Paul Shortino has enjoyed a very colorful career as a singer. He was mentored by Ronnie James Dio, he’s sang with bands like Rough Cutt and Quiet Riot, and he played a rock star in This Is Spinal Tap. That role wasn’t much of a stretch because Shortino is the consummate rock star with a bluesy voice to suit any number of scenarios.
These days, the singer is busy on a number of fronts. There’s his place with Raiding The Rock Vault, the Las Vegas residency featuring the songs of Led Zeppelin, The Who, Deep Purple and many others from the 70s and 80s. He also operates a recording studio in Las Vegas. One of his most recent projects has been King Kobra II, the second King Kobra album with him on vocals. So, as is our custom, we got the skinny of how that album came together.
Naturally, we also talked about Raiding The Rock Vault, Ronnie James Dio and the legacy of This Is Spinal Tap. One thing’s for sure: Shortino is relishing his role as a veteran rock and roll singer who has dealt with his share of highs and lows, but through it all has successfully sustained a solid career with a positive attitude, a load of good friends and a smile on his face.
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How are you doing?
I’m doing actually great.
How is it in Las Vegas? What is it…175 or something like that out there today?
No, we had a bad week last week with 117, but yesterday was about 70 degrees and overcast.
Really? Nice.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Real nice. Nice change. Actually, the last two days, we’ve actually been able to walk the dogs at night and in the daytime because it’s cooled down. The sun hitting the pavement and stuff is pretty gnarly. It’s a little tough on their little foots. So we’ve all gained a little few pounds because we don’t get to go out and do our walk. I’ve got one dog who’s a rescue, he looks like a little snausage now. He gained so much weight, so OK, we’ve got to get you out walking again.
Well, very good. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about King Kobra and the new record you’ve got, King Kobra II, which is your second record with King Kobra and I imagine that’s where the name came from. Tell me how you got this record going. You guys are all so busy. How did you fit this into your schedule?
Well, you know, they told us they wanted us to do another record so we started working on it — me and David (Michael-Phillips) and Carmine (Appice). And it was just going really good. It would have been tougher now if it wasn’t last year because I’m involved in this show called Raiding The Rock Vault here in Las Vegas for a year and it’s with rock stars; they’ve got Howard Leese on guitar, Tracii Guns also, John Payne — it was his idea. It’s a rock and roll play with lasers, it’s a story of rock and roll from the ’60s to 1989.
Right. We’ve been covering that show extensively here on VintageRock.com.
Awesome. So you have an idea about it then.
Yeah, yeah. And I want to talk to you about that in a little bit. So, the King Kobra album was done last year then?
Right. And actually, it was finished … I think it was finished in January. And they chose to release it in July, which, you know, we had shot the video in the beginning of February. I had the video back some time in February and I couldn’t show it. I had people like Vinnie Paul in the video; there’s Zakk Wylde, a little cameo of him; Ace Frehley at the end of it; Carrot Top, a lot of other people here in local Las Vegas who have their own shows, like Gordie Brown, Danny Koker who actually owned the club, Vamp’d … we wrote the song “Have a Good Time” … about the club, and him and his wife how gracious they are to people when they come in there and take care of them. So basically, that video was my idea and my wife’s concept putting that together. And how that song was written, basically Carmine had a great idea for a song, “Have a Good Time,” don’t have a bad time. He was walking in New York and he shared that with me and he sent me an idea. David sent another idea, it was kind of like Hotlegs, the music. I just started writing and grabbed that idea of Carmine’s and it evolved into a really cool song. I kind of wish we would have actually named the album “Have a Good Time” because the music on it is awesome. I think it’s one of the best records I’ve done. I think it’s one of the better King Kobra records. It has a lot of 70s vibe to it, more than it does 80s.
I’ve been listening to it and I wrote a review. It’s definitely a step up from the last one in terms of its sonic vibe and it does go a little deeper, which I really like. I mean, for example, the song “Deep River” — I actually interviewed Carmine last week and I was telling him, I go, “Wow, that’s just like kind of an epic song.” A lot of layers to it. It does seem like you guys really went out of your way to add some real depth to this record.
Well, you know what’s interesting is that Carmine went in and did the drums. We had sketched out the songs and he went in with a click track and he’s one of the only guys I know that can play to a click and not sound like he’s a machine. He plays around it, in and out of it, and he did endings and stuff and he added stuff to the songs that weren’t on there — on the … sketch or the skeleton of the song, which was an itty bitty mix in his ear and the click in the other one. So when we got down to having to add our parts and stuff, I had to — like on the first record, some of the lead vocals were scratch vocals because they were so good, I just kept them. On this record, I had to redo everything. David had to redo everything. Johnny actually tracked in my studio here. Carmine tracked all the drums at a studio called Hit Tracks Studios. And it was in north Las Vegas. Now he’s moved, Tom Parham. And Michael Voss mixed the record in Germany. The video was shot here in Las Vegas. Most of the guys did their parts here with me, Carmine and Johnny Rod. Mick [Sweda] did his parts in California and David did a lot of extra work and a lot of ours putting in; he lives in, I think it’s Scottsdale, Arizona.
So, we were sending files around and when we got to thinking of a video, I brought up doing a video of “Have a Good Time” and go around to all of my friends here in Las Vegas and get the Vegas stars involved in it. Let’s let people know what Vegas is. There’s a line in there, “If you get to Vegas, stop and say hello, we like to party and have good rock and roll, Have a good time” — and pretty much, that’s what it’s about here. Vamp’d is pretty much our Gilley’s from Urban Cowboy. It’s like, me and Carmine look at each other like Bud and Sissy did: “What do you want to do tonight?” “Well, let’s go to Vamp’d instead of Gilley’s.” So basically, that’s how we got … and Carmine and everybody was really happy with the song we came up with for the video and the concept of how it came about, especially everybody involved. We were just carrying around our slips or zooms and Carmine got Ace and Eddie Money. Eddie Money would have been in the video. There also was some footage of Sammy Hagar and David Coverdale — they didn’t make it in the video because we had sent the video footage, over 70 GB of video footage, to the guy, Mario Ruiz … in Spain, who I met through Javier Vargas and Carmine (and) did the last King Kobra video and did this one. So we had somebody differently filming, including my own film and Carmine’s film footage, and we made a list of things. I’m glad it turned out the way it did, with the people that they did get right. They missed a few folks that we would have liked to had in the video, but it’s all good because it’s one heck of a video. I love it to death.
Did you guys play live in the video?
Oh yeah. We’re playing to the track because you have to sync up to it. Danny Koker, who has his own show on the History Channel called Counting Cars and he’s on Pawn Stars all the time; well, basically his band played. Count’s 77 played and we did two or three weeks advertising beforehand that we were doing the King Kobra video at Vamp’d, so everybody come. It was the first time that the band ever had been on stage together in 25 years performing, so we did “Turn up the Good” from the last record, and also “Fever.” And those were the only two songs that we played, and then we just jammed along with the video and did it over and over and over like you do a video shoot. When Vinnie Paul showed up, he goes, “I thought you guys were going to play a concert.” I said, “No,” and he’s in the video and Carmine’s trading off with him and Carrot Top playing drums, he’s putting them in on the drums, and it was a lot of fun to do. I think a lot of people expected us to play more material than what we did, but everybody was blown away that they were in the video. The video is kind of going viral because everybody in the video is sharing it with other people now that it’s out. Especially people that were shot in the video — there’s gonna be things on Facebook where somebody’s going to freeze-frame a spot and go, “That’s me!” Because there’s so many audience shots and locals that come to that club are good friends of mine. But it was a lot of fun. The whole record was awesome to do, it really was.
So you didn’t play a full set. I asked Carmine if you guys had any plans to play any shows or tour behind this record. You’re so busy with so many other things going on. But w3ith two albums under your belt, it seems like you could pull off a nice set. Do you foresee a time?
We’re going to tour.
You’re going to do some shows?
Oh absolutely. I’ve been talking to Carmine about it. Actually, I’m doing a reunion with Rough Cutt on the Monsters of Rock cruise next year. And it’s with all the original guys, but right now we’re in the works of trying to get King Kobra to do the cruise as well. I’ll already be on the cruise doing Rough Cut, but that could be one of our first shows. Carmine is checking in with some people and some promoters. We might be doing some shows before the end of the year. But most likely, stuff probably next year seeing how they released the record so late in the year, most of the festivals in Europe and the states are already booked. I would think that if we were to do anything, we would do some stuff here locally if we wanted to get stuff together. Maybe do a show at Vamp’d, maybe do some shows in LA and Arizona to maybe kind of get us ready for some shows next year if we were to do anything, I would think. But I’m pretty tied up with “Raiding the Rock Vault.” Which is a cool gig, because we can get away, all the members. Like Howard Leese is on the road right now with Bad Company — we have a fill-in for him.
When’s he coming back?
He comes back at the end of August.
You’re committed to the show through next year, is that right?
Oh yeah. I’m committed to the show for as long as the show runs. It’s booked for a year and it looks like they’re going to have a run here in Vegas for nine more years.
No kidding.
It is the best show here in Las Vegas. It’s nothing like any Vegas show. You have the Cirque shows, and you have Rock of Ages, which is nothing like Raiding The Rock Vault. The Rock Vault is a real concert; we have no tracks that we’re playing with. It also has lasers, the concept of us coming out of the star gate. They keep refining the show and it has gotten so much better than when we first did it and it’s 40 minutes shorter than when we first did it at two hours and 40 minutes long. So now it’s about two hours long and people want it to be longer. There’s 36 songs in the show and it’s just an incredible journey how it keeps changing.
How did you get involved?
John Payne … I think it all happened when I did the Ronnie James Dio memorial. John’s been working on this for over two years, and I know Paul Dexter and David Kershenbaum and pretty much a lot of the people that were involved. Well he had been working on this for the last two years — that’s why I’ve got one song on the first CD release, which is Songs From The Vault -Volume I. And there’s songs on there that aren’t in the show, that eventually might be in the show down the road, which is great about the show. We’re doing “Smoke on the Water” right now by Deep Purple; well we could change that and keep all of the video footage in history of Deep Purple and do “Highway Star” if we wanted to or you know. We could pick from a whole stable of songs that they have; same with Led Zeppelin, the Doors, the Who. So the basis of the show is pretty much set up with video footage and lighting because everything is so timed. It’s really interesting because I’ve had people go — you know, like friends of mine, go “Hey man, I want to the show and I wanna come out and jam.” It’s not just a bunch of classic rockers, old guys, doing cover songs. There’s a story, a plot, that we come through at star gate after a thousand years, and we discover the rock vault and open up this vault of great music, probably the greatest music ever recorded in our lifetime — three decades of music that’s combined some of the greatest songs from some of the greatest bands. They basically could change this show on a regular basis by just doing another Zeppelin song or doing another Deep Purple or Doors or Who song.. The last guest was just Mickey Thomas from Jefferson Airplane Starship. He did “Jane” and “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us [Now]” and “We Built This City From Rock and Roll.” So, and before that it was Joe Lynn Turner and they had Bobby Kimball and we’re to expect Jon Anderson from Yes, who hasn’t performed with Yes in years. We’re going to be doing “Roundabout” and “Owner of a Lonely Heart” and something else.
Wow. It’s so great that this is happening for you because I know you’ve been working in the biz for a long, long time. One of the things I did want to ask you about was the fact that you were really tight with Ronnie James Dio and it’s been three years since his passing. Just talk a little about your relationship with him, if you could.
I had actually met Wendy Dio years before and didn’t even know it until we all sat down one day before they were actually so gracious to move me into their home. Wendy was married to a friend of mine when I was 17. He was in a band called Mama Lion with Lynn Carey and went to Britain on tour and met Wendy. At the time she was dating Ian Paice from Deep Purple. She was married once when she was very young to Aynsley Dunbar. So Wendy has been into rock and roll for a long time. So, anyways, to make a long story short, we were sitting and having dinner at I think it was some Asian place called The Dragon, Imperial Dragon in I think it was Woodland Hills, and that was when I realized she had married a friend of mine — his name Rick Gaxiola and it was way before Ronnie. And boom, I connected and realized, “Wow, we’ve known each other and met each other years ago.”
I was signed to two friends of mine, one guy was a producer for Charlie’s Angels and the other guy was a good friend of his. They had me under contract, so I had to get out of that contract. And the Dios initially moved me in because I was one of these guys that when somebody said, “We’re going to sign a contract with you, and we’re going to make you a huge star,” and blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, that sounds great. “Sign here on the dotted line, even though we own everything that you will ever have in your life. If you were to buy a house and own it, we own it.” When I found out all this stuff — in fact, one of the guys was my son’s godfather, the guy that did the Charlie’s Angels — we got into this whole lawsuit thing. They moved me into their home and I lived with them for quite a few years and watched Ronnie and Wendy put together the whole Holy Diver record, the band and everything, watching some of the album cover sketches come in, how they created Murray, listening, Ronnie would come home and share the tracks with me.
At the same time, he was taking us into my folks’ studio — we had a studio at the time — we were going in and doing demos. We had did some demos with Ronnie with Jake, Jake E. Lee. He was in the band at that time and I think he wanted to get in Ronnie’s band, but I think Ronnie had his eyes pretty much — I think it was Jimmy Bain, they said they had found this great guitarist Vivian Campbell. So they all were there, I met them all. I met so many people at the Dios: Glenn Hughes, who’s a monster vocalist; I just met so many people through Ronnie. We created a great bond and a friendship for quite a few years. I kind of wish he would have produced — I just found out recently from Angelo who did the first three Dio albums and was the sound man for the band — that him and Ronnie wanted to do the first Rough Cutt album. I think if they would have produced the first Rough Cut album, it would have come out a year earlier because we spent a year kind of trying to basically get a producer. Ted Templeman had signed the band, so we wanted Teddy to do the record and he was doing a record with Clapton and Buckingham so he was tied up. We kept searching for a producer and I think we waited too long. I think if we had just went into the studio with Ronnie, I think the outcome of Rough Cut would have been a lot different than it was. I think the record would have been a lot rawer, because that’s just the way Ronnie was. His Holy Diver album was as raw as it could get. So him and Angelo producing, I think it would have made it a different record, not that I’m disappointed in the outcome of that first Rough Cutt record. But I was disappointed in the releasing of it because everything is timing in life. And the time had shut the door on metal, especially with Mr. Al Gore’s wife, Tipper Gore, going after everybody. It just amazes me that all the entertainment people when he was running for president, just forgot what an asshole his wife was.
No kidding.
With rock and roll. Bon Jovi, all of them, Bruce Springsteen, they ain’t got a Nobel Prize for a movie that was partially true and partially bullshit.
Don’t get me started on the politics. I know you have to go but I want to ask you one more thing. Back in those early days, you had a little cameo in a film called This is Spinal Tap, playing the part of Duke Fame. I just wanted to ask you: Did you ever think that movie would have such a lasting impact?
I never thought that movie would get me a SAG card, which it did and actually would have got us sound checks and beer from Budweiser to Heineken. We were on the road with Krokus and they were showing the movie in the Hojo’s (Howard Johnson’s) and the Holiday Inn, and they had it on their bus, and they were headlining and Accept was warming up for them, and Rough Cut was the first warm-up band, so it was a three-bill act. We had no room, and they weren’t giving us a line check until the road manager of Krokus came by our dressing room to ask us if everything was OK, and said, “Oh, you’re Duke Fame. The guys would love to meet you, come on back.” And we went from Budweiser to Heineken and they were treating me more like a star than … and I wasn’t anybody. And that movie, I wasn’t even signed to a label. I had only did one record that nobody knows about, it was on Bell Records and I just did an interview yesterday with a guy who sent me the 45. It was a song called “Follow Me” that I recorded when I was 17-years-old, and it was Number. 22 with a bullet, and the person that was singing with me was Coco Dolenz, Micky Dolenz’s sister. And they kicked the whole thing and dropped the song, even though it was 22 with a bullet, because they backed up. It was on Bell Records, Snuff Garrett produced it, who actually did Sonny and Cher, Liza Minnelli, he did a lot of … he was a big producer back in those days for a lot of acts.
Did this come out under your name?
It came out as Paul and Jojo. And this guy sent me the record. I got the 45 and I just did an interview with him yesterday again from out of Long Island but I have no way to play it so a friend of mine — or not a friend of mine, but he is a friend of mine now — a gentleman that plays the song on his show, he sent me an MP3. He said, “If you send me ‘Send in the Clowns’” — that I did with Vinnie Paul and we did it for Carrot Top. We did a heavy metal version of “Send In The Clowns” and Ira Black from Metal Church was on it, so we called it “Three Ring Metal Circus.” It’s on iTunes, but it’s an amazing version of “Send In The Clowns” because they sent Judy Collins’ version of “Send In The Clowns,” the folk version, to Vinnie Paul saying Carrot Top wants a heavy metal version of this. And he says, “What the hell is this?” And so between that and a friend of mine, we put together a whole version of it and it’s pretty awesome. We thought we were doing a video and everything on this song with Vinnie Paul and other rock stars for Carrot Top, but it never got any further than that. Maybe someday it will, but he’s in it, Carrot Top’s in it doing some jokes, it’s an amazing version.
Outstanding. Well, it was great talking to you Paul.
It was great talking to you. Thanks so much. I think this King Kobra record is going to do something. Especially if we get our butts out there and play.
I think so. It’s a strong record and I’d love to hear it live.
Much love to you, and thank you so much for taking the time to talk to this humble old rock and roll guy.
