Sometimes you’re Kiss . . . and sometimes you’re Rockicks: Phantoms from the Rock ’n’ Roll Oblivion
The Career of Guitarist Jerry Zubal with L.A.’s Rockicks and Detroit’s Pendragon: A first in a series of interviews with Detroit’s lost rockers
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In the long ago, pre-Internet years of this writer’s youth, the old brick-and-mortar record store was an oasis; an escape from parents, school, and work. Solace was found in the store’s cataloged aromas of used, musky cardboard and dusty, scratchy vintage vinyl; the removal of each album from its cover and dust jacket was gold discovered in a treasure chest. In those callously disposed analog days, progressive-rock radio, with her weird, nonconformist transmissions of progressive rock and proto-metal of the late sixties and early seventies (later known as “AOR” (Album Oriented Rock) by the late seventies, then callously homogenized and computerized as “classic rock” in the eighties), music was this writer’s Seven Seas; a Sinbad on a weekly, swashbuckling tale of audio discoveries.
Today, in our regimented, digitized world, automated society disposed of those off-the-rack, glossy magazines from our local bookstores, such as Circus, Hit Parader, and Creem (here in the States; in the U.K, it was Sounds and New Music Express), which served as a rocker’s treasure maps to sail those vinyl waves and discover new islands and ports of call that came in the form of rock ’n’ roll bands. One of the many bullions discovered by this salty rock ’n’ roll pirate was a band known — and unknown, not even given a fair chance by regimented radio programmers and trend-hopping record buyers to be forgotten — as Rockicks.
Unlike most of this writer’s favorite bands of the pre-classic rock epoch, such as the radio-ignored Angel, Axis, Blackjack, Black Sheep, the Boyzz, Fortnox, the Godz, Legs Diamond, Piper, Rex, Riggs, Roadmaster, Stars, and Target — which we rockers would not have known, if not for the days of the hard-copy rock press — and April Wine, May Day, Riot, Shooting Star, and Survivor — which received additional, but bare minimal, radio support — Rockicks received neither the ink or airwaves of other bands.
Rockicks was one of those lost nuggets you discovered, not through the rock press or radio or record company marketing. Like any gold-infected pirate, you sailed off on the asphalt waves in your cherished, used 1975 Pontiac Firebird and dove into the vinyl ocean of a local record store and you found it — by accident. As with the above noted bands, Rockicks was the happiest of accidents for this writer. Rockicks, like those other bands, was my band; I found them. Rockicks wasn’t the latest, trendy spandex ’n’ hairspray pretty-boy band or some candy-coated new wave cookie cutter or some droning electro-pop unit marketed by Madison Avenue-dictated radio programmers. Rockicks was real rock ’n’ roll rife with heart, body, and soul. There was no second-rate Kiss-theatrics, no Knackesque cloning, no second-generational loss copying of the Cars. This was down-and-dirty rock ’n’ roll of majestic, Cheap Trick-proportions. “How in the hell did I not hear about these guys when this album first dropped in stores?” I asked. “Why did I find out about it after the fact?” I miffed.
So, who are the members Rockicks? Where did this ripping, barnstormer of band, which issued a lone album in 1977 on RSO Records, come from? Where did they go? Did they give up the rock ’n’ roll dream and grudgingly take non-rock day jobs?
As a liner-note junkie, this writer searched high and low for more information on Rockicks’ members: guitar/vocalist Jerry Zubal, bassist/vocalist Sammy Pate, Jr., guitarist/vocalist Brian Naughton, and drummer Rich Altschuler. (Outside of Rick Altschuler, they all wrote material and shared lead vocals on their individual compositions.) As far as this writer could tell, none were in any band before or after Rockicks.
Then one day: Eureka! “Jerry Zubal” mystically appeared on the rear cover of an old 1972 copy of an album by 1776 — another one of those bands that received little-to-none of the ink or airwaves afforded to Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin (or, more accurately, in the case of 1776, the Eagles) in the early-days of progressive FM radio. Then, another familiar name appeared on the 1776 cover: Hideout Productions. Then another: Palladium Records. Then there was the name: Punch Andrews. “Hey, this connected to Bob Seger! Rockicks are from Detroit!” (Or so this writer thought.) Thus, this then wee-rocker poured over rock tome after rock tome about Detroit’s rock scene; read or skimmed every book, or at least thumbed the indexes, of every career chronicle on Bob Seger, Ted Nugent, Iggy Pop, and the MC 5 — anyone and everyone from Detroit. Not a mention of Rockicks to be found — or 1776 for that matter.
It wasn’t until this writer began researching and writing an investigation on the Phantom of Detroit from 1974 in the pages of The Ghosts of Jim Morrison, the Phantom of Detroit, and the Fates of Rock ’n’ Roll, that a discovery regarding the twisted roots and branches of Rockicks occurred. As with the fabled, non-comedic divine comedy of Jim Morrison’s ghost, the careers of the musicians behind Rockicks shuffled the same old song-and-dance routine: a close-but-no cigar lifestyle; stubbed-out in a managerial ashtray peppered with almosts, maybes, not today, and no thank yous.
So, while this rock ’n’ roll curmudgeon waxes nostalgic on the societal ills rout by the Internet beast and the death of a cherished analog, non-software world — for once — the World Wide Web served rock ’n’ roll well. Thanks to the technical ecstasy of Internet Search Engines and Video Sharing Sites (Google and You Tube), the mystery of this band from Detroit (?), unfurled.
Jerry Zubal got his start in the Quintels, which eventually dropped the “Qu” for a “Kw,” for a new, sounds-the-same-but-spelled-differently, rocking handle: Kwintels. Typical of the Beatles-cum-Stones-cum-Kinks-inspired British Invasion relished in States, this American band sported a similarly dressed, clean cut image. Then, the Beatles ditched the “power-pop” and recorded “Helter Skelter.” Led Zeppelin’s electrified blues arrived.
So, as did all the young rockers of the times, Jerry Zubal sharpened those six-strings for some harder sounds. For a while, there was Poetic Justice. Then, with Gary Gawinek (later to become the Tour Manager for Bob Seger), came the harder-rocking Tea. Once under the auspices of Bob Seger’s manager, Punch Andrews, Tea rechristened as 1776. One liberty-spread eagle cover later — that features their take on ex-Traffic’s Dave Mason’s debut solo hit, “Only You Know and I Know,” and a single release of the Byrd’s rearrangement of the Art Reynolds’ Singers “Jesus Is Just Alright” — Jerry’s Zubal’s connection to the pre-stardom career of Bob Seger was over. Then the injury to the insult: next year, the Doobie Brothers scored a massive AM and FM radio hit with the song that failed 1776 and sparked a quickly burnt-out-and-faded away “Jesus Rock” craze in the early seventies.
Meanwhile, down in the heart of the U.S Southern Rock south — spearheaded by the likes of Blackfoot, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, and the Outlaws — in the cities of Smyrna and Augusta, Georgia, Rockicks’ future rhythm section of bassist Sammy Pate, Jr. and drummer Rick Altschuler were carving their side of pork from the music industry’s porcine hide.
Rick was part of the extended family of southern rockers, Black Oak Arkansas, which achieved brief fame in the States with their only radio-charting single, the Top 30 hit, “Jim Dandy (to the Rescue).” Black Oak Arkansas became popular enough with concert goers that the band’s female co-lead vocalist, Ruby Starr, scored a three-album solo deal with Capitol Records — and Rick Altschuler sat on the kit. Ruby Starr opened shows, not only for BOA, but for Blackfoot, Black Sabbath, and Edgar Winter. And as only as the Fates of Rock ’n’ Roll would have it: Ruby Starr and her band, Grey Ghost, ended up in Toledo, Ohio, for a gig with several other bands — one of which was Jerry Zubal’s Tea.
Sammy Pate, Jr., who at one time lived across the street from Elvis Presley’s TCB band bassist, Jerry Scheff (who recorded as a studio bassist with Jim Morrison and the Doors), got his start as the lead vocalist, and later as bassist, with the southern-rock band Cisco, a band formed by guitarist Grover Jackson; the band had the same booking agent and played on the same southern concert circuit stages as Lynyrd Skynyrd. Upon the demise of Cisco, with Grover off to find his fortune as a renowned guitar luthier with Jackson and Charvel guitars, Sammy toured for a time with another, yet softer, southern-rock band: the Atlanta Rhythm Section. By the time Sammy transplanted to Los Angeles and met Brian Naughton, he’d only been playing bass for less than two years when he joined Rockicks.
While Sammy and Rick rocked out in gator country, and Jerry Zubal rocked the Great Lakes, Brian Naughton formed his first teen group, the Velaires in 1961. In 1965, it was all about the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, the Rip Chords and the Rivieras, so Brian ditched the British Invasion for a surf-sound with the Persuaders. Then another, harder “wave” stormed in from Britain — in the form of the hard-rock trinity of Led Zeppelin, U.F.O, and Uriah Heep. Brian’s next project, in which he served as the chief songwriter, vocalist and guitarist, the hard-rocking quartet, Rock Candy, caught the eye of producer and record executive Mike Curb — and Brian became part of the MGM Records’ family, alongside bubblegum teen idols, the Osmonds, and the “devil worshipping” Coven.
Sadly, Rock Candy’s stellar, MC 5-inspired, eponymous debut album for MGM was three years before the arrival of Sammy Hagar and Montrose (who had their own “never was” hit with a song, “Rock Candy”); Montrose themselves were too groundbreaking for their own good. (The streamlined hard rock of Rock Candy and Montrose was eventually deemed commercially acceptable, upon the arrival of Van Halen in the late seventies.)
While radio programmers and the record-buying public ignored Brian Naughton’s brilliance, the musicians on the L.A scene didn’t: In 1972, Brian joined a ready-to-implode Peanut Butter Conspiracy, which had a huge Jefferson Airplane-inspired “hippie-hit” in 1967, “It’s a Happening Thing.” Then Brian was off to greener pastures with the Grass Roots in 1973, appearing with the band on U.S television’s American Bandstand, along with early-seventies variety shows hosted by Sonny & Cher and Kenny Rogers.
After the Grass Roots imploded that same year, Brian returned to the Rock Candy-formula with his new, hard-rock venture: Rockits. Meanwhile, his ex-Roots bandmate, vocalist and songwriter Warren Entner, became a successful manager with his own Warren Entner Management and the Toby Organization, which managed Angel and the Randy Rhodes-era Quiet Riot. Also on Entner’s managerial roster: Brian Naughton’s Rockits. (Moving into the alternative-rock arena, Entner found success guiding the careers of Faith No More and Rage Against the Machine.)
By 1976, Jerry Zubal left Detroit for the epicenter of American rock ’n’ roll: Los Angeles. Joining Rockits, they became the house band at Van Nuys’ famed venue, Rock Corporation, for three years — and played shows alongside Mammoth, on their way to becoming Van Halen. Signed by ex-Beatles’ employee Robert Stigwood’s RSO Records (yes, home to the Bee Gees, but also Eric Clapton) and rechristened as “Rockicks” (possibly to avoid confusion with RSO’s other hard-rock signing — ironically out of Zubal’s hometown of Detroit — the Rockets), they set forth to record their debut album:1977’s Inside.
The Warren Entner relationship between the Randy Rhodes-era Quiet Riot and Rockicks went as far as the two bands bunking in a common rehearsal space. Rockicks also opened shows for Quiet Riot at the Aquarius Theatre and the Roxy in Los Angeles and other west coast venues, along with opening for Angel at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Rockicks even had their own promotional radio spot for their new album aired on Los Angeles’ #1 rated rock radio station, KMET 94.7 FM (thanks to Sammy Pate, Jr. for sharing the spot with this writer).
Then the “big break” came: Rockicks booked a highly-coveted opening gig at L.A’s premiere rock venue — the Roxy. For reasons lost to the test of time, Rockicks lost that opening slot for what turned into a breakthrough gig for Blondie; Rockicks was replaced by a new, unheard of band: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Blondie and Tom Petty found quick success on the radio, with record buyers, and on the concert circuit with their self-titled debut albums issued in 1976.
Sadly, Inside failed to match the success of Debbie Harry’s or Tom Petty’s albums; RSO decided against recording a sophomore effort. Heading back into the studio, Rockicks cut a new, three-song demo that tickled the ears of MCA Records — a new deal was coming! Sadly, the MCA deal had a caveat: they would serve as the backing band for one of the “established” artists on the MCA roster. Rockicks turned down the deal.
During this writer’s research for The Ghost of Jim Morrison, pruning the overgrowth from the Phantom’s many branches, the MCA Records’ careers of Ray Kennedy and Erik Braunn became entangled in this rockologist’s pricks and briars.
Lost somewhere between the supergroup legitimacy of Blind Faith and the failed fabrication of Rhinoceros, was MCA Records’ supergroup entry: KGB, which imploded after a 1977 tour and two 1976 albums — KGB and Motion. KGB came together when the label drafted Blind Faith bassist Rick Grech into a rhythm section with ex-Beck, Bogert and Appice drummer Carmine Appice, to back the songwriting core of the band’s acronym — British blues-vocalist Ray Kennedy (wrote the Babys’ late-Seventies hits “Isn’t It Time” and “Everytime I Think of You”; “Sail On, Sailor” for the Beach Boys), along with Electric Flag’s keyboardist and guitarist, Barry Goldberg and Michael Bloomfield.
In addition to forging a career for Ray Kennedy, MCA was equally committed to developing a solo career for Erik Braunn, formerly with Iron Butterfly. Braunn’s MCA deal was the result of two factors: his leaving the band after 1969’s Ball, and Iron Butterfly’s first split after the failure of 1971’s Metamorphosis. As the Fates of Rock ’n’ Roll would have it: Braunn signed his first solo deal with MGM Records (home to Rock Candy), where he recorded an unreleased solo album, White Clouds. Then Braunn recorded a second, unreleased solo album for MCA.
However, once Iron Butterfly’s former drummer, Ron Bushy, seated the drum stool for Bruann’s MCA-solo deal, Bruann’s songs became new material for a revamped Iron Butterfly on the Scorching Beauty and Sun and Steel efforts. After the second dissolution of Iron Butterfly, MCA retained their solo deal with Erik Braunn — around the same time the label expressed interest in Rockicks. If this writer’s investigative assumptions are accurate, how ironic Rockicks turned down the Bruann offer: Jerry Zubal, along with Ed Houlehan (formerly with Victor Peranino’s Kingdom Come), backed another Iron Butterfly refugee, Doug Ingle, on his solo demos — after Rockicks’ demise.
Sidebar Bonus Dissertation: Lane Caudell and Rockicks?
Note: This also appears in the context of my exposé on the career of Lane Caudell — and the late ’70s MCA connection between Lane and Rockicks got this writer to thinking. . . .
During this writer’s research into the life and career of Jim Morrison’s reluctant doppelganger, Arthur “The Phantom” Pendragon, I became acquainted with the career of a late-Seventies L.A band by the name of Rockicks. After their failed tenure with RSO Records (1978’s Inside), Rockicks was courted by MCA Records, only to discover the label wasn’t interested in signing the band as an individual artist — they wanted to recruit Rockicks as the backing band for an artist already a part of the MCA roster.
At the time of Rockicks’ negotiations with the label, MCA was committed to developing a solo career for Eric Bruann — who was responsible for most of the post-Sixties output by psychedelic rock/proto-metal pioneers Iron Butterfly — and British blues singer Ray Kennedy — who penned hits for the Beach Boys and the Babys. At the time, Bruann fronted Iron Butterfly, then under the MCA banner, and MCA’s prefabricated “supergroup” for Kennedy, KGB, fell apart. So, in the pages of The Ghosts of Jim Morrison, this writer reached the conclusion that the artist that MCA wanted Rockicks to back was either Bruann or Kennedy.
However, as result of [my] chronicle on the career of Lane Caudell, this writer has come to the new conclusion that this forgotten mystery artist that Rockicks was to support was Lane Caudell. This conclusion is reached as result of the Warren Enter connection between Rockicks and Caudell. Also: Lane’s two MCA albums were issued in 1978 and 1979, around the time Rockicks was dropped by RSO and MCA expressed interest.
Rockicks, as result of that band’s founder, Brian Naughton, being a former member of the Grass Roots, and his ex-Grass Roots mate, Warren Enter, managing both Lane Caudell’s Skyband and Naughton’s post-‘Roots endeavors . . . is it possible that Warren Enter attempted to pair the musicians together?
By 1978, Rockicks was over. Jerry Zubal returned to Detroit, Michigan, where it all began, and joined Pendragon — the new, streamlined, pop-oriented rock band formed by Jim Morrison’s former ghost; the man behind the Phantom’s Divine Comedy album. (During one of Rockicks’ many L.A gigs, a mysterious musical guest jumped on the stage for a few songs. While the venue and songs are lost to the test of time, the identity of the guest is not — it was Jim Morrison’s ghost, the Phantom of 1974, who was friends with Jerry Zubal since the late sixties.)
Upon the demise of his tenure with Pendragon (see the article “Pendragon: The Lost Album and other Lost Rockers of the Great Lakes,” on my Medium page), Jerry Zubal joined forces with another of Detroit’s musical refugees, Johnny Heaton, whose old band, Tantrum, under the managerial hand of Punch Andrews, served as Bob Seger’s opening act in 1974. (Ironically, Tantrum got the Seger gig after the Phantom had a dispute with Andrews and lost the opening slot.) The musical union between Jerry Zubal and Johnny Heaton continues in Detroit to this day, with the acoustic duo Catching Fire and the harder-rocking classic-rock outfit, Rock Anthem.
Sammy Pate, Jr. also stayed in the music business working as a studio and touring musician for numerous acts. One of those gigs resulted in his working with Danny Spanos in the early eighties, who issued two AOR-inspired albums and one EP, along with a U.S Top 40 hit, “Hot Cherie.”
Rick Altschuler left the music business to concentrate on family and other interests, before passing away in Los Angeles.
Brian Naughton, by then with a wife and children, turned to his second job as a full-time career: an ITASE-certified carpenter and stagehand in Los Angeles’ film and television industry.
And the Quiet Riot connection to the Naughton family continued with Brian’s brother, James, who took guitar and bass lessons from the pre-fame Randy Rhodes and Rudy Sarzo. James formed his first band, White Heat (not Johnny Heaton’s pre-Tantrum band), which became a mainstay at L.A’s famed club, FM Station. White Heat eventually transformed into Ninja and signed a deal with Rage International; they cut an album and toured with burgeoning hair-metal stars, Ratt.
It all came full circle by 2004. The rock ’n’ roll bug bit Brian once again, with the encouragement of his equally talented son, Corey, on guitar and lead vocals, and James on bass — the Naughtones arrived. Their self-produced album, From the Nut, won the 2006 L.A Music Award for “Independent Classic Rock Album of the Year”; their eponymous, 2008 sophomore effort won the L.A Music Awards’ “Producer’s Choice Award.” Sadly, before this great band could achieve a major-label deal or nationwide recognition, Brian Naughton passed away from a heart attack.
In these post-analog days, the music of Rockicks lives on, thanks to You Tube, with fans uploading their copies of Inside to the video-sharing service. And as with the Phantom of 1974, and many rockers of those pre-Internet days, Rockicks enjoys posthumous fame — not a financially beneficial one — but fame nevertheless.
Today, this old rocker typing away on a keyboard travels not the asphalt waves to the local vinyl oasis for his music doubloons; today a seat is taken behind a laptop to sail the digital cloud to uncover musical gold. In preparation for The Ghosts of Jim Morrison, an examination on the life and times of the Jim’s phantasmal doppelganger from 1974, this writer discovered Asian, German, Finnish, French, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Swedish-language blogs that touted Rockicks as a “very underestimated rock band,” and mention: “if you like ‘stoner rock,’ ‘biker rock,’ and a ‘southern-rock groove,’ you’ll love Rockicks.” Other blogs namedrop the early-years of David Coverdale’s post-Deep Purple endeavors with Whitesnake, along with forgotten seventies “biker rock” bands, such as the Boyzz and the Godz, as to describe the “sound” of Rockicks. As a most recent, April 2018 blog praise from France proclaimed: “Dans le grenier du Serpent Blanc” — “From the Attic of Whitesnake,” indeed.
So, if you are reading this article, and you never heard of Rockicks, then do yourself a favor: dig in the digital music attic of You Tube and check out the RSO and MCA-era tunes of Rockicks. Allow this writer to introduce you to the boys (via their album cover for Inside): that’s Jerry Zubal and bassist Sammy Pate, Jr. on the left; the late Brian Naughton and late drummer Rick Altschuler, clutching the wine glass and beer can, respectively, on the right. And as you rock out with Rockicks, leave a post to let the guys know that their now digitally-transformed music, while not making them any coin, has your admiration and respect. Lift a glass and toast them one, will ya? Remember, your fandom means more to them than any amount of money — at least to the real rockers of the rough ’n’ tumble business of rock ’n’ roll; the ones chewed up, spat out, and forgotten. And that is what Rockicks is, baby. Real, honest, kick ass, American rock ’n’ roll. Flash those horns and blaze those lighters and chant their name: “Rockicks, Rockicks, Rockicks. . . .”
A special thanks to the additional insights of Rockicks’ surviving members Jerry Zubal and Sammy Pate, Jr., along with the diligent Internet activities of close Naughton family friend, Scott Supak, and Corey Naughton for preserving the memory of Brian Naughton, in the composition of this career chronicle on Rockicks.
Post Script, November 21: Rockicks releases their double-disc career retrospective, Keep On Rockin’, on November 23, 2018, which features Inside and unreleased material.
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R.D Francis is the writer of The Ghosts of Jim Morrison, the Phantom of Detroit, and the Fates of Rock ’n’ Roll and Tales from a Wizard: The Oral History of Walpurgis, both books explore the life and times of the man who recorded the mysterious 1974 album, Phantom’s Divine Comedy: Part 1 — and replaced Jim Morrison in the Doors.
You can learn more about the career of the Phantom and purchasing information for books at the Facebook Author’s Page for R.D Francis.
Photos and Music Video Section
You can see even more photos of Rockicks — along with Jerry Zubal’s earlier bands Tea and 1776, and his post-Rockicks endeavors Pendragon and Powerplay — in a folder at my Facebook Author’s Page dedicated to Jerry Zubal’s career.
