A Rock ’n’ Roll Sun Still Rises on the Motor City
The career of Frijid Pink drummer Rick Stevers: A tenth in a series of interviews with Detroit’s lost rockers
--
It always starts in grade school, doesn’t it? Curse those damn mop tops from Liverpool and that kid with the greasy pompadour and nervous hips from Tupelo, Mississippi. . . .
Rick Stevers got his start in the 4th grade playing drums with his Grade School’s band. Next were his Middle School’s band and his High School’s Marching Band. By Christmas Eve 1963, Rick had his first paying gig at a corner bar. By 1967 his covers-and-originals band, the Detroit Vibrations, transformed into Frijid Pink.
August 24 and September 8, 1967, concerts by the Detroit Vibrations, active on the scene from 1967 to 1969/images courtesy of The Concert Database.
Just before Frijid Pink: The Detroit Vibrations’ “I’m the Man” released on the Detroit Sound label in early 1967/Courtesy of Discogs.
Two years of hard touring throughout Southeast Michigan and The Great Lakes region consolidated Frijid Pink’s success with a record deal through Parrot Records, a division of London Records. The label, which issued many British recordings, led to Decca Records (one was the garage rockin’ progenitor “Gloria” by Them) also releasing Frijid Pink’s first two singles, “Tell Me Why b/w Cryin’ Shame” and “God Gave Me You b/w Drivin’ Blues,” in 1969 (both subsequently appeared on their eponymous 1970 debut album).
Sure, Parrot’s biggest hit was “She’s a Lady” recorded by a Welsh lad known as Tom Jones, which peaked at #2 on the U.S. Billboard charts in 1971, but us hard rockers remember Frijid Pink as the first progressive rock band from Michigan to receive a Gold Record: a blistering 45-rpm rendition of a traditional folk song known as “House of the Rising Sun,” which sold close to eight million copies. As I compose this retrospective in March 2022, the song celebrates its 52nd anniversary-release on March 28, 1970. The original dates to Georgia Bell Turner in 1937; subsequent versions were cut by Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and Pete Seeger — and, of course, Bob Dylan and the Animals.
That’s not too bad for a song that, according to Rick Stevers in the pages of David A. Carson’s Grit, Noise, and Revolution: The Birth of Detroit Rock ’n’ Roll (2006), was an impromptu, filler recording done in one take — propelled by Gary Ray Thompson’s then groundbreaking combination of fuzz and wah-wah pedals — which resulted from left over time at a recording session.
Paul Cannon, the father of Stevers’s then girlfriend, who served as the program director for Detroit’s WKNR, helped launch the record. In fact, it was Cannon who convinced Parrot Records to drop “God Gave Me You” and instead release “House of the Rising Sun” as Frijid Pink’s new single. Making its debut on the station’s Top 30 playlist in January 1970, the song became a Billboard-charted U.S. hit that also reached the Top 10 in several European countries. In Germany, the song reached and remained at #1 on the charts for 11 weeks (thus, two career-spanning compilations were issued in Germany). Also reaching #3 in Canada, the song pushed their album to #11 on the U.S. Billboard Pop Album Chart.
While many music critics dismiss the once multi-million selling Frijid Pink as one-hit wonders, those ex-Vibrations out of the Motor City were anything but a flash in the pan. Across four albums — Frijid Pink, Defrosted (1970), Earth Omen (1972), and All Pink Inside (1974) — drummer Rick Stevers and bassist Tom Harris, along with guitarist Gary Ray Thompson and lead singer Tom Beaudry (aka Kelly Green on record; along with other roster changes that left only Stevers and Tom Harris from the debut), Frijid Pink charted more, albeit lesser-selling hits, such as “Sing a Song for Freedom” and “Music for the People” to a worldwide audience. While their next biggest single release, a thumped-up cover of Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel,” may have paled in comparison to the multi-millions sold by “House of the Rising Sun,” the fuzzed-up reimaging still sold a respectable 750,000 copies to become the band’s second charting single — and earned the respects of Elvis and Colonel Tom Parker: so much so that they sent Christmas cars to the band up until the King’s 1977 death.
In addition to Presley’s fandom, the various incarnations of Frijid Pink shared stages with all of the expected music elites of Detroit, such as Alice Cooper, Dick Wagner’s Frost, Grand Funk Railroad, Suzi Quatro, Rare Earth, Mitch Ryder, Savage Grace, Bob Seger (solo between the System and the Silver Bullet Band), Springwell, Ted Nugent, and Iggy Pop and the Stooges. Then there are Frijid Pink’s national tours with the Doors, the Grass Roots, the Guess Who, Iron Butterfly, the James Gang, Jethro Tull, and Steppenwolf. Then there are the unexpected artists that we will get to, later. . . .
Since Frijid Pink’s halcyon days, the band — with Rick Stevers forever at the helm — toured after their fourth and final album in 1975 and continued to tour up through 1979, with reformations in 1981, 2005, 2006, and 2008. The band came to release their long-awaited fifth album, Frijid Pink, Frijid Pink, Frijid Pink (2011; featuring new originals and remakes of older tunes), quickly followed by Frijid Pieces (2012; an EP of all-originals), Made in Detroit (2014; 11 new-originals), Taste of Pink (2017; a four-song EP), On the Edge (2018; 14 new-originals), and Hot Pink (2020; four-song EP of new originals).
And here we are, 55 years and ten releases, later — from their patented heavy psychedelia and blues rock stylings — with Rick Stevers still beating the skins in the studio and on the road with Frijid Pink.
So, let’s sit down with drummer and founder Rick Stevers as he shares a few war stories — ones you may know, but a few you do not, as well as dredging up some classic posters and press clippings — from those five-plus decades, as well as the latest happenings from the new, 21st century version of Frijid Pink.
R.D: Prior to the start of every Motorhead concert, Lemmy Kilminster introduced the band, simply: ‘We’re Motorhead and we play rock ’n’ roll,’ as he always took umbrage at the ‘heavy metal band’ critique; he grew tired explaining that, when it came to his job, he was no different than Chuck Berry or Eddie Cochran. As I revisited your first four Frijid Pink albums, I believe each have much more depth, as did Led Zeppelin’s catalog, which everyone agrees was a heavy-blues band at its core.
Do you see Frijid Pink as a rock ’n’ roll band cast with a heavy metal albatross resulting from your reimaging “House of the Rising Sun” and its subsequent chart success? Do you consider the song a blessing or a curse that stymied the band’s career?
STEVERS: You know that song is funny that way: it’s both. I kind of hate that song was our ‘hit song,’ as we had other songs I deemed of a much better quality and actually in a different direction, such as “A Song For Freedom,” which should have been an even bigger hit. When I put the band back together in 2008, I had a lot of people complaining about it ‘not being heavy or having any wah-wah like our hit’ from all those years ago. If those people heard the direction of the band originally back in the early ’70s, they wouldn’t have asked that question. The last song we released was “Music for the People” and that song was definitely no “House of the Rising Sun” by any means because there were no screaming guitars. In fact, we had Dawn [Thelma Hopkins and Joy Vincent Wilson] from Tony Orlando and Dawn singing background for us before they went with Tony Orlando. That song, I think, wow, it was the best quality of anything we had put out.
Unfortunately, all of that coincided with the guitar player and singer [Gary Lee Thompson and Kelly Green] leaving the band. They didn’t like the gospel-style of the song that Harry Phillips developed. So they went off to form a band called Bullfrog [reported in Billboard on April 3, 1971; the column also mentions Bob Seger disbanded his band, the System, and was touring using Jem Targal’s Third Power as his backing band, with plans to record as a solo artist with guest musicians]. And the label pulled our release and that was that with London Records [Parrot and Deram, which issued Frijid Pink and Defrosted, respectively, were subsidiary labels].
R.D: I want to get the misconceptions on the origins of the band’s name out of the way. It is said that David Coverdale named his band Whitesnake after his penis, Limp Bizkit is code for ‘masturbation,’ while ‘male ejaculate’ is the meaning behind Pearl Jam’s name. Over the years music fans have joked ‘Frijid Pink’ as a euphuism for the vagina; that is: women are cold-hearted.
STEVERS: No, not at all. It simply means ‘cold excellence,’ period. If you look up the meaning of the color pink: it symbolizes universal love; of friendship and inner peace.
R.D: Plus the color pink is the calmer opposite of the color red, which we equate with evil.
STEVERS: Right. The genesis of the band’s name was my mom Clara — who, ironically, I had to fight in court for name rights, years later, in 2006, when I decided I wanted to put the band back together. Anyway, she suggested ‘Frosted Pink’ because, after myself and Dan Yehlely— who was with the band for a short time before being deployed to Vietnam — got pink paint in our hair and on our clothes after painting my parents’ bathroom. When the subject of a name came up again, sitting in my parents’ kitchen, it was Tom’s sister Judy, inspired by the Frigidaire refrigerator, who came up with the idea of replacing ‘Frosted’ with ‘Frigid’; then my old man chimed in with the ‘j’ instead of the ‘g’ because it ‘looked German’ and hipper, I guess. So there you go, no female body part inspired it. Just paint and a refrigerator!
The Branches of Frijid Pink
While Gary Lee Thompson and Kelly Green formed Bullfrog (no releases), Larry Zelanka and Craig Webb (from the Earth Omen period) joined Ron Shultz’s Lost Nation, which released Paradise Lost (1970/Rare Earth-Motown). Shultz, the band’s founder, came from the Unrelated Segments, which had regional hits with “Story of My Life,” “Where You Gonna Go,” and “Cry, Cry, Cry” during its 1966 to 1969 tenure — each benefiting from airplay on WKNR “Keener 13” radio. Lost Nation is best described as “proto-metal” driven by Deep Purple-styled keyboards.
Kelly Green also rejoined the psychedelic-blues outfit Smokestack Lightnin’, which released the album Off the Wall (1969/Bell Records), along with a few earlier singles. By the late ’70s he fronted the hard-rock outfit Teezer, which released a limited-edition indie album and two singles in 1980. They were known for their rock opera, “Prince Lucifer.”
Jon Wearing — who sang lead on Earth Omen, only to be replaced by Jo Baker for the final album, All Pink Inside — came from the Beatleseque Tidal Waves, which had a 1966 regional hit with “Farmer John.” Another of their singles, “I Don’t Need Love,” was released by the label-imprint of animation studio Hanna-Barbera. Tidal Waves did many shows alongside the Unrelated Segments.
R.D: And it’s not an Internet cut-and-pasted myth: Frijid Pink opened for Led Zeppelin at The Grande Ballroom.
STEVERS: No, Led Zeppelin opened for Frijid Pink. That was one of two shows we did at The Grande.
R.D: So that would be right around the time of Led Zeppelin releasing their debut album?
STEVERS: Right. No one knew who they were at that time. At that time, they were just some band from England opening. We were up in the dressing rooms flirting with the girls. It was some band we knew about — they were just coming out from being known as the New Yardbirds — but didn’t care to listen to because, again, no one stateside knew who they were.
Image Left: Frijid Pink’s second Grande appearance/image courtesy of Sequin World/pinterest.
Image Right: Cashbox Magazine ad, January 2, 1970/image courtesy of Cailean Holweg via 45cat.com.
R.D: Speaking of early Detroit shows: Everyone recalls one of the Who’s earliest Detroit shows at Southfield High School in November 1967: the one where Keith Moon destroyed their hotel room and then drove a car into the swimming pool.
STEVERS: We did a lot of high school gigs — as the Detroit Vibrations and Frijid Pink — as was the norm for Detroit bands at the time. Wow, that’s 53 years, well, counting the Vibrations, 57 years ago — which I started in 1964 in my parents’ Allen Park [Detroit suburb; home of the Ford Motor Company and Uniroyal Tires] basement with Tom Harris. The other members were our singer, Billy O’Reilly, and Cary Dayton and Tim Machnik on guitars, and Dan Mason on Farfisa. My parents managed us and got us to the gigs on time!
The Vibrations, with our sets of R&B and Motown hits, got booked quite often; in fact, there was a club called The Chatterbox, and we had a local TV show out of Canada called Swingin’ Time with Robin Seymour [of CKLW and WKMH; he also hosted the TV show, Teen Town]. We were on that show — as the Detroit Vibrations and Frijid Pink — probably a dozen times. We also appeared on this show out of Cleveland, Upbeat, hosted by Don Webster, where we debuted our next single — which still bugs me that it wasn’t a bigger hit — “Sing a Song for Freedom,” a song which I am very proud of.
We also shot, well, they didn’t call it a ‘music video’ back then, but we shot a promotional clip in Reno, Nevada, in some freeze-your-ass-off cowboy ghost town for television shows to air [You Tube]. That was the first time we were ever on a plane. We were also promised we’d get a copy — and never did, and I saw it for the first time a few years ago. We also did a variety show, Something Else, which was hosted by John Byner, a big comedian at the time. I think you can find that clip on You Tube. Come to think of it, that clip isn’t from the Byner show: we did that on Don Webster’s program . . . and the mining town in Reno, that was for John Byner’s show. It was in the old saloon from the little town next to a flooded mining shaft.
Another appearance we did that’s saved by You Tube is The Lively Spot that aired on CKLW Channel 9 hosted by CKLW DJ Tom Shannon.
Anyway, we received our Gold Record for “House” on Robin’s show. So Robin had a deal with The Chatterbox’s owner, which resulted in us playing there twenty weeks in a row. That was back in the day when you set up, you did five sets per gig; they had a Saturday afternoon and an evening show, as well. So, on Saturdays, we were there all day, with ten sets of music. Plus we did all of the backyard shows and house parties and all of the high schools in Detroit and out of the area. Yeah, the Vibrations kept us very, very busy.
R.D: So how did Kelly Green and Gary Thompson finalize the Frijid Pink roster? My understanding is that they talked smack about your band to your father, Clyde?
STEVERS: That’s a true story! They showed up at The Chatterbox in Allen Park and claimed they were better than what we had on stage. As I recall, Tim Machnik wasn’t all that dedicated to the cause and only in it for the girls; Cary’s dad didn’t like him being in a band. There was another member alongside Kelly and Gary: guitarist Dan Yehlely, who I mentioned earlier. Sadly, he was drafted and died in an ambush in Vietnam. He was over there only two weeks. But it was Kelly and Gary joining the band that focused us on writing original material. But they also, eventually, destroyed the band.
I have to add that we debuted Frijid Pink at The Harbor Lights in 1967, which was a regal movie theatre restored to a concert venue. My mom, Clara, and Tom’s sister, Judy, made our pink satin and velvet outfits, and we had our own light show and fog. We did the Vanilla Fudge-version of “You Keep Me Hanging On” to open that second set with our new name. The first set — as the Detroit Vibrations — was our Motown-set, all R&B.
R.D: Speaking of your time at The Grande: The state of Michigan — at the very least the city of Detroit — needs to officially organize a plan to restore the old girl. Not so much as a performance space, but as a historical museum akin to Cleveland’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, so as to honor Detroit’s rock ’n’ roll contributions. The last I heard, the 8952 Grand River Avenue property is now owned by the Chapel Hill Missionary Baptist Church.
STEVERS: Yeah, that’s right.
R.D: Structural inspectors have determined the three-floors are in much better shape than realized and a restoration — and not a demolition — is feasible. I just pray — pun intended — that it’s not converted into some type of mega-church. It’s too important of a cultural landmark for that to happen.
STEVERS: Well, I don’t know if you’ve seen pictures, lately, but there was a hole in the roof and nobody bothered to fix it. So the whole dance floor is gone and all of that ornate, ceiling plaster work is all caved in. It would cost millions to restore, now. There is a group that’s been trying to get it done for years.
I have to say that I did not go to concerts because I wanted to be on the stage all the time and it made my ass hurt to listen to other people playing when I wasn’t playing. But The Grande was the one place I went to see concerts. I saw the Who perform Tommy at The Grande. I got see Savoy Brown; we became good friend with those guys, and then there was the Moody Blues: both were on the same label as Frijid Pink.
There were a lot of big bands on London at the time: There’s the Zombies and the Rolling Stones, then there was Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdink, Lulu and Van Morrison; London Records just had it going on at the time. The only rub is that they didn’t give us the promotional push they gave those bands, but we really enjoyed being part of that family of artists. I’ll always remember the great job London did with the posters. Even today, I am seeing record store promotional posters from that time online that I’ve never seen before. Everywhere they pushed “House,” it got airplay.
R.D: The influence of the year of 1968 on the heavy metal genre was a big one: San Francisco’s KMPX broke the sounds of Frijid Pink’s like-minded brethren in Iron Butterfly with “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” and “Born to be Wild” by Steppenwolf. Then there’s Blue Cheer’s cover — speaking of Eddie Cochran, earlier — of his late ’50s hit, “Summertime Blues,” which set the stage for the ‘Summer of Love’ in 1968. Released in March 1968 — and pre-dating the Beatles’ November release of “Helter Skelter” — “Blues” is considered the first heavy metal single. I’d have to add, again, back to Cochran, Britain’s U.F.O scored their first hit in 1970 with a heavy cover of his “C’mon Everybody.”
Was it a calculated, concerted effort — by the record company or the band — to emulate what Blue Cheer did, by covering a well-known classic song, to create as they say, a ‘hit record,’ or did that bore out of your Vibrations cover band days?
STEVERS: Absolutely not. Cutting “House of the Rising Sun” was a fluke. We used to buy lots of studio time, but we were a much rehearsed, practiced band: as result, we finished everything we rehearsed and had time left over. Not much, probably about twenty minutes. We were told, ‘Well, do something.’ So me and the guitar player [Gary Lee Thompson] had been working on “House of the Rising Sun” without the other two guys [bassist Tom Harris and singer Kelly Green] and we decided to record it — and did it in one take, and it took up the rest of the tape reel to the end.
R.D: Then, in steps WKNR radio.
STEVERS: Right. I was dating a girl at the time whose dad was the program director at “Keener 13” WKNR. I had my little Panasonic reel-to-reel tape recorder and I asked him if he would listen to our stuff. Of course, he only wants to hear the first fifteen seconds of every song. So we went through the reel and nothing excited him much. So it was the last song and “House” was about to play; since it was a cover, I turned it off. Paul Cannon says, ‘No, no, turn that back on.’ So the song finishes and he tells me to call my dad [Clyde, an ex-beat cop who managed the band] and my dad called Walt McGuire over at London to take “God Gave Me You” off the market and put “House” out as the single.
A few weeks pass and I am making out with Paul’s daughter in the car in the drive way; he knocks on the window and asks me to come in the house for a minute. So, I’m thinking, ‘Oh, boy, here we go.’ I sit down on the couch and he has this little radio on the mantel of his fireplace . . . and “House of the Rising Sun” is playing over-the-air of WKNR. I ask to use the phone and I call my old man, telling him to turn on the radio. And that’s how it started. It is as simple as that.
Now, there was a starting point before that, when we played Cobo Hall [for a Danny Thomas St. Jude’s Hospital benefit] backing up Jerry Jaye, who was also on London Records. Reps from London were there and Jerry’s group didn’t show up, so they asked us to do the gig. Now, we’re rock ’n’ rollers, not a country band. But Jerry said, ‘Don’t worry, the tunes — his two big hits at the time he was doing for the show were “Let the Four Winds Blow” and “My Girl Josephine” — are real easy.’ So we went back to his dressing room, blew through learning the songs, came out on the stage and did it. Suddenly, Jerry Jaye wants us to go out on the road as his backing band. Well, the Vibrations, we’re all still in high school and there’s no way we could do it. So London’s rep, Al Mitnik, who, I think was also Jerry’s manager, tells us that when we get inside a studio, ‘make sure you call me and get a tape to me.’ So Al was instrumental in getting the band started. True to his word: We got him a copy of an original, “Tell Me Why,” and he got the record to the stores and on the radio in Buffalo and Detroit. Then, with “God Gave Me You,” he expanded into New York City. Of course, Paul Cannon at “Keener 13” got “House” on the air for the first time. So Paul and the radio station each got a Gold Record for it, along with ours.
Speaking of backing artists, in those early days, because we knew our R&B covers from the Detroit Vibrations’ days, we backed the Contours, the Dynamics, the Falcons, and the Four Tops. We actually had a set entirely of Motown hits back then.
R.D: What inspired the recording of “Heartbreak Hotel” and why was the song initially left off the debut album (it’s now on the CD reissues) and released as a standalone single?
STEVERS: Well, that was cut after the album. I can’t recall why we ended up doing it. I think management thought it would be a good thing to do. Come to think of it: Harry Phillips, who came to us from Catfish [one album on Epic], suggested it and management got on board. Tom Harris’s cousin, Buddy Killen, was part owner of Tree Music, the company that published “Heartbreak.”
Of course, we didn’t want to be a cover band. But it I think it turned out alright and it sold over 700,000 copies, which wasn’t a bad thing at that time. But it still paled to the over seven million copies “House” sold.
What’s funny is that the Animals sold less than a million of their version of “House” — but that’s the one you always hear on the radio, more than ours, even today. In fact, our version was on the charts four weeks longer than the Animals. As I recall, a lot of radio stations wouldn’t play our stuff, only after 6 PM, because they considered us ‘hard headbanging,’ as they didn’t call it ‘heavy metal’ back then, but ‘headbanging music’ — compared to the heavy stuff that came just a few years later, Frijid Pink was mild in comparison. We got a letter from the City of New Orleans telling us they loved the band, but due to the ‘ambiance’ of “House” set in a New Orleans whorehouse, we’re not allowing stations to play that record, but we’ll hop on the next one. I wish I still had that letter, but I don’t.
R.D: Are you familiar with music impresario Lou Adler’s 1982 rock ’n’ roll drama, Ladies and Gentlemen: The Fabulous Stains and its depiction of a ’60s hard rock band, the Metal Corpses, portrayed by Fee Waybill and the Tubes, trying to remain relevant in ‘80s? Over the years, fans of the film have blog-bickered as to the model for the faux-band behind their lone, faux-hit, “The Roadmap of My Tears” being Blue Cheer, Iron Butterfly, or Frijid Pink. Do you know if Lou Adler directly used Frijid Pink as his inspiration?
STEVERS: Well, I’m not familiar with that film and never heard that thought about the band. I’ll tell you this: I put the band back together in 2008 and I gave the original singer and bass player [Kelly Green and Tom Harris] the opportunity to return. Green was in really bad health and we lost him last year, in 2021. He was at a couple practices and as result of his illness, he just couldn’t do it. Harris had his own little project going on, I think it was called Fortress: just a little rock ’n’ roll band that did pretty well playing all the fairs and such around Detroit. But I gave them the opportunity and I wished they could have done it.
You know, it is really hard to find quality musicians. Two of the people I found in 2008 are still with me. Two others were replaced for different reason and they’ve all been with me since 2010. So, right now, the band has been together three or four time longer than the original band was together: the versions that did the first two albums [Frijid Pink and Defrosted]. The quality of musicians is better and the writing capabilities of the new guys are better. Well, I shouldn’t say that, as the writing capabilities of the other guys were getting better as the band matured. But I am very comfortable with what I have right now. The band themselves, as people, are sweethearts. There hasn’t been a raised voice or argument by anyone since we’ve been together, which is pretty unheard of in this business.
R.D: Getting back to films: Was Frijid Pink ever offered a movie role? I ask since your contemporaries, Iron Butterfly, not only performed, but also acted in the 1970 teen comedy, Musical Mutiny, which was shot in Dania Beach, South Florida at Pirate’s World.
STEVERS: I’m not familiar with that film, either. I’ll have to look it up. We did, however, play Pirate’s World a few times, but we were never offered a film.
Now, I do have a couple of stories about our Pirate’s World gigs, where we stayed at a HoJos, that is, a Howard Johnson’s. At the time, I wanted a motorcycle, badly — and I was always grateful my old man was against it. The first time I rode a bike was at Pirate’s World, as they rented out motorcycles. Well, I drove across the causeway bridge and the grating was wet from being pressure cleaned. The tires against that: the bike is shaking. When I got to the other side, I put the bike down and caught my breath. That was the end of me wanting a motorcycle.
My other Pirate’s World memory was, well, I always loved ships. So I took a tour of, I think it was The Queen Mary. The tour wasn’t as good as I had hoped, as I wanted to go down to the engine room, which we did not. Anyway, on the way back, I flagged down a taxi, but didn’t have enough money. I told the driver to get me back to the hotel as close as he could with the money I had. So he took me, and his being a Frijid Pink fan, told me to sit down low so no one can see me and he put down the flag and took me all the way to the hotel.
R.D: You won’t find those tales in any Detroit rock tome.
STEVERS: Nope, because I told you, first.
R.D: I figured Frijid Pink must have appeared, at least once, at Pirate’s World. I’m shocked Barry Mahon — who booked the shows (for a flat $10,000) while he ran his film studio out of the park — didn’t film you and edit it into a film. Your fellow Detroiters of Alice Cooper and Grand Funk Railroad played there and Mahon crafted films around them: Good to See You, Alice Cooper (shot during the Billion Dollar Babies tour) and Weekend Rebellion, respectively. He seemed to love Detroit rock ’n’ roll.
STEVERS: Our only ‘films’ would be “House of the Rising Sun” appearing in Remember the Titans (2000; with Denzel Washington) and TV’s Dark Shadows from the ’70s. “End of the Line” was used a couple of times in [the first season of] Ash vs. The Evil Dead (2015), which was pretty cool. It would have been nice to be included in the Louder Than Love documentary about The Grande, but I think at least a segment of “House” appears in the film. You’d think the first band to make it big out of Detroit would be part of it. Oh, well.
R.D: I’d have to add that the late Neil Merryweather, who we lost last year to cancer, had the music of his band, the Space Rangers, also featured on Ash vs. The Evil Dead.
STEVERS: Yeah, that series had an interesting taste in music. I was proud to be included.
R.D: In the opening of the interview, I mentioned just a few of the Detroit-based and other rock bands Frijid Pink toured with over the years. But I was shocked to see the likes of Glenn Campbell, David Cassidy, BB King, Neil Diamond, the Osmonds, Bobby Sherman, and Frank Sinatra among the list of artists. Would those less conventional artists, the ones we wouldn’t expect sharing a stage with you, come as result of your honor in performing for the Presidency of the United States — four times? It was surely not during the Richard M. Nixon administration? He hated you ne’er-do-well hippies.
STEVERS: Nope. It was four times — and each for Nixon. The guests for those shows were amazing. I mean, Sammy Davis, Jr. was there! What a friendly guy he was: he invited me to a party on his personal yacht. And most of those artists you mentioned, as well, were there. I also have to mention we ended up alongside the big stars, like Neil Diamond, at Cobo Hall for Danny Thomas’s St. Jude’s Hospital benefit.
For the first Nixon show, we were in Miami staying at the iconic Fontainebleau Hotel. They had this barge just down the street; it had to be as along as a city block. Everyone was performing on this barge — and Nixon actually showed up for that show. The Mike Curb Congregation was there; all of these big-name acts. It was surreal. When we got to the hotel, the F.B.I agents had the whole place closed off: you had to show I.D. Of course, we’re long-haired hippies and the F.B.I kept stopping us, over and over. Finally, the organizers gathered the band together, stood us in front of the agents and said, ‘Look, these guys are okay, you have to let them in and out.’ After that, we were told by the agents to charge anything we wanted to the rooms: even hookers. Now, I don’t know what the others did, but I didn’t — the hookers, that is!
Then my very cool, very expensive Accutron watch — with a twist-o-flex band, which was a big deal back then as it was the first electronic watch — was stolen. It has this see-though face where you could see all the clockworks inside. I took it off and put it on the amplifier right behind me. We get done playing the show: the watch is gone. I only had it a week. Now, you have to remember: there is only F.B.I on stage. That’s it. They even had scuba guys patrolling the waters around the barge.
R.D: So much for Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity.
STEVERS: I know it’s hard to believe but that’s a true story: amid all of that ‘security,’ my watch is stolen. I never got it back. And it wasn’t a long show. On those variety bills you only play two or three songs. I’ll tell you what was really funny: Nixon liked the band. He dug our version of “House of the Rising Sun,” which is crazy.
R.D: Nixon? Are you serious?
STEVERS: That’s what the organizers and the agents told us. Even funnier is when the F.B.I started calling our friends for security checks — before we get the gig. Then our friends call us, wondering what in the hell are we up to. And we’re wondering why the government is looking at us. It wasn’t until two months later that we learned we were playing these four shows for the President, again, from what they told us, per his request.
R.D: Well, it makes sense. I mean, Elvis sent you Christmas cards until his death. So I can believe Nixon liking the band, as well. Good rock ’n’ roll is good rock ’n’ roll. Even Presidents are people.
STEVERS: Yeah, Elvis and the Colonel liked what we did with “Heartbreak Hotel,” it was crazy. I’m just sorry that it ended all too soon. Unfortunately, our management didn’t have what it takes to keep the momentum. But I’ve been back at it — and pretty happy about it, as I said — since 2008. The band’s been together longer, now, than back then. I can’t stress that fact, enough. We get along great. However, back then, I got out of it completely in 1979 with the very last version of the band. I ended up in Toledo, Ohio, and worked for Jeep’s engineering division for a few years.
R.D: Speaking of the band getting back together: There have been several incidents over the years of bogus versions of classic bands from the ’60s and ’70s recording and touring — sans any original members, sometimes centered on twice-removed, later-joining members and a conniving manager. So, needless to say, I wasn’t surprised to read in rock magazines that a new version of Frijid Pink — without you in the band — not only hit the road, but recorded an album, Inner Heat, in 2001.
STEVERS: I helped my dad — who was one of our four managers from the old days; those four managers, by the way, were my dad, my mom, then Tom Harris’s sister and her husband, and they still managed to screw it up — put that version of the band together. In fact, he owned the rights to the name ‘Frijid Pink’; he wasn’t being shifty, well, he probably was: I was underage at the time and couldn’t trademark it myself. I was supposed to get the rights back when I turned 21 — and never did. Dad claimed I’d ‘get the rights’ when he died; then when his will was read: my mom Clara got the rights. It took a lot of money and time to get the name back.
Anyway, the people my old man picked for that band weren’t of the caliber I wanted to play with at all. The singer was this monotone-baritone country singer who couldn’t handle “House of the Rising Sun,” the guitarist, Randy Mack, turned it into the ‘Randy Mack Show,’ as he stole every guitar riff from every guitar player that was worth listening to: plus the songs they wrote were horrible.
I told the guys to sign some contracts with my dad or he’s going to screw them. Instead of heeding my advice, they ran to my dad; he called me and we argued and I quit. So they got a member from an old Detroit band, Savage Grace, I can’t recall who, and went in the studio with a bunch of money that management never paid back. That bogus version of the band did one live show on the west side of the state where the booking agent showed up — and they didn’t do “House of the Rising Sun” because the singer couldn’t sing it. That was that: one show.
R.D: In preparing for our interview, I gleaned Billboard issues and found a July 31, 1971, report that a booking agency out of Dallas was touring a bogus Frijid Pink across the Southeastern U.S. Do you recall that event?
STEVERS: Yes, we couldn’t catch them and they were doing our whole set list! Back then, most bands weren’t recognized by sight, unless you were the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, so they got away with it.
R.D: Another Billboard report I read from August 15, 1970, mentioned Frijid Pink replacing Quicksilver Messenger Service at the Festival of Rock at the Arizona Coliseum. Do you have any memories of that show or recall why Quicksilver canceled?
STEVERS: That was the fake Frijid Pink you mentioned. We never played Arizona. In fact, we were in Jacksonville, Florida, in August 1970! I remember it vividly because it was my 21st birthday. I spent my birthday in one marathon drive back to Detroit from that show. So, yeah, it wasn’t us in Arizona.
R.D: Taking a break in 1979 after four years of touring since 1975, post-All Pink Inside, the ‘real’ Frijid Pink reunited — with you and founding bassist Tom Harris recruiting fellow Detroit’ers Arlen Viecelli from Salem Witchcraft on lead vocals and Ray Gunn from Virgin Dawn on guitars. Sadly, you were never able to find a label for the never-released recordings. That frustrates me, because, three years later, Dickie Peterson and Paul Whaley reformed Blue Cheer and issued The Beast is Back on Megaforce Records in 1984.
What were the excuses the labels gave you for not wanting to release those 1981 recordings? Since you’ve released six new albums (EPs and LPs) since 2011, and there’s a renewed interest in the band, will you pull that lost album out of the vaults?
STEVERS: What’s funny about that era is none of the 1981 material was ever copyrighted. Two of those songs did end up on the German compilation that came out on Repertoire Records in 2011; one of those songs was “Bad News,” which I did copyright. I mention that tune because we’re getting ready to re-record it with new lyrics and a new title because it’s a ‘drumming song’ and I just love to play that song; and it just flows from the rest of the guys. They wanted to do new songs, but I was adamant that we reimage it. Those ’81 recordings, a few of them could have been hit songs. The excuses were very lame and very poor. A lot of it had to do with our management; they didn’t know how to manage a band or speak to anyone in the business. So, it just got tossed in the can and that was that.
I’d have to add that an album that gets passed on over in our discography is The Beginning Vol. 5. Prior to the Repertoire release, that was our first compilation. Deram put that out in 1973, with five songs each from our debut and Defrosted. It came out in Germany — after the release of Earth Omen with MGM/Lion and before All Pink Inside on Fantasy — but I believe it was available as an import in other parts of the world.
Now, I wasn’t aware of that album until years later. I had nothing to do with it; it was all my old man working with Repertoire, I believe. In fact, there’s a pink-vinyl version of “House” released in Europe on the Stardust label. I never heard of them or the band that’s on the B-Side, Major, with the song, “A Wonderful Dream.” There’s also a European label called Green Tree — that’s the one I remember, there’s a few — that releases Frijid Pink product. I don’t fight it because, well, it keeps our name out there. The same goes for all of those tee-shirts. That’s not me.
R.D: I’m a huge Uriah Heep fan, well, I’m a fan of anything from the ’70s grinding a Hammond B-3. Their German doppelgangers, Lucifer’s Friend, are always spinning at the homestead. I’m also the only guy you’ll ever meet who praises the Electric Prunes’ with third and fourth albums, Mass in F Minor and Release of an Oath (both 1968). Frijid Pink’s prog-rock leaning third album, Earth Omen (1972), also goes down as one of my turntable’s always-spinning favorites.
What inspired your abandoning the heavy psychedelia of the first album to create the harder blues of Defrosted? Was that by way of record company badgering or was it purely a creative choice?
STEVERS: That period and the change between those two albums were based more in the creative process. I was told repeatedly from the beginning that all drummers look the same and that I needed something to stand out; to ‘play erratic, to play the way other drummers don’t play,’ which was very hard to do. So I got into this crazy phase of trying to do stuff other drummers don’t — which I got slammed for by a couple of rock writers. We also had two new members [Jon Wearing and Craig Webb], which are no longer with us: Jon Wearing committed suicide in 2009 and Craig Webb died a few years back. But I remember writing all of those songs in my first apartment, “Mr. Blood” in particular. The change on Earth Omen was because Jon and Craig were a different, higher caliber of musician and it came out of that infusion of talent. We left London at that point and MGM’s subsidiary rock label, Lion, issued that album, but they had nothing to do with the changes the band made.
R.D: What inspired the straight, blues rock change-up on your fourth and final album, All Pink Inside — which is a shift back to your roots from the first album?
STEVERS: Well, by that point it was another, whole new band, again [Jo Baker on vocals and Larry Popolizo on bass] and, I have to note: a whole new label, Fantasy, which was associated with Creedence Clearwater Revival. Tom Harris wasn’t even with us at that point. Guitarist Steve Dansby from Cactus [aka Vanilla Fudge, Mach II] recorded with us — but we never released that material — and didn’t play out live.
Steve was an incredible guitar player that, because of his personal issues, couldn’t take advantage of his talents. There’s those ‘incredible guitarists’ you hear about: Steve was one of them. He’s still with us: he actually ‘liked’ something I recently posted on Facebook.
Boy, we got slammed by the fans over Earth Omen and All Pink Inside. They felt that ‘we weren’t loyal to our original sound.’ What they didn’t understand is that bands, like people, evolve. Look at the Beatles: their later material didn’t sound at all like their first few songs. Look at the Rolling Stones with “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Heartbreaker” compared to their “Satisfaction” days. Frijid Pink was doing the same thing: we were evolving into something different, something bigger and more mature. If you listen to “Music for the People,” that Dawn sang back-up, you’ll see what I mean. That song was more commercial than anything we did at that point. It was a hit record. If they [Kelly Green and Gary Ray Thompson] didn’t quit right when the record came out, I believe it would have gone to the top of the charts. That was while we were on tour in March 1971. Kelly and Gary walked out on the band in St. Louis and hitched a ride to Detroit. They were just impossible to work with some days.
It is funny how the massive success of “House” caused the original band’s break up. It’s like the song has a curse or something. The story behind the Animals’ version is that Alan Price, who wrote the new arrangement, had his name added to the writing credits, which resulted in the other members getting nothing. So the Animals split over it.
But getting back to the press: they were always on us. Even though we were at it since the mid ’60s, Creem had an issue with us and there may have been a bit of scene resentment that [Dick Wagner’s] Frost, the MC 5, SRC, and the Stooges were struggling, while we had this worldwide ‘overnight success.’ The bands themselves were still cool with us, but we were still outsiders on the scene to a degree. We also got snubbed by a couple of rock ’n’ roll books about Detroit [Steve Miller’s Detroit Rock City], but Dave A. Carson was kind to us. I’d also have to mention the Michigan Rock ’n’ Roll Legends Hall of Fame has been very good to us: we were officially inducted in 2013 and they’ve given us what I believe, is the best, most accurate coverage of any publication. We are not, however, in Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We’ve been eligible since 1995, but I guess being Michigan’s first progressive rock band with a gold record doesn’t mean much.
R.D: Your last Frijid Pink effort, your tenth overall, the 2020 EP, Hot Pink, features four new tunes. Obviously, those were recorded prior to the COVID pandemic, which most likely sidelined any additional recording. What are your recording plans in 2022?
STEVERS: Well, right now I have two singles that I’m getting ready to release to streaming — and I’m going to send you. But we’ve been practicing and recording the whole time. When we started in 2008, we had a standing appointment for Sundays and Thursdays and we’d get a lot of work done. We’ve since cut that down to just Tuesdays — our ‘get together band meeting day’ — and that doesn’t give you a whole lot of time to get stuff done. We have seven new songs that we haven’t laid down the basic tracks, yet. The two that are coming out are the best that Frijid Pink has done so far. Not only do we have three ‘Ricks’ in the band: we’ve got four lead singers; we brought the Hammond back, and two guitar players: Rick Zeithaml, who is more commercial, while the other, Ricky Houke, is taking care of the feedback and wah-wah for us. So I think we have a great blend of everything that’s going on, at least for us, right now.
R.D: As I visited the band’s website, I was warmed by the wonderful comments from fans from all over the world, as well as the band’s respective You Tube uploads each having over a million hits. I noticed one site commenter from the U.K. asking when you’re coming to England, as well as a fan from Australia with fond memories. I image it’s difficult for a band from the ’60s to find receptive promoters to put you on the road in the States, let alone on an overseas tour.
STEVERS: I spoke to someone about five years ago regarding an overseas tour and that’s exactly what he said: he didn’t want to risk the money, even though we were supposed to, back in the early ’70s, tour England as well as Japan. We were supposed to be ‘the first rock ’n’ roll band to ever go to Japan,’ but that didn’t work out as result of Gary and Kelly quitting. I’d love returning to Australia, but without a major label backing, it’s difficult.
Right now, for this past year and a half, we’re with Tunecore. In the last three months we’ve received royalties from Tunecore of over $600. Now, that may not sound like much, but if you’re familiar on how royalty rates work with streaming and online airplay right now: $600 means one million people are listening to our music. It takes a lot of streaming or online airplay to reach that amount of money in three-months. It shocked me and the guys that we were being listened to that much, since we don’t have a record label to depend on for promotion. So, yeah, I need a couple more guys to help run this band; I need a manager! Back in ’67, when we started out, we had four managers. For the last twelve years or so, I’ve been doing it all myself and it is not easy. So I’m in the market for a new manager and have made a few calls in the last two months. The band is extremely tight and ready to get out on the road.
We have a new bit of marketing that everyone loves but without a P.R guy, it’s fallen by the wayside. I said to my [old] bassist, ‘This is like a new genre,’ and Brent Austin called it ‘NEW CLASSIC ROCK,’ and that’s exactly what Frijid Pink is today: we are still doing classic rock, but they’re all new songs played in the vein of the music from the ’60s and ’70s. I think a lot of people are still digging that style of music; those people hate the style of music that’s out right now. Frijid Pink, today, is giving them music that is fresh, but the same ol’ hard rock, boogie n’ blues that reminds them of the old days: real music with real people playing lead guitars and keyboards and killer vocals.
R.D: The ‘NEW CLASSIC ROCK’ marketing surely fits for the latest tunes I listened to on ReverbNation. I love the Uriah Heepish grind of “Adrenaline,” while “Millennium Man” has a nice, Iron Maiden-styled twin-guitar attack. Then there’s more superb keyboard grinding with “In Your Arms Tonight” from Hot Pink (2020) over at Apple Music. Each are as good as anything these new, Active Rock-youngsters are releasing. And that 2017 reboot of “House of the Rising Sun” is an amazing update to the original. Danny Grimm has some serious pipes going on that one.
STEVERS: Now, that’s not Danny; that’s our keyboard player, Chuck Mangus. It’s funny you mention those first two songs as those are probably my most favorite to do live. As for our “House” remake, Chuck did that in one amazing take. Danny Grimm just came into the band and he’s singing lead on the two new songs I mentioned: he has killer vocals on top of being a great bassist — and he does high harmony parts. He really makes the difference. Brent Austin, the singer on those songs you mentioned, has been sick for many, many years with numerous bouts of cancer. He wasn’t able to continue and that’s how Danny came into the band. I’d have to mention guitarist Rick Zeithmal is a Toledo, Ohio, native, so Frijid Pink always has a home there. We have great shows there.
Did you listen to the new ones I sent you, “The Music Came Alive” and “Right or Wrong”? Mind you, they still need to be mastered. You’re the first outside of the band to hear them.
Fifty-two years-to-the-week of the March 28, 1970, release of “House of the Rising Sun,” Frijid Pink’s newest songs, “The Music Came Alive” and “Right or Wrong,” had their worldwide radio debut with disc jockey Malcolm Frank Thompson on RPP FM 98.7 in Melbourne, Australia.
R.D: I did, and again, the ‘NEW CLASSIC ROCK’ marketing is spot-on. It’s great to hear a band not only appreciate the beauty of a Hammond B-3, but how to properly incorporate its distinctive sound into an arrangement without overbearing it. Both take me back to when, in the early ’80s, when both Uriah Heep and Deep Purple made their ‘comebacks’ with the albums Abominog and Perfect Strangers. Many scoffed, but both albums charted and produced hit singles — Purple’s more so than Heep’s, but still. Remember when Ozzy left Black Sabbath and everyone said it was over? Well, those two Dio-era albums outsold the Ozzy-era. It’s a shame today’s classic rock stations refuse to play any new music from classic artists. If they did, those new songs would segue nicely amid the usual, rock classics. I’d also have to add that the new material since 2011 is very fluid and flows back to the first four albums: you do not hear a thirty-plus year gap after All Pink Inside. It’s like you never left the scene.
STEVERS: That’s great to hear! It’s great to have someone outside of the band that gets what we are doing.
R.D: Since I just heard them on the car radio: I see Quiet Riot as a doppelganger to what you’re doing with Frijid Pink, today. When they reformed in 2010, the only original member from their chart-topping days — and he wasn’t even original to the band — was Frankie Banali. They toured successfully and released three more albums.
This morning before we spoke, I also heard one of your proto-metal brethren, Steppenwolf, with “Magic Carpet Ride” on the radio. As you said earlier, your version of “House of the Rising Sun” sold more, charted higher and longer than the Animals’ version. Why programmers buried your version, as well as Iron Butterfly’s “In a Gadda Da Vida” and “Blue Cheer’s “Summertime Blues” is frustrating. They should be classic rock radio staples that I hear alongside the Doors’ hits.
STEVERS: “House” still receives airplay but overseas. It’d be great to still be on the playlists of classic rock stations in the States, but that’s just how it is. It’d be great to get the support Quiet Riot has. Many are surprised to learn Frijid Pink is still at it.
R.D: Well, if we work together and push this interview via social media — and with your fans’ help sharing it — we can change that fact. So, with those new songs for 2022 in the can, you’re readying to tour.
STEVERS: Oh, the band can’t wait to get out on the road. Now, the Zombies just started a world tour and an agent out of Florida wanted to book us on that tour. Unfortunately, it was too late to set it up, as they were already, ready to go. But that would have been a great tour.
Now, I read yesterday (March 10) the MC 5 cut their first new album in fifty years and they have a tour planned. I don’t know what’s going on with Wayne Kramer at the moment, but he — and many do not know this — for a brief period of time: Wayne was in Frijid Pink.
R.D: Wow. That’s wild. I live for these Detroit rock exclusives!
STEVERS: He was out of the MC 5 and we were looking for something new. Even though we were without a label after our last album, All Pink Inside, which came out in 1975, we still toured up through 1979. By that point, Frijid Pink consisted of this band [Outer Drive] that my dad managed — with me on the drums [the roster was Bob Gilbert on guitar and vocals, Terry Stafford on bass, and Ray Knapp]. Anyway, Wayne was arrested for child support or some stupid thing back then and didn’t last long. Then there was Glenn Frey.
R.D: Glenn Frey from the Eagles was in Frijid Pink? That would be from his Detroit days with the Mushrooms, as well as co-writing songs with Bob Seger?
STEVERS: Right. He made a couple practices, but our management didn’t like ‘his style,’ as they called it. Look what happened.
R.D: That’s wild. Now that’s nowhere to be found on the countless web-based articles on the band. I’ve never read that in any rockapedias or Detroit biographies.
STEVERS: Well, that’s because I never told anybody about Glenn. You’re the first.
R.D: Now, my unknown Detroit rock trivia bit to share is that Jerry Zubal — if you recall from those Rockicks cuts I sent to you — also played for a short time with Glenn Frey. Jerry was out of the Kwintels, which — back to your story about backing for Jerry Jaye — backed Freddie Cannon when he came to Detroit. Anyway, Glenn Frey was out of the Mushrooms and, well, the short-lived band ‘didn’t jell,’ as Jerry Zubal put it. So Jerry ended up in L.A.’s Rockicks and signed with RSO Records and, as you pointed out: look what happened to Glenn Frey.
STEVERS: Let me give you another exclusive: our connection to the Beatles.
Our management was so stupid and greedy that, when London Records offered us the Beatles’ producer, George Martin, for twenty percent, they turned him down. For a lousy twenty percent cut. Twenty percent of nothing is nothing. Can you imagine if George Martin produced us after the first album, what we could have done in the studio with Defrosted? And with the success we had, the sales at the time, with his name attached to us, we would have gone over the top. I have a ton of these stories. . . .
In fact, we were in this German magazine, Bravo, with the Beatles. They sent out a photographer from Germany to promote the debut album. Anyway, the magazine mentioned us on the cover and gave us a six-page color spread. Meanwhile, the Beatles — during their Abbey Road rooftop-phase — got two pages in the back. It’s in the German language and I eventually had it translated. It’s funny to read, as they reference all of these movie stars and hit TV series. So it’s fun to reminisce about all of the stuff that was happening when the band was around.
Oh, and when we went to Australia . . . there’s so many stories you can’t print about that tour . . . but when we arrived, the fans greeted us at the airport! So we were like ‘The Beatles’ for a moment. The story I can share was about the plane ride back from Australia — with a stopover in Hawaii. It was a brutal 24 hours, as I got sick from the airplane food. I spent most of the flight on the lavatory — a really nice lavatory — floor running a fever and three air conditioning vents pointed at me.
There’s the one about John Kay and Steppenwolf and this Toys for Tots show we did in West Virginia. It was an afternoon and evening show. There was this musician opinion back then: mic’d small amplifiers sound better than mic’d huge amps. So, John Kay set up with these small amps. Against our bigger equipment, we just wasted them. Now, they weren’t acting very friendly to begin with. Of course, as a Detroit band, we are friendly with everybody. Again, back to the meaning behind our name you mentioned earlier: it’s all about harmony. Anyway, I remember a knock on the door from John Kay. He comes in, apologizing for the way they acted towards us, and then asks if they can borrow our equipment for the next show! Of course, we loaned it to them, full knowing they don’t know the equipment we used or how to run it. It’s funny because we thought we’d get blown off stage — it’s Steppenwolf, after all. And we killed them on the second show as well.
In addition to Steppenwolf, we toured a lot with the Guess Who, and believe it or not, Paul Revere and the Raiders, as well as Ides of March. There are just so many stories and so many bands to remember, such as Country Joe and the Fish, the Rascals, Jay and the Americans. In those days, you were on these package tours with probably ten bands. No one was a support or a headliner: it was just a show with ten bands, that’s how it was done back then. But Frijid Pink’s been back at it since 2008 and we’re sounding better than ever. Keep your ears open for the new tunes and we’ll see you on the road.
To stay current with the recording and touring exploits of Frijid Pink, you can visit their official website at Frijid Pink.com. You can also follow the band on their Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube pages, as well as enjoy their ever-growing catalog of new music at their ReverbNation, Apple Music, and Spotify pages. For you physical media fans: there’s a wealth of new and vintage Frijid Pink vinyl and compact discs available at Amazon to add to your collection.
For you homegrown Motor City rockers: You can relive Frijid Pink’s Detroit days with a complete listing of their shows — at such iconic Michigan venues as The Birmingham Palladium, The Eastown Theatre, Garden City East High School, The Lincoln Park Theatre, Sherwood Forest, The Silverbell Hideout, and Wamplers Lake Pavilion at your one-stop web home for information on Michigan’s concert history — The Concert Database. You can also view classic Frijid Pink concert posters at Classic Posters.com.
You want to read more on Detroit’s lost rockers? We round ’em up with our on-going series of articles — as part of our birthday tribute to the man, the myth, and the legend that brought us here: Arthur Pendragon. You’re still rockin’ the Motor City, my brother.
— R.D Francis
We extend a special thanks to Mike “Chizzy” Chisholm of the Detroit Doors for his assistance in coordinating this interview. You can learn more about his musical endeavors on Medium.
About the Author: You can learn more about the music and film journalist works of R.D Francis on Facebook.
