocent’ and ‘Wolves at the Door,’ and some of the others. They’re all in the same kind of genre of things. I think that overall feel just came together because I was writing those kinds of songs, and realized they were all sending the same kind of message. Even in the past, back in the day when all the bands were writing about partying and stuff like that, I would still come up with a song that was more like a protest song. And I would even get criticized for it from my management and journalists and stuff. I wrote a song called ‘Nuclear Skies’ back in the day, which was actually a pretty good song, but they [the label] didn’t want to present that as part of our image, which maybe was the right thing to do businesswise. But I felt good about it,” he said, digging deeper into how ‘Tears For the Innocent’ came about.
“After seeing the news and everything I thought about the title, ‘Tears For the Innocent.’ That’s the first thing that I came up with, and I jotted it down and thought, this is a great title, this is a good story, it should be told. It’s a sad song, you can listen to that song and if you really get into it, tears will come to your eyes. I wanted to tell the story of how I felt about those innocent people dying for, like, no reason. Back when you’re young we never thought much about it; ‘oh there’s a war going on, well it doesn’t really affect us, we’re playing a gig tonight anyways.’ But when you’re older and in today’s world when you think about what goes on, when you watch the news and see people starving, and people dying and people getting bombed and killed and losing everything – these families are losing everything and maybe it’s just because I have this sympathy for these people and I wanted to tell the story.”
Another theme that runs through many of the songs on Wild Dogs Unchained is, again related to similar songs that were penned by Ronnie James Dio, particularly in his solo days, where songs of empowerment, standing up for oneself, being free to be yourself, and the power of rock and metal music to help get you through those challenging times were prevalent.
“A song like ‘Eyes of a Dreamer,’ is like that. Ronnie and I was always talk about being dreamers and what do we want to do in the world. Life is pretty short when it comes down to it, and you don’t realize it when you’re younger. I learned that attitude from Ronnie, I learned so much from him, because he was an optimistic person when it came to things like, if you’re dreaming something, then you can make it happen if you put your heart into it. It’s about persevering and sticking with it. That’s the message I wanted to get out there with that song,” Feinstein said.
“A lot of my songs are about freedom. About doing what you want to do before it’s too late and trying to live your dreams, because I kind of lived that life myself. I was playing in a band from an early age, like 13 years old, and playing in a band was my dream. Whether it was a high school band playing in front of 20 kids at some mixer, or it was in an arena with Elf opening for Deep Purple, the feeling that I got from being on stage was such a great feeling because I was doing what I love to do. And I was making those people watching us feel good. I think it’s a great thing to make yourself happy doing what you’re doing and also you’re making other people happy. And it’s still like that today, it’s what I’ve stuck with all my life. I’ve been told before by people who work with The Rods that music is my drug and it’s true.”
The album title is based off one of the classic 1980s Rods songs, ‘Wild Dogs,’ which he, Canedy and Villano re-recorded for this album, along with another banger and fan favourite, ‘Hurricane.’
“Carl wanted to redo a couple of songs and one of them was ‘Wild Dogs.’ And I said sure. And ‘Hurricane’ has always been one of the popular songs when we play live, so we decided to do a couple. To be honest with you, I wasn’t really excited about redoing those songs, only because they’re I the past; they’re not about the future. But I am always happy to go along with anybody that’s in the band who has an idea. I want to give them freedom to express that, so to do those songs was okay. If I’m listening to the album myself, I probably would skip over those songs because I’ve already heard them. I wrote them decades ago. But I know some of the fans might like hearing this newer rendition of them. They’re kind of the same, but they’re also different. It’s a different bass player now, and we’re all different with our playing. I think that, as a band, we’ve really kind of grown up and when you think about it, after all these years, we still can play as powerful as we did when we were 20 years old,” Feinstein said.
When Elf became successful in the early 1970s, most of the band moved out to California, the centre of the music business at the time. Feinstein wanted to take a break. But that break became more permanent when Balckmore essentially took the remainder of Elf, including Dio, and made them his band for the aforementioned first Rainbow album, Rainbow Rising, which came out in 1975 opening another hugely successful chapter in the iconic axe slinger’s career and turning Dio into an international star.
“When I left Elf, everybody moved to California. But my plan was never to leave forever. I only needed some time off for a few months to just experience some of the things I wanted to do, but then I would come back to the band. Obviously, we were tight with Deep Purple because we opened for them a lot, and Roger Glover [Purple’s bassist] and I produced the first Elf album. So when things developed and Ritchie basically took the whole Elf band I realized I was never going back to Elf, because there wasn’t an Elf to go back to. I often think if I had never left for a few months and if I had gone to California maybe Elf would have stayed together and had success, maybe Ronnie wouldn’t have gone with Ritchie if I were there. But those questions will never be answered. And as everybody knows, Ritchie eventually fired everybody in the band shortly after that except for Ronnie,” he said, adding that he actually almost quit playing music in the late 1970s.
“I started doing solo albums because for most of us, being a musician is not something you ever really give up. Even though there was a time I wanted to get away from it, to the point where I was driving around in an old truck and I took the radio out of it. I didn’t want to listen to music at all. I didn’t want to have anything to do with music. I wanted to isolate myself from it and just concentrate on the restaurant. But after some time went by and I was following Ronnie’s career with Rainbow, and I started listening to a bunch of other bands and that led me to writing some songs. And when you write a song, you want to hear what it sounds like played by a band, so I thought I would just start a band and play some bars around town, make 50 bucks or whatever,” he explained.
“So I started looking for musicians. A friend of mine, who was a lighting tech who worked with me years before, we went to see this band, and Carl Canedy was the drummer in the band. They were just another club band, but Carl stood out because he was such a great drummer. And that’s how I met Carl. After the show I told Carl I wanted to form a band and asked him if he wanted to do it with me. And he said, ‘yeah, okay.’ Then we needed a bass player. We wanted to form a trio. There was a local guy that I knew who was a bass player and we got him [Gary Bordonaro]. Actually, at the beginning we wanted to get a lead singer, but there weren’t any singers around so I said I would be the singer, and actually all three of us sang. So we worked on our sound, and our style, we wanted to be, like, the American Motorhead where we were a three-piece heavy, hard rock band. And this was right at the time of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal [NWOBHM] so it was a good time for us. We were just playing clubs at the beginning but then this guy sees us one night, wants to be our manager, gets us a record deal and all of a sudden we’re in Europe opening for Iron Maiden. It just kind of took off on its own. It wasn’t something we ever planned when we formed The Rods. We planned to have a bar band that made 50 or 100 bucks a night so I could buy groceries, then all of a sudden we’re making albums, we’re on the road, we’re touring, we’re opening for big bands, and that’s how the whole thing started.”
But in the fickle music industry, those early brief shining moments of success didn’t last. In a story that is all too common, the ‘business’ side of the music business intervened and not only sapped The Rods of their momentum and long-term success, but also Feinstein’s passion for the music business.
“We had some bad dealings with managers, record labels and all that stuff and we just got fed up with it. We got fed up with the business part of it. So we stopped, but we didn’t stop with any ill feelings towards each other or anything. I was like, ‘I can’t do it anymore.’ Time went by, I worked on the restaurant and Carl did some other stuff. He lives in Pennsylvania now so he lives a ways away from me,” he said, explaining how he went from heavy metal frontman to restauranteur. Around 1983, Feinstein heard that The Hollywood Restaurant, a staple in downtown Cortland and place where he and his buddies used to hang out as teens, was for sale by the longtime owner, who was friends with Feinstein’s grandfather.
“My whole thing was I wanted to rehab the place, and I wanted it to make it cool, with a cool vintage feel. I figured if we could offer a good product at a decent price with good service, then maybe we’ll be successful. I always thought that was the best philosophy for any business – good product, good service, decent price,” he said.
While reviving The Hollywood Restaurant into the vibrant and popular bar/eatery that it remains, Feinstein actually never did give up on music. Someone who is as passionate about writing and creating and playing never really can, so he kept doing just that throughout the 1980s, 1990s and into the early 2000s.
“I started writing songs and doing solo albums, just going to a local studio and putting them down, putting them out myself, no labels or anything, or if they were on a label it was a cheesy little label. One day I got a call from Carl and he goes, ‘I just listened to your newest solo album and I think it’s really great. It really makes me want to play again.’ I said, well maybe we can have a sort of Rods reunion; do a show in my hometown and maybe another one in Ithaca, which is abut 20 miles from here, which is where Gary, the bass played at the time lived. And we got in touch with him and he was in too,” Feinstein said.
“We figured we’d do the two shows for fun, but now we’re in the internet age, and when people found out we were doing those two reunion shows, people flocked to those bars, like in herds, with old albums and things to sign. We never realized we had that many fans and fans who still remembered us. So those two local shows were phenomenal and we decided to keep doing it and we started doing more shows. We didn’t have a manager or agent or anything, but because of the internet we started getting messages asking us to play a festival in Brazil, or a few dates over in Europe. People were trying to get a hold of us from all over the world, in places we’d never played before. And of course now we’re into it more for the fun of it. We weren’t making our living doing this, but we’d tell them, well we need airline tickets, we need food, we need a place to sleep, we need transportation and we gave them our price and they all said yes. So we did all these amazing shows and we loved it. People were coming out in droves so then we started recording again and started doing CDs. So that reunion in two little clubs in upstate New York turned out to be years and years.
“And the fans that have been coming out, many of them weren’t born during our heyday. The span of the ages of the fans is kind of hard to believe. When we do a show there’s the old timers who were there in the beginning. They’re hardcore. Then there’s the people in the middle who maybe hadn’t heard of the earlier albums but heard our last album and loved it. Then there’s the young people who have heard from the older people, ‘hey, you’ve got to hear this band. They’re really good.’ And it’s not just here in the States. We went to Australia a few years ago, and we had no idea what it was going to be like, because we’d never been there before. But the fans at those shows were the same type of people as here. They dress the same, they look the same, they respond the same, and its no different when we go to Germany or anywhere here in the U.S.. Which is cool, because this music is what they’re in to, and that’s why they’re there to support you. But we still take one thing at a time. Because we didn’t tour last year, we’re waiting to see how this new album does before making any big plans. We will probably pull together some sort of local show as an album release type of thing. If this album takes off and it gets a great response, and we started getting calls for the festivals, and we feel good about it, we’d love to go out and do some of these shows.”
For more information on possible tour dates, the new album, Wild Dogs Unchained and more, visit: https://therods.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
