Jim Babjak: The Clark Kent of Lead Guitar

I imagine Jim Babjak sitting in a bank's office somewhere in the ruins of New Jersey pushing paper from one side of his desk to the other. Okay, there’s more to banking than that, but that’s what it looks like. Babjak’s day is punctuated by phone calls and staff meetings and occasional glances at his wrist watch. Finally, at five o’clock, he takes his suit jacket off a hook, flings it over his shoulder, locks his office door and calmly bids good evening to his co-workers. Then he’s out the door looking for a phone booth to change in. But that’s getting harder these days. Phone booths are fewer and farther between.

At night, Babjak is a super hero. Even better, he’s the lead guitarist of The Smithrereens, the band he cofounded three decades ago with fellow Jersey boys Dennis Diken (drums), Mike Mesaros (bass) and Pat DiNizio (guitar and lead vocals). Need I invoke the band's string of mid-80’s hits? Need I say “Blood and Roses” and “Behind a Wall of Sleep” and “Only A Memory” and “A Girl Like You”? Need I remind you that his music can be heard in films like “Bull Durham,” “Backdraft,” “Encino Man,” “Time Cop,” “Boys Don't Cry,” “Cruel Intentions 2,” “Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle,” and “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry.” That’s so cool we forgive him for those radio commercials for Dairy Queen and Nissan.

Cliff: People who attended the recent “The Music of the Who” at Carnegie Hall saw a lot of interesting interpretations of Pete Townshend music, but it was The Smithereens who came closest to that Live at Leeds Sound. Of course The Who are about as close as some people get to religion. It's easy to hear their influence on many bands, but frankly, while the Beatles impact on The Smithereens was obvious from the get-go, I never understood the relationship between The Who and the 'Reens until I actually heard you play Who music. Any thoughts on this?

Jim: We used to play "The Seeker" during our first national tour in 1986, so many of our original fans remember that. Our version of it also appeared on MTV's “Live at the Ritz” and was a live EP released on CD back in 1987. Before we had a record deal, we were playing three sets a night in the bars, “I Can't Explain” was a staple in our live show. We would also throw in “Substitute” on rare occasions.

Dennis Diken, our drummer, and I started playing together when we were 14 years old. We would practice playing songs like “You Really Got Me” by The Kinks, “Summertime Blues” by The Who, “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix, “Shapes Of Things” by The Yardbirds", “I'll feel a Whole lot Better” by The Byrds, “No Matter What” by Badfinger, “Ticket To Ride” by The Beatles, “Dirty Water” by The Standells… These songs give you an idea of how we started out. Then around 1973 we got a little more ambitious and started playing songs off of The Who's “Tommy” album and whatever little snippets I could play off of “Live at Leeds”. Dennis and I went to many concerts during our teen years and besides seeing the Kinks about 30 times and tons of other bands, we saw the Who perform a few times while Keith Moon was still alive. After seeing them live, there's no doubt that Townshend made a huge impact on me during my learning years. It's still very much in our blood and will probably be there forever. So by the time we met Pat in 1979, I already had this aggressive style of guitar playing, which was also fueled by the punk movement of the late 70's.

Cliff: Which of the acts at Carnegie Hall the other night were you most impressed with?

Jim: I didn't get to see much of it because the wings were just too crowded and I didn't want to get in the way. It was a good scene up in the dressing rooms just talking to all the other artists, some of which are old friends. I was very impressed by Bob Mould and had a very nice time chatting with Mose Allison who shared our dressing room. There was a great sense of camaraderie among everyone there.

Cliff: You've done your Beatles and Who tributes now...are there any other tributes that Smithereens' fans can expect?

Jim: It was all fun and the fans have mentioned in their emails about us doing a Kinks tribute, but it's time to work on a new original album. Who knows? Anything can happen… I can't rule out another tribute. But there are no plans for one at this time.

Cliff: Pat and I have spoken many times about his influences. Who are yours?

Jim: There are so many that it's way too long to list. Let's just say that the music of the 50's, 60's and early 70's all mixed up is my foundation.

Cliff: What do you listen to these days?

Jim: When I'm not listening to talk radio or CDs from my collection, I'll tune in to rock radio and it's very rare that I'm impressed by something new. Then again, it could be my mood. I was watching TV one night and saw a concert by Snoop Dogg and liked it! My son got me the Chicken Foot and Wolfmother CDs for Christmas… Of course, I bought myself The Kinks box, Neil Young box and both mono and stereo Beatles box sets. I'm becoming an Amazon sucker! They send me emails about new releases that I might like. I just bought the Rhino handmade “Birds, Bees and Monkees” box set and pre-ordered the “Tami” show DVD… I did go out of my way to order The Duke Spirit's album “Neptune” after hearing the song “The Step and The Walk” on the radio. I Googled the band to find the song and while I was looking I read some reviews by people that said Liela Moss' vocals sounded like Grace Slick, but I don't hear that and I think she has her own thing going. She has a great voice. If I had to compare her to anyone, she sounds more like Mariska Veres from The Shocking Blue. She has a similar sexiness in her voice.

Cliff: When I saw you in Morristown recently we spoke about the fact that you have a "straight" job by day and sort of turn into a rock star at night. How does it feel to be the Clark Kent of lead guitarists?

Jim: I'm still working on it. It's not easy at all. I don't like to mix the two worlds, so I keep a very low profile... It's funny, I've known Willie Nile since the 80's and he also has a day gig. Backstage at Carnegie Hall I asked him if he's going in to work in the morning and he said yes. I said, “Me too” and we both laughed. Here we are at Carnegie hall and then the next day we're sitting at a desk. They're both realities.

Cliff: Is playing out once a month, which is what you seem to average, the right mix of family, business and rock & roll?

Jim: Sometimes it's a very hard balance. I take it as it comes. We played seven shows in January and that was pretty great. Usually we have more concerts in the summer and it gets very busy. It all works out. Sometimes I take my family with me. Last year we played in Spain for a week and I took my wife. We had a great time… I get to see so much of the world. I feel very lucky. I just roll with the punches that life brings me. I look at everything as life experience and try to make it great, even my commute to work in the morning.

© 2010 Clifford Meth

Didja hear the one about the Italian, the Irishman and the Jew?

At WDHA studio with Pat DiNizio (the Smithereens) and radio's Jim Monaghan. Pat & Jim did a few Buddy Holly numbers.

The Smithereens will be rocking The Morristown Community Theater this Saturday night. The Jew is skipping the fights to go see them.

The Smithereens, Live in Morristown

It's only one of the best garage bands you'll ever see. And Mr. Meth will be there. Do yourself a favor and catch The Smithereens performing their hits like “A Girl Like You,” “Only a Memory,” “Blood and Roses” and “Behind the Wall of Sleep” this Saturday night in Morristown, NJ.

Click here for more information.

The Smithereens on Meth

Looks like I'll be writing the liner notes for the next Smithereens album, which is quite a thrill. I'm a huge fan of liner notes in general and absorbed them, like I did album credits, from my earliest childhood albums, the first being Veejay's "Introducing the Beatles." Coincidentally, the next 'Reens album will have more than a Beatles flavour (I can say that, can't I Pat?) Also, coincidental to this blog, it will feature a cover painting by one of the legendary comic artists. More details to come. In the mean time, here's the latest from Pat DiNizio's gang of four:

NEW YORK, NY--April 14, 2008--KOCH Records is pleased to announce the newest album by rock band The Smithereens. "Live In Concert - Greatest Hits and More" features music from The Smithereens' four-night stint at The Court in New Brunswick, New Jersey, a musical home away from home for the group, which took place January 30th - February 2nd, 2008. The band, all hailing from surrounding Central Jersey towns, played the Court Tavern often at the start of their career.

The album features live recordings of two brand new songs, "Any Other Way" and "Since You Went Away." The set also includes Buddy Holly's classic (and a big influence for The Smithereens) "Well Alright," and the ripping interpretation of the "Batman" theme, a live staple for the band.

For the past 25 years, The Smithereens have toured non-stop, recording and releasing Gold and Platinum albums that spawned Top 40 radio hits such as "A Girl Like You," "Too Much Passion," "Blood And Roses," "Only a Memory" and "Behind The Wall Of Sleep." But at the beginning of that long and successful road, the loved group spent many sweaty, rock filled evenings in the damp, close quartered basement of The Court.

Live at The Court takes us back to that hallowed ground and brings back the energy and edginess that was present at the beginning of The Smithereens' career. The club was packed for every performance, and the love and energy for the Smithereens is evident on each track. This album features the Smithereens in their natural habitat, playing great music for their hometown fans. It shines a light on the love of their fans, and what the group is about.

For more information go to http://www.officialsmithereens.com/

Meet the Smithereens

As the weather warms, The Smithereens will be playing a number of shows on both coasts. Visit their website--mark your calender... To help buzz the launch of their last CD, Meet the Smithreens, I penned a feature on the band last year for The Aquarian, New Jersey's rock paper. Here's the unedited long-form of that interview with my pal, lead singer/writer Pat DiNizio:

Meth: Tell me about playing with Paul McCartney.

DiNizio: Gary Talent of the E Street band, who was a friend of ours, gave me a call and said he was the music director for the annual Buddy Holly Celebration that McCartney puts together every year. This time it was going to be held in NY City at The Lonestar Roadhouse to herald the debut of The Buddy Holly Story on Broadway. I remember the date vividly—this was Sept. 4 of 1990 and I was getting married on Sept. 1 in Chicago. I asked Gary if there was any chance that Paul would be there and he said most likely; that whenever he does one of these annual Buddy Holly events he’s usually there. I thought, well, if he’s ever going to be there, he’ll be there for this event because he owns the Buddy Holly song catalogue and he’s obviously going to push the musical. So we changed our honeymoon plans—we delayed our honeymoon by a week and eventually we went to Japan. I just had the feeling that Paul was going to be there so I went. And for me, as one of millions of kids who saw the Beatles the first time on The Ed Sullivan Show, and who dreamed of nothing else but being in a band like The Beatles, it was a dream come true. I actually found myself later in the evening on stage with him and the rest of the musicians who played that evening—it was sort of an All-Star band that was thrown together. I played bass and Paul sand “Lucille” by Little Richard, a great, old rocker. It was one of those moments when you wished that someone had snuck in a video camera because there were no cameras allowed for the event and very few people had video cams that were portable back in 1990. About a year later, I went to pick up the mail and I opened the mail up and there was a videocassette with a little note that said, “I thought you might like this.” And it was whole event on video.

Meth: Did the rest of the Smithereens play that night, too?

DiNizio: No, just me. I played because I had written a song on Smithereens 11, an homage to Buddy Holly, a tribute to his early relationship and his widow Maria Elena. The song is called “Maria Elena”. I had sent her a copy and met her and her daughter and we all became friends. She was there, as well, and they asked me specifically to come and sing that song because it was obviously part of an album that was doing very well for us at the time.

Meth: I’m just feeling your place here, Pat.

DiNizio: It’s a good feeling, Clifford. It’s quiet.

Meth: It reminds me of my old Fraternity House. We had a big, old house in Dover, New Jersey.

DiNizio: So you used to go hang out at The Showplace.

Meth: Yeah. My band played there several times. It was a big deal for us because the Ramones had just played there that weekend.

DiNizio: We couldn’t really secure a gig there. It was too far from where we were based and we didn’t have a fan base in that area. But we’d go up there and pay them a fee to do some recording. We’d get up there on a Monday night when nobody was around. We’d hook up a reel-to-reel tape recorder and get a live board mix. It was a very live-sounding room, which I liked about it. We used it to record early demos—we’d do live backing tracks without vocals at The Showplace and we’d come home and transfer that tape in a recording studio and we’d add vocals. It really gave it a dynamic sound because we hadn’t figured out yet how to bridge the gap between the live sound of the band and what would become the studio sound of the band. They are two distinctly different things. Other bands make the mistake of trying to sound exactly like they sound live, but smart bands don’t make that mistake. There was a studio Beatles and there was a live Beatles.

Meth: What do you prefer?

DiNizio: I enjoy the immediacy of a live performance—I enjoy the immediate feedback that you get from an audience; you know whether you are on your game or not, whether people are enjoying it. It’s thrilling to play live and we still put 200% into everything that we do. But the studio is also fulfilling on another level. It’s more difficult to get to the point where you can say I enjoy listening to it because it’s a building stage. You’re starting with your basic tracks and you’re adding guitars and you’re layering and you’re putting your vocals on and you’re mixing. You don’t know really, until the eleventh hour of the project whether what you’ve done has any merit at all. In other words, it’s a longer process. The only real moment of enjoyment is when you’re listening to the final product and you know you’ve done a good job. And hopefully other folks might find enjoyment in the recordings you’ve created. But for me, going in the studio is very difficult. I don’t necessarily enjoy the process. I appreciate it. I’m happy to still have the ability to make records. But it’s not fun.

It was fun in the early days, when we hadn’t yet made records, but it was always pressure. It was thrilling. It’s still thrilling. I still get that tingling, that sense of excitement whenever we go in the studio, but there’s nothing about it I take for granted. It’s extremely challenging and stressful because I really work at it and I want everything to be the best that I can get.

Meth: How involved are you in the production?

DiNizio: I would say that on all The Smithereens albums, although we’re not credited, we certainly co-produced those records. There’s so much input of ours on everything.

Meth: You don’t get on the board?

DiNizio: I sit behind the producer but I don’t operate the board. I think my energy is best spent on thinking of good, creative melodic ideas and arrangement parts, not worrying about the technical aspects of the recordings. I leave that in the hands of the professionals. It’s a blessing when you find yourself in the studio with someone who really does get it, who really understands what the band is all about. That was a process of elimination in the early days. Our first demos were done with individuals who, while well-meaning, didn’t really understand the band, you know? They didn’t really know how to capture the sound of the band in a recording studio.

Meth: Who did you want to sound like, other than The Beatles?

DiNizio: I don’t know that we were really going for a sound. I think it just happened. In fact, the band today stills sounds very much the way we sounded when we first sat down and played together in my dad’s basement right here in Scotch Plains in March of 1980. It hasn’t changed that much except, perhaps, the songs have grown and matured. Some of the first songs I wrote, while charming, are not great compositions. It’s someone learning how to write songs. Yet some of the songs—in fact my first composition, “I Don’t Want to Lose You” wound up on Especially For You and a lot of folks like that song. “Elaine” was song number two and it wound up on “Green Thoughts.” So you never know. It just took a long time to get to that point—to actually sit down and attempt to wrestle with that beast. Understanding how songs work, the mechanics of songs, having to dig deep inside and come up with melodies that are memorable... The hurdle that I had to get over in terms of my live performances—it dawned on my on stage one evening at Kenny’s Castaways, that I was singing original material that contained lyrics that revealed a lot of my inner life and my personal life, to complete strangers.

Meth: Standing naked in front of strangers.

DiNizio: Exactly. And I felt uptight for a little bit but I eventually figured out that this is the job, this is what I do, this is the situation that I’ve put myself in. So I have to deal with it. After I came to terms with it, I started feeling comfortable because I realized that if the song lyrics were well written, then other folks would live through them as well.

Meth: Did you know you had a hit when you wrote certain songs? Songs like “Blood and Roses” for instance?

DiNizio: The only time that I had the feeling I had a hit was when I wrote “Girl Like You,” which was written for Cameron Crowe for his film “Say Anything.” And after a minor argument with the producer James L. Brooks, we decided to take the song back and save it for ourselves. And that being said, obviously I had a feeling at the time that it was a hit or we would have given it to them. We decided to save it for ourselves because it might have been released on a soundtrack album and got lost and then it would have had no meaning later on, on one of our records. But my feeling with that was based in part on the fact that the first album was a hit, the second album had a #1 rock radio single…we were on a roll and it was likely that radio would receive a song like this from us. I had that feeling. I didn’t know if it was a hit but I remember my wife at the time saying, “It’s a good song, but it’s not your best song.”

Meth: What did she think your best song was?

DiNizio: She never spoke of that.

Meth: How about your daughter?

DiNizio: She doesn’t have a favorite but she’s finally gotten a chance to come to some of the live shows, which is a big thrill for me, that she’s old enough now to attend the concerts and actually see what her dad has done for a living for the past 27 years. I remember while writing Smithereens 11 playing a demo of “Blue Period” and my wife Mary saying to me, “Did you really write this song?” Not saying how good it was but inferring that it baffled her that I was able to come up with it.

Meth: “Blue Period” might be my favorite.

DiNizio: Mary was also of the opinion that songs like “Blue Period” should have been hits. They weren’t. They were handled improperly or perhaps they were out of time. They might have hit in 1966 or 67. There were always problems on every level, with management, with distribution.

Meth: It’s been a long time since you’ve had a record contract. How did you end up with Koch?

DiNizio: It’s not really a contract. We’ve licensed this new recording—we own it and we’ve licensed it to Koch. It’s sort of the new model for 2007.

Meth: Let’s talk about this album, “Meet the Smithereens.” Without knowing anything, my guess was the seed for this disc was planted when The Smithereens did “I Want to Tell You” for Songs From The Material World (A Tribute to George Harrison).

DiNizio: No. Not at all. In fact, I was very much against recording that because the arrangement for “I Want to Tell You” was absolutely perfect as it is on Revolver and I couldn’t imagine any way that we could improve it. In fact, in terms of our history, for many years we were asked to do cover songs for movies. We did a version of “Time Won’t Let Me” for “Time Cop,” the Jean-Claude Van Damm film, and it was an okay version. Mr. King, who wrote the song for the original Outsiders, who recorded it in 1966, said that it was the best version of the song that he ever heard. So we got the vote of approval from the guy who wrote it, which meant a lot to us. But there’s not too much you can do with it. So I was very anti doing cover songs unless we could absolutely make them our own. Somehow, we did achieve that with “I Want to Tell You”—it’s a little different.

Meth: I’m not saying this because we’re friends or because I’m sitting in your kitchen drinking your bad coffee—

DiNizio: You don’t like the coffee?

Meth: —but it’s the best track on that album, by far. Most of those tracks weren’t repeatable—not Bill Wyman’s, not John Entwhistle’s.

DiNizio: The track works well because it’s kind of like The Who meets The Beatles meets The Smithereens. And it sounds like us. So I was pleased. I came and I did my vocals and split. But we have a lot of covers—some are good and some are not so good. I remember when they were making this Christian Slater movie when he was a big star in the early ‘90s called “Kuffs”—they wanted The Smithereens to record a version of The Who’s “Shaking All Over” from “Live at Leeds”—but they wanted it to sound like The Talking Heads. And it’s like, “What are you, dreaming? We’re The Smithereens, not The Talking Heads.” So we did a version of it and it’s okay. We did “Wooly Bully” for “Encino Man” and a version of Ringo’s hit “It Don’t Come Easy” and then I didn’t want to do anything that we couldn’t improve on. But that being said, when it came time to record our most recent studio album, which was also for Koch, “God Save the Smithereens” (1999) I felt strongly that based on the theme of the record, which was originally about Apocalypse 2000. There was a tremendous amount of concern and fear and loathing surrounding the millennium, as you recall, Clifford. And I had been listening to a lot of short-wave radio, picking up a lot of weird signs and signals from all over the place, and the album was really for me, initially, about the end of the world. So “Gloomy Sunday” was one of my favorite songs, which Billie Holliday originally recorded. The song was infamous for having inspired people to kill themselves. Whether what was true or not, I don’t know, but they pulled it off the market at a certain point and stopped playing it on the radio because it had this terrible effect—it was just so depressing. We did a version of it that ranks with anything, I believe, that anybody ever did in terms of covering that song. We did it Smithreens-Beatles style; we took the beat from “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and we really did make it our own. I’m very proud of that particular recording. That’s when I realized that we could take a cover and do something totally different with it and turn it into something that sounded like we wrote it... In the case of “Meet the Smithereens,” which is our song-for-song recreation and interpretation of the first American release by The Beatles on Capital, we follow very closely the structure of the songs while maintaining our own identity as The Smithereens.

Meth: Often when I’ve seen you play, even in your solo performances, you’ve often thrown in a Beatles song.

DiNizio: When we first started playing…we all learned from the masters, from The Beatles, The Byrds, The Beau Brummels. We learned from newer groups like The Jam about live performance. The Stranglers. These were contemporaries of ours at the time, but you take different things for different sources. What we were trying to achieve with Meet the Smithereens was to capture the subtle background sounds of The Beatles and not lose our identity. Come on—let’s play a couple tracks.

© 2007, Clifford Meth