NRBQ Dummies Up
But Bass Player
Has Plenty to Say

By Kevin Wierzbicki

With a history that is only a couple of years shy of its fourth decade, NRBQ is one of the longest running bands on the planet. The cult favorites are especially popular in America’s Northeast, where they have chugged through good times and bad, surviving undoubtedly by refusing to take anything too damn seriously. NRBQ’s records have always had their share of whimsical tunes, and the newest release, Dummy (Edisun) is no exception. Smiley-smiles like “Little Rug Bug” and “Hey Punkin Head” are tucked in with esoteric cover songs, like the gentle samba of “All That’s Left to Say is Goodbye” and the Mario Lanza theme “Be My Love.” Then there’s the album’s title cut, inspired by a real dummy, or rather four of them: having a long-time friend in sculptress Heidi Kennedy, the band commissioned her to create ventriloquist’s dummies for each member of the band---pianist Terry Adams, bassist Joey Spampinato, drummer Tom Ardolino, and Joey’s brother, guitarist Johnny Spampinato. The amazingly life-like wooden quartet stars in the video version of “Dummy,” which is available only as a bonus on the band’s only DVD release, the concert film One in a Million (Music Video Distributors). The dummies, like NRBQ’s fans, have perennial grins on their faces as they quest for all that’s fun about rock’n’roll. In this interview, Joey Spampinato looks back on the long career of the New Rhythm and Blues Quartet and tells Mondo Cult what its like to be a dummy after all.

Kevin: Were you kind of weirded out when you first saw the dummies?

Joey: Sort of. It’s always kind of crazy to see some inanimate object and it looks like you. The one that creeps me out the most though is my brother’s! When he’s in the room, I really get creeped out.

Kevin: How did you get the idea to do the dummies? Did you already know Heidi?

Joey: She did the first one of Tom years ago, and that was what sparked off the idea. She made one of Tom and he used it onstage in a routine as “Little Tom” or “Tom Jr.” It grew from that.

Kevin: Did she take facial casts?

Joey: No, she didn’t take any casts. She just looked at photographs. And also she knows us very well.

Kevin: I know you have shows coming up to promote the new record; have you been rehearsing?

Joey: Yeah, today and it went pretty good. I’m worried about my voice a little bit---I haven’t sung in a couple of weeks.

Kevin: Does everybody live fairly close together?

Joey: Me and my brother do. But Tommy lives over in Springfield [Massachusetts] and Terry lives about a half an hour from him.

Kevin: What kind of facility do you rehearse at?

Joey: Wherever we feel like it. It’s always different.

Kevin: So, at a club or…

Joey: Sometimes at friends’ houses, or at one of our houses.

Kevin: Do you have a studio in your house?

Joey: No, I don’t. We just set something up in the middle of a room and throw it around.

Kevin: NRBQ has such a vast catalog. When you’re getting ready to tour, how do you decide on a set list?

Joey: We don’t have one. We’ve never had a set list. We kind of always let Terry call the set. He just calls it song by song, and as it goes along, he’ll think of what to do next. We’ve just never worked with a set list.

Kevin: Well, that’ll keep you on your toes.

Joey: What works at one place doesn’t work at another place, so a set list is not something that worked good for us.

Kevin: Tell me about hooking up with Captain Lou (NRBQ cut an album with pro-wrestling celebrity Lou Albano in 1986, Lou and the Q, released on Rounder).

Joey: When we first met him, we were on a street in New York City. Like on Broadway, a street like that, a big one. I can’t remember exactly where it was now. We met Jimmy Valiant, who was part of a tag-team that Lou Albano was managing. We met Jimmy first and he introduced us to the Captain. When he introduced us, he called him out of some restaurant or something. He came out on the street and his shirt was open and he was turning around in a circle and just yelling stuff. When he turned around so that he was facing you, it was the loudest voice that you ever heard! It was like when wrestling interviewers talk at the top of their lungs. When he turned, you could bear it. But when he was actually turned around and facing you, it was unbelievable how loud it was. And you weren’t even close to him!

Kevin: How about a Carl Perkins story (Perkins recorded Boppin’ The Blues with the ‘Q for Columbia Records in 1970).

Joey: Let me think. Well, I can’t tell you that one. I’m not sure I have one on Carl.

Kevin: Did you talk about the Sun Records days when you made the record with him?

Joey: I’m sure we did. I know we talked, but it was so long ago I don’t remember.

Kevin: You worked with Chuck Berry on the film Hail! Hail! Rock’n’Roll. What’s he like?

Joey: He, I think, has so much pressure around him in the situations that he’s in. He’s always gotten a bad rap for being out-of-sorts or whatever. He always has that rap, and it’s not a wonder because he always has a certain kind of a pressure on him. I imagine it must have gotten to him over the years. So he’s kind of built up a thing, you know, some kind of protection.

Kevin: But making the movie was fun?

Joey: Oh, yeah it was. Everybody always asks me about the rift between him and Keith [Richards] that was in the film. I think maybe it was blown a little out of proportion. It was just something that happened between somebody changing the sound on an amp and him not knowing they did it, then finally being aware of it and then kind of being a little mad about it: “What’s going on here? This is my amp!” Really that’s all it was. But I think it got portrayed as something more.

Kevin: The whole band was in 28 Days with Sandra Bullock but I don’t think your screen time even made it to 28 seconds. How much time did you spend to shoot that one scene?

Joey: It was a good full day. We had to be on call to redo a scene that was going on inside a room. There was a scene going on with [Sandra’s character] and her sister, and we had to be inside the ballroom as the wedding was taking place as the wedding band. Whenever they had their dialog in that scene, we had to be in the back playing songs. In the middle of it, her and her boyfriend had to come over to us and ask us to play something. He asked us to play something fast or something. It was kind of like an ordeal that was all day long. They’d say, “Okay, were done for now,” and we’d go back to our trailer and hang out for awhile, then it would be, “Okay, come back again!” So we’d go back and do another section of this thing. It seems like the way you make movies. For certain scenes, you could spend hours and hours and hours.

Kevin: You didn’t have to go through any of that when NRBQ appeared on The Simpsons.

Joey: You know what was really fun, we got to actually see it before it was finished. We got to see it in black and white, not complete. It didn’t have the whole cartoon moving, but it had complete pieces and pieces missing. It was really wild to see that. It just hit you differently from when you’re watching the show and it’s finished. It was like a still-on-the-sketch-board kind of thing. That’s what I liked best about it.

Kevin: Concert promoter Bill Graham once said that NRBQ was “the most unprofessional act I’ve ever seen.” Was there a specific situation that brought that on?

Joey: In 1969, around the time we put our first record out, we were one of three acts playing at his Fillmore East in New York City. We kind of like didn’t have anything to do with light shows and all that. We didn’t want to be a part of it, and yet we were thrust into the middle of it, and the whole psychedelic thing was going on at the time. So we’d be playing on stage and there would be a backdrop in back of us of a splotchy kind of… it was like Walt Disney doing Fantasia with dancing flowers. This was a psychedelic light show in back of you and we didn’t want that going on while we were playing. So we made it a point, when we knew it was back there, to stop playing in the middle of a song and turn around and watch it. I guess that’s what he’s talking about.

Kevin: There’s a song on Dummy called “Imaginary Radio.” I know Terry wrote the song, but who do you hear playing on your imaginary radio?

Joey: I don’t listen to a lot of radio. But there are a few people who you don’t hear. One of them is an old friend of ours who I think is just fantastic, who has the band Jake & the Family Jewels. His name is Alan Jacobs. I would always like to hear him on my imaginary radio. Then there’s P.J. O’Connell, who we’ve done a little bit of work with. We’ve played on some of his songs and he comes up and plays with us every now and then. That would be something nice to hear on the radio.

Kevin: 2004 was a banner year for NRBQ fans with both Dummy and the One in a Million DVD being released. The concert on the DVD has been in the can for fifteen years. How did you decide that the time was right to release the film?

Joey: I think that was Terry’s idea. All of our files and backlog and everything we ever record is stored close to where he is. He ran across this show and he thought it was a good one and that maybe it should be out. Then we added our video that we did for “Dummy.”

Kevin: Did you guys sketch out the storyline for the “Dummy” video or was that mostly a director?

Joey: Partly the director and partly some of our ideas. It was mutual. Everybody put their ideas in and then we tried to make it work together.

Kevin: I know you live in the Cape Cod area now. Are you the outdoorsy type?

Joey: I love the beach, but I’m not much of a boating person. My brother likes to go boating and fishing and all that kind of stuff. I love the ocean, but I’m kind of like “land locked.” I feel out of my element on boats. I like to go for a boat ride but I don’t hang out there a lot.

Kevin: Okay, I’ll let you go so you can get ready for the tour. I guess the dummies have to pack too.

Joey: I don’t know. We don’t even know how they get to the shows! Nobody knows.

Sign my Guestbook from Bravenet.com Get your Free Guestbook from Bravenet.com

Return To Contents