By: Lucy Hall Is it glam, sleaze, metal, blues, or melodic rock? Doesn’t matter because Cherry St. created their own brand of straight-ahead rock that was slick and clean with some jagged edges. Unlike the other bands from Sunset Strip, Cherry St. had lyrics that were not limited to love yet their sound was metal that was on the mainstream side. The band was formed by the owner of Perris records Tom ‘Monroe’ Mathers and bandmate, Don “Spinner” Korbecki in 1989. Chris VanDahl and Todd “Taz" Anthony were later recruited, all the band members were Michigan natives. Soon after the band released a demo they were headlining the famous clubs on the Sunset Strip. In 1991 Kelly James replaced Razzle on drums and the band headed out on a US tour. In 1992 Jaime Scott joined Tyketto he was replaced by Redd Rosell. Soon after the "Self Titled" was released, Cherry St. signed with JRS/BMG to release their sophomore album, "Squeeze It Dry".
The current album is a re-issue of their 1992 self-titled debut on Perris Records. It is a limited collector addition that has been highly sought after. What impresses me most about this album is how effortless Cherry St. makes it all seem, it is a fun and playful album but it also has some gritty, semi-punkish tunes with a bit of power pop in the mix. Honestly, I am rather smitten with darned close to being an anthem, "Mary Goes Round" and its sing-along chorus. It has been on heavy rotation on my playlist.
Cherry St. is definitely not a subtle band. They had that Sunset Strip look but it was a bit darker in my opinion compared to some of their peers. They had a bit of a mystique and dangerous appeal. Their image and sound seemed punchy and energetic but they also had the melodious rhythms to coincide with their fiery riffs.
HEAVY MAKEUP: You were a founding member of the Cherry St. How did the band come together?
Tom “Monroe" Mathers: In the late 80s I moved to LA first from Michigan then I ran into Don Korbecki who I already knew and is also from Michigan. Don walked into the Guitar Center where I worked and later on joined my band ROXX. Around 1989 Don contacted Chris Van Dahl also from Michigan and he brought Taz out to LA to join our band. We changed the name to CHERRY ST. since we found out there was a ROXX in every town. LOL, We played our first show 7 days later and never looked back.
HEAVY MAKEUP: The current self-titled release is actually a re-issue of the band’s 1992 debut album. Why a reissue of this album now?
Tom "Monroe" Mathers: I realized it was 30 years ago we released the "Self-titled" so I thought it was a great reason to re-release it again now. It is also a major milestone for me since it was the 1st CD on Perris Records and started a lifetime career for me. And what makes this album a good reissue? I still love the music and I've really enjoyed people telling me they are digging it and are glad I made it available to hear it again.
HEAVY MAKEUP: The most memorable song for me from the tracklist is "Mary Goes Round" because it has the best refrains, riffs, and hooks. It has more of a sleaze rock vibe compared to the other tracks and it also encourages the listener to sing along. What are your favorite tracks from the album? And Why?
Tom"Monroe" Mathers: I would have to say on this album for sure "Ring Around The Rosie" because I love high energy songs that are up-tempo and rock out. I also recorded the guitar solo and it was one of my favorite ones.
HEAVY MAKEUP: The album had a limited 500 pressing and quickly sold out. Are you happy with the overall reaction to this reissue?
Tom “Monroe" Mathers: Yes for sure. The CD sold out on the Perris Records website within a few weeks. There are a few copies online in the USA (Amazon), Germany & Japan. Fans are posting pictures of the CDs on Facebook in Japan, and Europe as soon as they get them.
HEAVY MAKEUP: Cherry St. Albums of the past are also highly sought after and sell for high dollars. What are your thoughts on the band having such a cult following?
Tom “Monroe" Mathers: I'm very honored and I appreciate it greatly. Also having a platform like Facebook I can see how many people all over the world remember the band. I've actually stayed in touch with hundreds of people over the last 30 years but recently reconnected with fans that knew us back then and heard about the reissue CD and contacted me.
HEAVY MAKEUP: I find it to be fascinating that Cherry St. was featured on an MTV segment titled "Pay to Play" with members of Guns n Roses, Bang Tango, and Warrant. As a huge metal fan, I believed I knew almost everything about the genre, I don’t recall that program featured on MTV. Can you enlighten me about what that program was about and tell me how you ended up on it?
Tom “Monroe" Mathers: The MTV legend KURT LODER introduced the news segment that helped blow up our band. It was played nonstop for at least two weeks on MTV. It was basically about how bands had to pre-sell tickets on the sunset strip in Hollywood to play shows at Gazzarri's, The Roxy, and The Whiskey a Go-Go. Some people thought it was unfair to make bands do that. They did not realize there were thousands of bands there trying to make it. Many bands thought they were the next big thing and told clubs they had a HUGE fan base BUT if they did a show some of them would only draw their girlfriends or family. Well, you can't keep a club open very long if nobody shows up. So Clubs had to have bands pre-sell tickets to keep in business. We looked at it in a different way. If a fan bought a ticket most likely 95% of them would show up and not blow it off. We also would sell every ticket and sometimes go back and get more. We would make $1000 or more in advance then buy more flyers to pass out and ads in Bam Magazine & Rock City news to promote even more the shows. Since we had a huge buzz going on we were contacted by CARLA DIAMOND from MTV who interviewed Taz, Chris, and me for the segment. Once the show aired on MTV our phones blew up. Fans found our hotline number in magazines like Metal Edge and we would get calls nationwide and some from Europe. We had fans call us 24 hours a day and we took turns answering calls.
HEAVY MAKEUP: How can you compare the early days of Cherry St. to what it was during the later days with the X-Rated Album?
Tom Monroe" Mathers: A huge difference since the band broke up right after the "Squeeze it Dry" JRS/BMG era. I started doing Perris Records full-time. I had just moved to Austin Texas and Taz was working for me at Perris Records. I just opened a 24-track studio so we thought why not record some music and we asked Jaimie Scott, our former bass player who was living in Dallas Texas to play bass on it. The band had not played shows since the "Squeeze it Dry" JRS/BMG era; we just recorded music and released it on Perris. Our style was more like AC/DC instead of Motley Crue at that time.
HEAVY MAKEUP: What can you say about the band members?
Tom “Monroe" Mathers: I'm very proud of all the members. They have all had great success in Music and other business avenues.
HEAVY MAKEUP: Do you keep in touch?
Tom “Monroe" Mathers: Yes for sure, with Facebook it is so easy to see what everybody is up to.
HEAVY MAKEUP: So many bands who were part of the 80s', and early 90s glam movement have made their comebacks in recent years. Any chance of the reissue leading to new music for Cherry St.?
Tom “Monroe" Mathers: Taz has a great studio in Austin, he recorded Bang Tango, Dirty Looks & more for Perris over the years. I would need to pick up the guitar and put some hours into re-learning it and there is a lot of dust on it. LOL, so maybe yes we could record something down the road.
HEAVY MAKEUP: The legendary Bill Gazzari played a pivotal role in rock history. He presented Cherry St. with the first colored star for Gazzari’s, while many other popular bands of the time also received stars. What was your mindset at that moment in time? how did it feel to start headlining the famous clubs such as Gazzari’s, Whiskey, and Roxy?
Chris VanDahl: I don't think that there's much comparable to being on the Sunset Strip during those times. The band was doing so much and growing so fast that a lot of it's kind of a blur but I do remember that we were headlining a sold-out show at Gazzari‘s and Bill himself came up on stage and personally presented the star to the band. It was a huge honor because it felt like what we were doing was being recognized by the powers that be. Not long after that happened I remember being at the Rainbow. This was about a year after CS had formed and I was sitting at a table in the back. Sebastian Bach was there along with some of the guys from Metallica and Guns N’ Roses. I can’t say for sure but I’m pretty certain Nikki Sixx was there as well but that may have been another night. What I do know is that it was surreal because I found myself sitting with all of these icons that just years before had essentially been posters on my wall. We were incredibly fortunate because we had a lot of support in those days from not just the fans but also from artists who had already established themselves.
HEAVY MAKEUP: “Ring Around the Rosie”, “Mary Goes Round” and “Shake Down Sally” are all track titles. Why so many puns on female names? Did Bond films influence the idea?
Chris VanDahl: Now that you mention it I am starting to see a pattern here. LOL! No, While it would be cool to suggest as much, as far as I know, Bond films had nothing to do with it. In truth, I didn't write the lyrics to either Rosie or Sally. So you'd have to ask the other guys about that.
HEAVY MAKEUP: Many of the track titles and themes pertained to women. But what was the inspiration for the song, “Speak No Evil”? It is a much grittier and angry song compared to the other tracks. Who wrote it and what was on the writer’s mind at the time?
Chris VanDahl: It’s been a long time but If I remember correctly Taz brought in the original idea for the music and I penned the lyrics and came up with the melodies. Regardless, pretty much everything in that band was a collaborative effort on some level. As a rule, we would go into a room and just bang things out live. So everyone would end up contributing. As far as the lyrics go, It’s mostly just about how the music spoke to me. That song, in particular, has sort of an old-school aggressive blues thing going on and the lyrics in part were just a reflection of that time in our lives.
HEAVY MAKEUP: Your video for “The Walk” featured many hard rock icons such as Sam Kinison, Lemmy, and Jani Lane, just to mention a few. What are the highlights from the making of the video and how were you able to get so many cameos for it?
Tom “Monroe" Mathers: The stars were aligned in the making of it. It all started with me finding a place in a mall to shoot a video for $9.99 (LOL) and having the whole band show up with spiked hair & stage clothes must have really freaked out the video store. We ended up shooting 3 separate videos since we all could not fit in the small room at the same time (LOL). So we found a video editor that worked on the "The Walk" video and we added 25 more minutes of interviews with the band to make the "Home Video". We sold close to a 1000 VHS tapes that more than enough paid for the cost to make it. Lining up cameos was the icing on the cake. I have to give a HUGE shout out to our dear friend GURUKRTA KHALSA she was also working with other LA band called ZOOM at the time which featured Rivers Cuomo (WEEZER). GURUKRTA worked very hard in lining up Jani Lane, Bon Jovi & Sam Kinison. She also shot footage at numerous shows including Gazzari’s & The Whiskey shows that were added to the video. She had a really good video camera. Without her support, the video would not have been as good.
HEAVY MAKEUP: Does anyone stand out to you who were featured in it?
Tom “Monroe" Mathers: They all were very special but I remember meeting Jon Bon Jovi and to have him take the time out to be included was very cool. CC Deville & Lemmy introducing the video was CC's idea, so having two rock 'n' roll icons do that was surreal.
HEAVY MAKEUP: Cherry St. worked with Erik Turner (Warrant), Tommy Thayer (Kiss, Black ‘n Blue), and Pat Regan (Kiss, Deep Purple, Shotgun Messiah) in the past. Does anything stand out in that recording session?
Tom “Monroe" Mathers: Having the chance to work with Pat Regan in his studio right after he recorded Shotgun Messiah and before Deep Purple was amazing. His other credits include Warrant, Kiss, Mr. Big and so many more. Of course having Tommy Thayer (Black 'N Blue, Kiss) & Eric Turner (Warrant) co-produce the release was amazing and I think it turned out really great. I remember Tommy bringing in his favorite Les Paul guitar for me and Taz to use. He told me that it was the same guitar he recorded many songs with Black 'n Blue in the studio. Erik also brought in his favorite Marshall amp and had Steven Sweet bring in his favorite Snare drum.
HEAVY MAKEUP: Was image really important to Cherry St.?
Tom "Monroe" Mathers: Image was HUGE being it was HOLLYWOOD everybody was trying to make a name for themselves and they wanted to stand out from thousands of other bands. Motley Crue and Poison started it and everybody wanted to be the next big thing.
HEAVY MAKEUP: During your time on the Sunset Strip did you notice the scene begins to fade away and did you feel you needed to switch up your image and sound at that time?
Tom "Monroe" Mathers: Yes we did. We did tone down our hair height. LOL, We still had stage clothes and wanted an image and not look like we were from Seattle which toward the end was creeping in. The Sunset strip was changing with a new Mayer who had the police march up and down the strip and made it near impossible to promote your shows with flyers.
HEAVY MAKEUP: What can you tell me about Perris Records?
Tom “Monroe" Mathers: After the band broke up in 93' I fired the label up full time. Perris has had many years distributing and promoting the label's hard rock bands such as Helix, Stephen Pearcy, L.A. Guns, Eidolon, Bang Tango, Vain, Vicious Rumors, Enuff Z'Nuff, Helstar, Heaven's Edge, Slik Toxik, Moxy, Di'Anno, Odin, Roxx Gang, Love Hate, Babylon A.D., Dirty Looks, Zan Clan, Beautiful Creatures, Dynazty, Every Mother's Nightmare and many more. Perris Records has launched new bands featuring members of Iron Maiden, Dangerous Toys, Britny Fox, Warrant, Circus Of Power, David Lee Roth, Ozzy, Dio, Dirty Looks, Ted Nugent, Kix, Slash's Snake Pit, Helix, Black Sabbath, Quiet Riot, Megadeth, Ratt, Rainbow, Lynchmob, Bulletboys, and AC/DC. Please visit for more details. : www.perrisrecords.com and Thank you so much Lucy for this interview, I really appreciate the support.
While going through the Cherry St. catalog I have concluded that anyone who carves catchy songs that stick in your mind, driving melodies, soaring vocals, bombastic drums, and killer guitar riffs would not be disappointed. I highly recommend for any collector of hard rock to look over the Cherry St. discography.
Cherry St. Member:
Chris VanDahl-Vocals, Tom “Monroe” Mathers-Guitar,
Todd “Taz” Anthony-Guitar, Redd Rosell-Bass,
Tom “Kelly James” Dobrentey-Drums
Discography:
Cherry St. (1992)
Squeeze It Dry (1993)
Monroe (1996)
Buster Cherry (1999)
X Rated (2001)
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