 Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover The cliché: You are what you eat. The pen is mightier than the sword. You’re only as good as the company you keep. Grey over an autumn winter. Never heard that one? Give it a try; I’m about as sad as grey over an autumn winter. Not bad, huh? Why not add it to that big list of overused truisms? It reads like poetry and its author is Mike Mazzarella. There’s nothing cliché about Mazzarella’s CD Grey Over An Autumn Winter. The mouthpiece for the power pop band The Rooks has grown a bit older and probably a little wiser. Known for his insatiable melodies, hooks and harmonies with The Rooks, Michael now presents music for the lonely hearts, troubled isolates and reclusive rejects who stow away in the grays of their autumn-winters. This album is nearly a year old and truth be told, I gave it one (probably unfair) listen before retiring it to a tall pile of mostly ignored CDs trespassing my shelves. Even last December, I sensed that there was something to this CD but the holidays were coming and I had other things to do; Kids to shop for, football to watch, fast foods to eat. In the wake of all that living, the CD became lost. Recently, a couple of reviews came my way for GOAAW, piquing my interest a little and sending me back to the pile of banished CDs, influencing me to dig deep for the damned thing. I’m a words guy. Lots of people don’t care about lyrics to a song - I do. Lines like Are there tresses white in your pretty maiden hair?; An hour more, I’m growing cold, before you know we’ll both be old; Like a woman forgets she has pride or a man can’t defend for his side or Winter go the leaves, go the promises by flurries and degrees - excite me - good phrases. The opening song’s ("Fairground Is Gone") imagery is so well-crafted, I can sense the desolate field and the sadness brought on because a small-town circus has moved on: Where did the cheer of summer go? Where are the Mardi Gras girls? Where do they hide all the parades, puppets and Pinocchio? Mazzarella sings in a hushed and bemoaned tone over sad, eerie and lonesome singular piano notes. All laying the groundwork for what is about to unfold. There’s the tone of the album: Slow, weary, moody, grey, autumn, winter. Holy hell, did I miss something last year? The reviews made me listen...and listen and...listen again. Then there’s the man: Some Autumn/Winter reviewers have painted Mazzarella into the same shadowy corner with that whispering sad-fellow Elliott Smith or the eccentric and withdrawn Lee Mavers. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, maybe, but the Mazzarella I spoke with recently was quick, funny, articulate and confident. If things are not always as they seem, then that old and battered cliché couldn’t have rung more true during our conversation. The guy who wrote a song about his deceased mother ("Dear Mariann") is past all of that. I thought I might be encountering a Syd Barrett-meets-Anton Newcombe type character but walked away surprised that the writer of such drama and woe is pretty...normal. I learned a lesson; don’t jump to conclusions. Yeah I know, another cliché. Q- OK, let’s get to it. The Rooks are poppy and catchy and the general... A- Not always, man (laughing). Q- I didn’t… A- Are you about to compare our (The Rooks) work from ten years ago to my work now? (Laughing) I got you! I want to stop you before you go on and on about how power poppy The Rooks are without thinking it through. (Singing playfully) I can sense your agenda. Q- It’s not an agenda as much as it’s a comparison. A- Fair enough. But The Rooks aren’t sunshine and ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ clowns. I’m not defending my past but I just don’t want to be in the same ledger with The Bay City Rollers...musically speaking. I mean, not everything about The Rooks is power pop fun. Q- Are you afraid of being called a bubblegum band? A- No, I just dislike when the band is painted into a corner as being only one dimensional, which some have done. I’m sorry for assuming that you might do so also. I’ll shut up now (laughing). Q- Well, any music, if you’re not concentrating on the words or message of a song can sound more cheerful or upbeat when wrapped around harmonies and jangly guitars. But, I also know that "Love Said To Me" is a pretty twisted song when you read the words. A- Ok. Q- That being said, it seems like a lot of your fans couldn’t quite stomach the level of darkness you conjured for Grey Over An Autumn Winter. A- Perplexed (louder and laughing), PERPLEXED is the word I got from a friend who runs a power pop label. He explained to me that the entire power pop community scratched its confused collective head and quickly moved on to bigger and brighter tomorrows. So much for the concept of a mood album. (In a playful, deep voice) How dare I put such a frown on that happy, power pop dreamland. I’m only having chuckle, but you know what I mean. Q- The reviews have been good though. A- Yes...from those willing enough to review it, and I thank each and every one of them for giving it a fair listen. Q- Why, did some pass on it? A- Yes…(long pause) I don’t know. I tend to agree with my friend Dave who feels that some of those “power pop” journalists were afraid to commit themselves to an album like this in print early on for fear that it could jeopardize their credibility as “power pop” keepers of the flame. In other words, some of them perhaps wanted to see what the general consensus was before going out on a limb and writing about it. In the end, maybe some of them just left it alone, hoping that it would die a quick death. What do I know? God bless them all. Q- The reviews I read were fair, I thought. A. Sure. Fair doesn’t have to translate to favorable either and that’s okay too, if it’s honest. Hey, if you’re not moved by it, review WHY it may not be your thing but please don’t dismiss the musicianship, the lyrics, the arrangements, the singing, the songs or the preplanned construction of the album just because you’re not in the mood to listen to something other than "Walking On Sunshine." I think that some journalists wouldn’t review it simply because it didn’t make them feel good, didn’t make them want to dance, maybe (laughing). I felt that those whom passed on the assignment could have used their imaginations and perhaps written about the “idea” of the concept and whether that goal was reached. You know? Did the songs take them to a place of shadows and could they somehow feel the seasons of autumn and winter collide into one, long and windy season through the music? If the music made them feel uncomfortable, I’d love to read their reasons. (Long pause) But here I am talking about the review I WISHED someone would have written. I guess some of the pop writers couldn’t get a handle on all of that cloud cover, or chose not to, anyway. Q- Maybe some of them couldn’t take the slow, simmer of it. It’s not an immediate hooky-poppy-smiley, in-your-face album. A- Exactly. That’s the point! My aim was to create a top-to-bottom mood piece. A changing of the seasons, end-of-year, pull on your scarf, mood album. That’s why it wasn’t titled ‘Sunny Over A Fairyland Beach Party (laughter).’ Q- What was your inspiration? A- Honestly, I got the idea through Sinatra’s concept albums. Everyone tends to think that the first concept albums were a by-product of the drug-addled ‘60s...and Sgt. Pepper was REALLY a concept album by reputation only, but the songs for the most part thematically are disconnected. My album was inspired in theory by Sinatra’s concept albums "In The Wee Small Hours,” "Only The Lonely,” "No One Cares." Albums woven from melancholia and nighttime, street-lit...sadness. I wanted the mood to be the thread that held it all together. Q- Were you pleased with the results? A- I was, one-hundred-percent. I let it go, put it out there in the world, signed off on it and walked away. Q- And to use a cliché, it went over like a lead balloon? A- Yeah, I would have welcomed the lead balloon (laughing). At least the monstrosity of such might have gathered an inquiring crowd (more laughter). Look, some got it and some didn’t take the time to get it. It’s not the kind of world we live in now. Everything seems to have to deliver an immediate impact today. Growing up, some of my best-loved albums took numerous listens for them to sink into me. We live in the age of short attention spans. It’s not that kind of an album. The music needs to sink in, especially as it’s not laced with happy harmonies and hook-filled guitar riffs. I’ll stand by the melodies every day though. All I ask is for the listener to give them some time to land gracefully into the ear-stream, which is connected to the heart. Q- Yep, it’s a world now looking for immediate stimulation. I see it through my kids. In a lot of ways, music is disposable to them and they take or leave a lot of it and then it’s on to the next thing. In fact, I had to wince when I overheard a friend of my daughter say recently something like “The Strokes, The Hives and The Killers are so over.” Two weeks before, that same girl had only one band on her iPod - The Killers! A- (Laughing) I know. I don’t think it’s just a generational malaise either. Personally, I’m fine to live my life without the quick fix, without the blink-and-you-may-miss-it mindset. I love baseball, man. I’m perfectly happy to sit in front of my LO-DEF TV set (yes, readers, I confirmed that he used the term “lo-def” as he explained that he’s had his 12-inch set since 1989) for three-plus hours every night watching a beautiful game of ball unfold with each pitch, every strategic maneuver and every miniature nuance intact. Baseball is never too slow for me. I don’t speed-read either. I like to have a page sink in...I like to retain. Baseball and reading are not for everyone. Grey Over An Autumn Winter is not for everyone. That’s cool. I just hate to think that some music, or any writing or film out there may be dismissed purely due to laziness or…apathy. I can deliver the music. I can’t tie them down and make them listen. I can only hope that they will. Not everything is a candy bar. Some things need to settle and breathe. Q- Who was that album made for? A- Me…anyone with an interest… for anyone who has ever had any interest in my work. For the person who just found out about me on Myspace. You create music and hope that people dig it. I always have high hopes in that people will follow and respect my path forward as a writer. They may not like the end result, but I hope that each and every fan can respect the try, the ritual and rite-of-passage steps forward to another place. I can never expect my entire fan base to embrace everything that I write and record but…perplexed? What’s so perplexing about eleven songs directed toward a specific mood…a concept? Q- I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I also listened to it once, found some of it great out of the box and didn’t quite know what to take from other songs. It was only after I went back to it a lot later and listened in my car over a couple of weeks that it really started to hit me. I soon recognized just how strong an album it is and now feel that it’s some of your best work. I think the words fit the music perfectly. A- Thank you. I’m grateful that at least, you went back to it. If you didn’t like the album after giving it some fair time, that’s good enough for me. Thank you for finding it again. Perhaps others will revisit or find it as time passes. Q- Are you disappointed in the response to the album? A- No (long pause). Frankly, I don’t really know what the response has been other than the reviews, which I’ve been pleased with. The “perplexed” response that we were laughing about a minute ago was reported to me by my friend at the label, but I really haven’t had much first-hand feedback of what the fans feel about it because I‘m never really in contact with them. Interestingly though, I’m learning that women who have the CD are very responsive toward it. Q- Why do you think that is? A- I don’t know…intelligence? (laughter). Q- When approaching a set of songs like this, with a premeditated plan to record, to use your words “a mood album,” you have to be aware that you’re stepping onto new ground for yourself which places you on potentially unsafe turf to where your fan base is concerned, in terms of maybe alienating them. A- Well, for a start, the word safe should never fit into any writer’s schematic. What is safe? Safe is formula and safe is uncreative. On the other hand, I don’t think that constantly taking left turns artistically just for the sake of change is a good road to travel either, because then it becomes a case of ‘Hey, look what I can do.’ I feel it’s best if writers make those steps incrementally within their own intrinsic levels of talent. For my songwriting to go from "Reasons" to "Vows" to "Only Hope For Winter" to "Girl Gone Bye", was a natural evolution and progression. One-foot-in-front-of-the-other steps without having to think about where I was treading. It just happened naturally over the course of writing a lot of songs. Q- Do you think that a lot of bands find a formula and stay with it too long? A- Well, some do and some don’t. The great ones don’t. Brian Wilson, Dylan and The Beatles didn’t. That’s perhaps where I got it into my head as a kid to keep on trying to get better, learn new ways of playing chords with alternate shapes, different chord structures in conjunction with lateral and horizontal melody lines, adding or subtracting beats to a bar…all of that taking me to new paths to songwriting and arranging. There was a lot to learn. I’m still studying the art of writing to this day through discovery and trial-and-error homework. As for other bands (long pause)… it’s hard to speak on this subject in general terms because circumstances vary for each and every band and artist. Q- Right. A- Longevity certainly has something to do with it. I mean, if you’re around a long time and keep putting out the same music album after album, then that’s a problem to me. Q- Why do you think some artists seem to have a knack for rediscovering themselves and others just stagnate? A- Growth rates, career pressures, learning curves, experience, dedication to the art form…they all become factors. I don’t know what separates the men from the boys. It’s all about knowledge and how one takes advantage of that information. One man’s banal may be another man’s masterpiece, depending into which hands the blueprint falls. Do you know what I mean? Q- I think so. A- Think about it this way; for a writer to use a G flat minor 7 with a flatted fifth chord for the first time in a song would probably be a big deal. Big step, good work, keep exploring, you know? But for someone like…Elton John perhaps who’s used that chord probably dozens of times over many years, no big deal. That one G flat minor 7 with a flatted fifth chord for Elton may be an overused, formulaic move…to him. Yet, to someone stumbling onto it for the first time…it’s the new frontier! God knows where that chord can lead a young writer to hopefully jump start a journey to a new musical template. One man’s antiquation is another man’s discovery. The yearning to discover alone prevents stagnation. I don’t even know how we got onto this… Q- I asked if you were aware of maybe alienating your audience with… A- Yeah, yeah, a new direction. I don’t think about it when I’m working because I’ll be honest, it all starts with pleasing myself. I never stop to think about writing for an audience. I’m the audience because I’m the only one in the room at the time of creation. I just work and in the end if it’s accepted by a few fans, then that’s the gold at the end of the tunnel…rainbow (laughing). Q- And if it’s not? A- I don’t know. I’ve never released anything that’s been universally rejected. I’m always confident in myself to know that my melodies don’t suck, so therefore someone, somewhere will dig at least some of it. I’m certain there’s someone out there asking himself ‘What happened to Mazzarella? He USED TO BE pretty good with all that Rooks stuff. What’s the deal with this concept garbage? (Sarcastically) ‘He needs to rock out, man (laughing).’ Q- Will there come a time in the future when you strap on the old electric guitar again and howl at the moon from the stage? A- One side of me feels that it should be left up to the kids to do that. It’s their turns to light up the room. I’m an old man now. On the other side, yeah, maybe one of these days I’ll have a band behind me and we’ll make some racket, kick some doors down. You know, I really dig and greatly respect the way Nick Lowe has handled his career and songwriting to reflect his age. He’s making music that suits him in his time and amid his place in this world, right now. I really respect him. That, to me, is courage and dignity. I know some of his fans cannot understand why he’s not out there belting "American Squirm" with a snarl on his face. I have friends who are Nick fans and some of them really dislike his last few albums simply because the jingle-jangle guitars and drum kit have been put in the closet. I mean, hasn’t he given enough of the pop side and has he not earned the right as an artist to move along gracefully? People think it’s easy to just keep writing along the same boundaries album after album. They should look at themselves. Change is good…if the songs are still good (laughing). Q- Kinda like what’s happened to you with this last album for some? A- I suppose so. I realize that I haven’t delivered the large body of work that Lowe has done but…I don’t know. They’re only songs. I’m not out here trying to disappoint anybody. Anything that comes out of me is a direct reflection as to where I am in my head at that point in time of writing. There will always be melodies. I think my favorite line of all the reviews is the one that reads something like ‘Mazzarella is displaying his inner Nick Drake.’ I took that as a great compliment and felt that the writer of that review understood where I landed with the album. I dug that, made me smile. Q- Which brings me to my next question and please bear with me. The words used to describe you and your songs for Grey Over An Autumn Winter in various reviews are universally dark. The laundry list includes: introspective mood, confessionals, downcast and defeated, cuts veins open, dreary, creepy, a naked artist baring his innards on a chilly day, bares his soul, wistful melancholia, mournful qualities, following his muse down a muted, often harrowing path – those are some pretty hard-hitting and dark interpretations. A- Well…yeah, and accurate – to a point! The ‘baring his soul’ part…they couldn’t possibly know the dynamic of that. Some of those songs aren’t even about me. The reviewers who wrote those words obviously understood the premise and didn’t shy away from the subject matter or the mood of the album. It was my experiment to find and portray a specific psychology and disposition and marry those with the proper musical settings. From the inventory you just read off to me, I’d say that I was very successful in reaching my goal. I mean, they’re writing about the music…not really about me! Q- Did you go into this thing with the realization that there was a possibility you might turn some fans off who expect a certain pop/rock sound from you? A- Yes. Q- More to the point, do you ever fear because of the subject matter and mood that you’ve created, there may be some who feel that you’re on a downward spiral to some turbulent and horrible place personally? The words to "You Like Me" are honest and creepy almost to a fault, and with the lilting, almost taunting music, absolutely chilling! A- It’s interesting, because I had dinner with a longtime friend the other night and directly related to the songs on the album, she was concerned that something in my life had gone terribly awry and asked if I were ok. Q- Right. A- The only thing that I can do is to tell you that I’m fine and you or anyone else will have to trust me. I’m a writer! I write words and music. I make up stories sometimes. I write the truth other times. How can I be any clearer than that? My friends will tell you that I’m no emotional wreck. As for fans, how can they judge? They don’t know me and the reviewers are only reporting on what’s being handed to them, which is what they’re supposed to do. Downcast, downtrodden…whichever words they use to write their reviews, I thank them because they used their ears to listen and then their feelings and skills to write fair assessments. Make no mistake about it Mike, I didn’t go into this project blindly and knew at the start that this direction ran against the tide to what I’ve done under the banner of The Rooks. I hoped that the fans and reviewers would be open enough to take the journey good or bad. From the likes of the reviews, I am happy that those writers understood and gave me some time and thought. Q- Someone somewhere alluded to the fact that you’ve disbanded The Rooks. Can you confirm that? A- The Rooks have been an ongoing and always changing cast of characters. Right now, the balcony is closed and there are no band members to play with. I’d love to get a group together who could perhaps go on the road for two or three months at a clip and build a bigger following either in the U.S. or Europe, but everyone’s gotten old…or married. There are bills to pay and I can’t find musicians who will commit to a proposal like that without financial guarantees. If there’s anyone out there with talent, look me up. Until that happens, I’ll continue to go along as I am now and make these low-budget albums without a heavy financial overhead. (Laughing) I’m even playing drums and bass on a new album that I’m currently recording. How’s that for cheap labor? Q- Great! Can you tell me anything about it? Is this yet another new direction? A- I’d rather not at this point, because anything could happen and I’m still writing songs for it while recording others. Richard X. Heyman is singing background vocals on some of the songs and we’ll see what transpires. The autumn is here and that’s when I feel most exhilarated. It would be unfair if I wrote only about the somberness of Grey Over An Autumn Winter as there is a lot of sincere sweetness to balance the album out. The melodies, sung as tight choir harmonies on "Girl Gone Bye" and "You Like Me" are plain beautiful. The McCartney-esque "The Colder It Gets, The Deeper We Fall" is pure ear candy and the social commentarial "A Life In The Day Of A Man" has a pristine and majestic luster and lyrics that tug at the heart. Even the sinister sounding "She Said", with its cabalistic female backing singer evokes an air of latter‘60s ultra-cool charm. It took a while for me to catch on but dare I write that this album could be the masterpiece that many have ignored? With my recorder shut down and during the wrap-up for this interview, I built up the courage to ask Michael if there were any way possible for me to sample something from his next album. After a longish pause, he asked me to hang on and I could hear him digging for something over the phone lines. After about a minute, he came back and explained that everything is in an in-progress state but the most finished song, entitled "October On Bleecker Street" was close enough to present. For the next three-plus minutes I was in (bite my tongue) power pop heaven. The song, moving in a moderate tempo, has the great melody and harmonies that this guy has become known for. The verses into the chorus were perfectly sewn together and yes, the guitars jingle-jangled. The guitars, bass and drum duties were taken up by the composer himself. The roundness of the song was burned into my brain and I found myself singing the chorus long after our phone call ended. Well, I began this story with a cliché’ and I’ll be damned if I don’t finish with one. Michael Mazzarella is a musician and writer clamoring to forge ahead and anyone who’s followed his career should appreciate his determination and willingness to create with uninhibited passion and honesty. If a rolling stone gathers no moss, then all we can hope for is that the man just keeps on rollin’.
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