Interview: James Mastro on Richard Lloyd, Ian Hunter, Richard Barone, to name a few

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If James Mastro has health and happiness, he’s a rich man.

His Facebook blurb states “I write songs and sing them if I have to. Guitarist, producer, and fake a host of other instruments. A sordid past spent with Richard Lloyd, The Bongos, The Health & Happiness Show, Ian Hunter, to name a few.” You can take it to the bank that James Mastro’s accomplishments in music go much further than that self-deprecating summation of a sideman to the stars. The list of musicians Mastro has played with could go on forever, as long as a greedy child’s letter to Santa asking him to stuff his sleigh before sliding down the chimney Christmas Eve. Besides those mentioned above, he’s played with Patti Smith, Butch Hancock, Megan Reilly, Arthur Lee, Robert Plant, Garland Jeffreys, John Cale, Jesse Malin, Levon Helm, The Jayhawks, etc, etc, etc to his last gig as guitarist on Alejandro Escovedo’s spring of 2024 tour. His own bands were called Fast Cards, Strange Cave and the last was the Health & Happiness Show.

It took 40 years for James Mastro to put his name alongside his picture on an album cover – James Mastro, “Dawn of a New Error.” You’ll find out during this interview what took him so long.

Getting started was the easy part or so it seemed to a 17-year-old high schooler from Hoboken, New Jersey taking the train into the City with his band’s demo tucked away. He went to Bleeker Bob’s in Greenwich Village, which was the record shop everybody flocked to looking for the latest punk albums from Television, Johnny Thunders and The Stooges along with all the illegal records under the counter. Bob called Terry Ork, who recorded the Television singles. He liked it and came to the shop with Lenny Kaye to meet Mastro. The deal to make a single never materialized, but one day a call came from Richard Hell to say he was leaving Television and needed a guitarist for his own band. Mastro accepted on the spot and played on “Alchemy,” one of the best records of the era. It wasn’t long before the mood of that band got “dark and Richard’s health was not the greatest,” so it abruptly ended without a follow-up album. This experience was just one of several that eventually lead to Mastro’s disenchantment with what he thinks of as an oxymoron – the music business.

The Health & Happiness Show was the result of a revival in interest brought on by listening to Hank Williams’ radio program, from which he took the name for the band. Ten years and three albums later the call came to join Hunter’s Rant band. He figured a decade was enough for one band, so to “keep going and in two years hate each other” wasn’t worth the option.

After Hunter called it a day, Tony Shannon, who had been Patti Smith’s bass player for quite some time, was building a studio and wanted to test the electronics for bugs. He contacted Mastro and over the course of three years, one song after another was finished until there were enough for an album, ten riveting songs with triumphant hooks, enduring melodies and ruminative lyrics punctuated with lines like: ‘Cause we can’t take it with us, we’re not that clever …. River runs forever. And with 40 guitars in his personal collection, you can be sure Mastro had the perfect choice for each song.

At the age of 64, James Mastro has announced himself as a solo act with real potential, which is an unusual way of describing a musician with such a rich and lengthy history. Only it fits. Raymond Chandler didn’t publish his first detective novel, “The Big Sleep,” until he was 61. It was made into a movie with Humphrey Bogart starring. Chandler became one of the most popular writers ever to tell the stories of sad, conflicted gumshoes chasing murderers. It could easily happen for Mastro. There’s plenty of time for people to discover his music. My advice is to not sleep on James Mastro.

Earlier this year you did a tour with Alejandro Escovedo. How did you get that gig?

Well, we’ve been friends for a long time. Anytime he’s around, I usually sit in with him or he sits in with me. It was his idea that since we both had new records coming out let’s join forces. It was a win-win. His new record is different, almost techno in a way. But I’ve gotta hand it to him; he could be resting on his laurels as one of the kings of Americana.

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James Mastro with Alejandro Escovedo, 2024 tour – photo: Jini Sachse
You famously played in Richard Lloyd’s band. I saw him once with Television but never his band. How did that come about?

I lived about an hour West of NYC in Jersey and for whatever reason my parents trusted me to go into the City. I was 17, still in high school when I started playing with Richard in 1978. It was definitely an adventure but also an incredible leaning experience of what to do and what not to do. I saw things that shaped me for the rest of my life. Some of it scared me; some of it excited me. But it convinced me this is what I wanted to do, to play music.

Lloyd’s band had multiple guitarists if I recall.

Well, it started off just me and him. When he got the deal with Elektra, the album got more layered and they added another guitarist.

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Richard Lloyd Group at CBGB’s 1978 – photo: Rich Bloom
After a while, you left and joined The Bongos. How did that go down?

We were friends. Actually, I’d known each of them separately before they knew each other. Frank (Giannini) and Rob (Norris), who were the rhythm section, lived in Jersey near me and our bands would often be on the same bills. Richard Barone I met at CBGB’s (in NYC) after he moved up from Florida. T-Rex was our mutual interest.

The Bongos were quite different from Lloyd’s band. More power pop.

Yes, but they also had some elements of Velvet Underground. I’ve been lucky to always play with people that inspired me. I’ve never played in a band where I didn’t enjoy the music. Frank the drummer was partly responsible for the power pop side by the way he played very percussive, not jazz but definitely some Latin influence.

I poured through the “Village Voice” archives looking for something Robert Christgau once said about the band. It was, “Barone’s lyrics are too undecipherable.” He argued that was why the Bongos would never have a hit single.

I don’t know that it’s wrong. To me, Richard’s lyrics were paintings, images, and you could latch onto one and interpret it the way you want. As a songwriter, that appeals to me.

Like in ‘The Bulrushes’ it starts, “A cable reaches up to heaven, Unleavened bread comes down from heaven.” Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs recorded that one.

We knew Matthew when he was a little kid, 17-years-old hanging around and not in a band yet. It was Richard’s band, though. I had a couple co-writes on “Numbers with Wings” and on “Beat Hotel” I had some co-writes. One song that I sang (‘Splinter’) was all mine.

There are clips on YouTube of just you and Barone playing live.

We always kept in touch after the “Drums Along the Hudson” album. He and I did a duo album down at Mitch Easter’s studio – that’s probably what you saw – because we knew the RCA deal was going to take a long time. Maybe 6 or 7 years ago, we re-enacted the whole “Nuts & Bolts” album.

Did you leave or did the band just dissolve?

I left. I had started to write more and didn’t feel it was my place to insist the band did more of my songs. It was amiable but sad. I mean, we toured together non-stop for five years. We were truly brothers.

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The Bongos, 1985 – photo: Phil Marino
That resulted in The Health & Happiness Show but before that wasn’t there something else?

I had a band for a few years called Strange Cave. We had every label coming after us but nothing ever came to fruition. I’ll say this: I got so sick of the music business. To me, putting those two words together is the worst. That took all the joy out of music for me because I was dealing with A & R people who tried to convince me to try this or that and we could get a major label record. It just sucked the soul out of it.

Didn’t you have the all-female back-up band?

Yes. There was Soozie Tyrell from the E-Street Band, Laura Kennedy from the punk band Bush Tetras. I just stopped and became a side guy for other musicians. Then Health & Happiness Show evolved out of playing old Hank Williams songs with friends. That lit my fire for music again. Even though we didn’t sell millions of records, I call it successful because it was so much fun. It had a rotating cast of players which kept it interesting.

You’ve had side gigs with so many wonderful musicians. It’s hard to believe those names just keep coming. One was playing with Garland Jeffreys, who is an amazing performer and songwriter.

I loved him. He was a joy to be around. People say he’s an amazing singer, but I think he’s still underrated. Playing on that “Escape Artist” album was amazing.

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Ivan Julian and James Mastro
How did you happen to get with Ian Hunter’s Rant Band?

That started in 2000 when he was coming out of retirement. He was going to do a show at the Bowery Ballroom (NYC) and when I found out my friend Andy was the bandleader, I called him right away. Mott the Hoople is truly the reason I started playing guitar. Anyway, I said if you ever need another guitar player, and he said great. But then he called back and said Ian didn’t really want another guitar player. I was crushed. I thought about it a while and called Andy again and said you’re probably going to play ‘I Wish I Was Your Mother.’ He said yeah, and I said it’s got a mandolin part and I’ll play that. The next day he called and said you’re on, bring your mandolin to rehearsal. I was thrilled. The only issue was not only did I not own a mandolin, I’d never played one before. So, I borrowed one from a friend, stayed up all night and learned the song, then went to the rehearsal. Kind of bluffed my way in, but Ian and I got along and he asked me to join the band.

That always amazes me about musicians who can pick up an instrument and in 24 hours learn to play it.

Well, desire can be the great motivator. I’ve been very lucky to play with great musicians. That’s always the best payoff.

You also did the Mott the Hoople reunion tour.

It was fantastic! When Ian first talked about it, I was a little sceptical. You don’t want something you held highly on a pedestal to feel like it’s an oldies show or purely nostalgia. So, it was Ian with Morgan Fisher and Ariel Bender, who were part of the last Mott the Hoople album (1974) and then with the Rant Band. Those three kicked our asses. Luther Grosvenor (Ariel Bender’s real name) was such a fireball on stage. If you didn’t keep up with him, you were the one who was the old guy. And I learned to play saxophone because a lot of the old Mott songs had sax. Ian was going to have four guitars because there was no sax, so I told him I’d play sax. He said do you play sax? I said, sure. Right away, I bought a saxophone and had three months to figure it out.

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James learned to play sax for the Mott the Hoople reunion tour
Come on, you mean it took you more than 24 hours?

Well, it worked. I didn’t get fired.

Did Ian just decide he’d had enough?

He’d been dealing with tinnitus and needed a break. I’d been writing some and my friend Tony Shanahan called me up. He’d just opened a studio and wanted to check out all the equipment. He asked if I had any songs and I said yeah, a couple. So we went in, just me and him and a couple of drummers. No pressure or intent of making an album. Very lazy actually. Over the course of a few years, we realized that we had enough songs for an album.

Wasn’t he Patti Smith’s bass player for some years? It must have been around the time you were with Lloyd.

He was with John Cale then, late seventies. He was also in the Health & Happiness Show with me when he got the call to play with Patti. I certainly couldn’t begrudge him for that.

If only Lenny Kaye wasn’t around, you’d have probably stayed with Patti.

Once in a while, she needed another guitarist and Tony would call me. Lucky again to have played with her. But we’ve known each other thirty years, and it’s been a good dynamic. I trust him when he tells me something.

Of all the other people you’ve played with, one that sticks out is Butch Hancock. Flatlanders are okay but his solo stuff is crazy good.

He’s one of the best songwriters ever. That tour was such a joy. How that came about is his manager saw Health & Happiness at South by Southwest in Austin. At the time, we had Richard Lloyd playing guitar with us. His manager called and said Butch has this new record and is going out on tour. Would you guys like to open the show and be his back-up band? Of course, I said, but are you sure? Richard Lloyd is a wild and crazy guitar player, and Butch is coming from an Austin kind of country folk background. It was funny. Butch and Richard got along so well, and the wilder Richard got the more Butch would egg him on. It was two months of laughing our asses off because Butch is pretty brilliant, a true poet, a scientist, knows everything. Richard is pretty sharp himself, so it was an unexpected great match.

What happened when you were with Jesse Malin?

He had a fluke thing that one in six million people get. His spine had a stroke which left him paralyzed from the waist down. He was a fit and healthy guy. No signs. He got up from a dinner and fell right on the floor. He’s a tough man who’s been going through intense therapy, but he’s going to make it. He’s starting to get feeling back, and there’s talk of him doing a show. Music is a pretty good therapeutic.

Health care has come a long way. We’re living longer despite sometimes abusing our bodies. I mean look at the Glimmer Twins. You also had a stint with Arthur Lee. Love was such a great band. When “Da Capo” came out it was like where did these guys come from? Bryan MacLean made some really nice contributions to that band. But Arthur was the leader even though sort of psycho.

He wrote some incredible, timeless songs though. I’m a huge fan. When he was ill, there was a fund-raiser for him at the Beacon Theatre in New York. Ian Hunter agreed to do it and Robert Plant, who is a big Love fan, also agreed. I got this phone call and Plant said, Hey, James, this is Robert. Let’s talk about a setlist. It was surreal picking out Led Zeppelin songs to play with Robert Plant.

What convinced you to finally make an album under your own name?

I thought about coming up with a band name or using Health & Happiness again, but then the feasibility of going out on tour with a band these days financially is tough. So, I figured I’ll take the blame for this one if it doesn’t do well. In a band you can always lay the blame with whomever you’re squabbling with at the time. But I’d never put out an album in my name before, so let’s try.

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James Mastro & The Gold Stars (L-R: Tony Shanahan, JM, Dennis Diken, Megan Reilly, Chris Robertson) – photo: Jack Silbert
Your album opens with a bang on “Right Words, Wrong Song,” God is in the house along with a few other deities. The title reminds me of the Dr. John song when he was the Night Tripper. The organ on that song reminded me of the one on ’96 Tears.’

That was intentional. It was also a nod to ‘Telstar.’ What can I say? My record collection is vast, so little influences pop in all the time. I can see the similarities to I was in the right place, it was the wrong time.

In rehab they talk about your drug of choice. Here, in ‘My God’ it seems like your deity of choice.

Why should someone else’s religion bother you? If you see someone in duress or if someone falls down on the street, before you run over to help them are you going to ask what political party they support or what they believe in? It shouldn’t matter. The act is what matters.

Some of your songs can be taken more than one way, which is the beauty of them, along with the rock ‘n roll, of course.

It’s always strange when someone comes up to you and tells you what your song is about or what it meant to them. Sometimes, it’s not even close to what I was thinking, but then I say, oh, yeah, I can see that.

The song ‘Three Words’ has Megan Reilly on it. Her song ‘Under the River’ is very good. You’ve been playing with her for a while. Where did the connection start?

She is truly one of my favourite singers. I’ve been backing her up for over ten years. She’s from Memphis and her voice just comes from somewhere so deep; it’s like Dolly Parton meets Patti Smith. The song starts off light, but then she opens up. There is no way I could have sung those words. I have a hard time saying “I love you,” so having her do it for me was a blessing. I encourage anyone to seek out her records. They’re beautiful.

In the song ‘Never Die,’ you talk about your uncle being a soldier in World War II. The never die aspect is another idea that can be taken as life goes on but your spirit never dies. But that’s my takeaway.

I’ll take your viewpoint; that sounds about right. But the story is when my mom died, we were going through all her paperwork, and I found these letters from her brother, who died in the war. I didn’t know much about him aside from what my mom told me, but it was hard for her to talk about him. Reading the letters, I realized that being named after my uncle was my mom’s way of keeping him alive. We’ve all lost people that meant something to us. It’s remembering things about them and honouring them. You know, I still talk to a lot of my dead friends. They are there when I need them.

In ‘Here Beside Me,’ you talk about writing as if in a dream. There’s a story about how Jimmy Page wrote “Stairway to Heaven in a Dream.” There was a song by Spirit, an instrumental named ‘Taurus’ written previously that sounded a heck of a lot like Stairway, almost note for note in the intro.

Hopefully there’s not one that sounds too much like mine. It seems to be happening more and more that I’ll wake up in the middle of the night singing a song. On that one, I was fortunate enough to get out of bed and record it, then go back to sleep. I hardly remembered doing that the next morning. The funny part is that it’s a very sleepy song.

You wonder how you could possibly remember it after getting up. Maura Kennedy of the Kennedys did exactly the same thing on one of their songs, but she didn’t even remember recording it. There’s also an episode of “Seinfeld” where he was having problems coming up with material for his routines, so they started coming to him at night. He woke up and scribbled them on a notepad at his bedside, but in the morning, he couldn’t decipher what was written.

Yeah, I had the same thing happen when I thought I was supposed to save the planet, saw it the next day and said, what is this? Once in a while it makes sense.

On ‘Trouble,’ there’s a lot of hard work and wondering what you’re doing it for. “Daddy’s wish will someday come to be, One day my Trouble’s gonna have Trouble with me.”

I was on a tour with Amy Speace, and for some reason this Dr. Seuss book was in our car. We read it as we drove along. It’s not a well-known book of his – the title is “I Had Trouble Getting in to Solla Sellew”. It has a lot of good advice. That line about trouble having trouble with me just stuck in my head. She and I dared each other, like who was gonna be the first to write a song using that line. Looks like I beat her to it. It’s optimistic. You can wake up in a bad mood and not know why. For me, I use some of these songs as motivation.

So, after you got to wherever you were going – home or to a gig – did you rush in and start writing the song to beat her to the punch?

I actually wrote that song in the car but not the one Amy and I were riding in. It was after a show we did opening for Levon Helm in Woodstock. That was exciting and we got to play with him on ‘The Weight.’ On the ride home, I was inspired to write it and dedicated it to Levon.

The last song on the album, ‘River Runs Forever,’ it’s reminiscent of Joni Mitchell’s song, which has sort of become a Christmas song, “I wish I was a river, and I could skate away”. What is the significance of the river running forever?

It ties in with ‘Never Die’ in that we are here for a short time. The river was here long before us and will still be here long after we’re gone. It’s a reminder that while we’re here, we should enjoy our time and do the best we can. If I’m in that river, I’m going to ride it; if I’m watching it, I’m going to enjoy as the sun glints off it.

I’m curious as to how many guitars do you own?

(Big laugh) That’s embarrassing. Probably around 40.

How many of them do you actually play?

I use all of them, some more than others. Doing a lot of sessions, you have to have the right tool for the job. I try to justify keeping what I have. My justification is, if I’ve used it in the past year that’s enough for me to keep it another year.

Eventually, if your wife outlives you, she’ll sell them all. That what will happen to my music collection.

Well, that’s why I opened up a guitar shop. If they were home, they might be prey, vulnerable to someone else having their eye on them. You know what, though, that’s money in the bank these days. You’re not going to lose. I’m sure your record collection has a few rarities people would pay good money to get.

I’ve been selling some on eBay that I got working in a record shop during college years. An original mint sealed copy of Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” album was bought by some guy in Australia for 350 cents – in case the IRS is reading this article.

There you go. Why not let someone else enjoy it?

What’s the deal with the hat. I’ve never seen you in a picture without some hat. Do you have 40 of those, too?

When I was with the Bongos, I wore a hat even though I still had hair at the time. I always liked that generation of my father and uncle. Men wore hats. You’d see pictures of old baseball games and there would be men in the stadiums wearing suits and hats. People dressed better in those days, not so sloppy. But when I put on a hat to go play, it’s like getting dressed to go to work. Hanging out with Alejandro, who is a very spiffy dresser, is making me up my clothes and hat game.

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A man of many hats with Ian Hunter’s Rant Band
It’s not like you go went on stage and forgot to pull the zipper up on your pants?

It’s more that it helps me focus. The zipper would make me lose focus. It reminds me of what I’m doing. I mean, deep down you’re the same person but on stage it feels like you’re a different person.

You have played with, been around a lot of musicians known for either having problems with anxiety and depression, substance abuse, or just being a wild child. How did you manage to stay healthy and sane?

I’m not immune to the darker side of things, being close to family members and people I’ve worked with. That’s bound to have some effect. But at an early age, I saw several people not come back from that, or not come back in good condition. I was surrounded by constant drug use in the Lower East Side (Manhattan) late seventies, and lost a lot of friends to that. It’s the old cliché: That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Was that the reason you named the band Health and Happiness?

As I said, prior to starting that band I was pretty down and disillusioned. Hank Williams had an old radio program with that name, and that really reignited my passion for music. That was a reminder to myself that you can do better. What side of the bed are you going to wake up on? That’s the way you are going to roll. You want to get up on the right side and have a good start.

Last question. What would you say goes into making a great song?

There are a couple things that John Lennon said I keep in mind. You need a good opening line and a 4/4 beat. I’m not sure I could tell you how to write one, but the songs that mean a lot to me are visual. I can put myself in the song and let it take me somewhere I’ve never been before. If the song can take me somewhere that I’m excited about, that’s the greatest song in the world. That’s what I try to do. After we’re done, I can’t wait to go hear this Lowell Folsom album. I heard a track on the radio the other day. It’s like 50 years old but it blew my mind. If I knew how to do this myself, I’d be a rich man. But if I’m happy, then I’m a rich man.

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Andrew Taylor

That was a wonderful interview. Thank you.