Somebody call animal control! The Wild Dogs are on the loose again! Proving that they’re simply “Too Hot to Stop”, The Rods are still rockin’, harder and rawer than ever, and with a brand new album on the horizon. Featuring a brand new batch of songs and a handful of re-recordings (which DON’T suck), the upcoming Wild Dogs Unchained gives headbangers young and old much to be excited about, especially those who dig their metal on the old school and pure side. We sat down with founding drummer Carl Canedy to discuss the current state of The Rods, the short lived Shmoulik Avigal era of the band, and metal in a post-Sabbath/Ozzy world.
Greetings Carl and welcome back to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing this afternoon?
Carl Canedy: I’m doing great! How about you?
I’m doing fantastic. Thank you for taking the time to do this interview.
CC: It’s great to be on. I appreciate you supporting the band.
When we last spoke a few years ago, The Rods were busy working on the follow up to 2019’s Brotherhood of Metal, tentatively titled Shockwave. That album would become Rattle the Cage and hit shelves January of last year. Now, a little over a year and a half later, The Rods are back with a brand new album, Wild Dogs Unchained. Coming so soon after the release of Rattle the Cage, were these songs conceived during those sessions, or did they come to be separately?
CC: This is a new album. We completed it and had it ready to go. It was supposed to come out January 19th and there was some issues with Massacre. As a result, it’s coming out in September, almost a year after we turned it in. We were done.
Expanding upon the last question, seeing the release of back to back Rods albums almost feels like a throwback to the olden days when many acts, The Rods included, were averaging an album a year. This was the case for the band from 1980 to 1984. In hindsight, do you feel that practice helped, hindered, or did a little bit of both?
CC: That was a different time. We were playing. We were writing. We were more prolific in a certain way, and we were also able to get to the studio and we were able to rehearse these and play songs live. That’s very difficult to do now because doing our own regional shows, we don’t really have a lot of time onstage. Sometimes we have an hour and 15 minutes, but it’s not really easy to try out material. When you were playing clubs in the old days, you were sometimes playing two sets. You had a lot of time to stretch out and try new material and see what worked, then refine that new material. We don’t have that luxury any longer.
Now, when we’re doing festivals, we have shorter sets, 45 minutes or an hour. There’s no time to try out a new song. “Oh, let’s see if this works with the crowd.” You just don’t have that luxury. That makes it a little difficult, as well as we have to work on our own and get the material done, fleshed out. It’s a different time. It’s more difficult to put an album together, although we were able to do another one right away after Rattle the Cage. It was good.
What is the songwriting process for The Rods these days? Do you work on music on your own, then get together, jam, and flesh out songs?
CC: We do that. Of late, I’ll have an idea for a song and I’ll send it to (guitarist/singer) David (“Rock” Feinstein), but David has been really writing prolifically. With Rattle the Cage, I sent him lyrics and some ideas, and that’s how we came to cowrite a couple songs. (Bassist) Freddy (Villano) contributed a riff as well and contributed to a song. We jammed out those things. We had a couple things we played, but we didn’t put them on the album. Those are on the back burner. David will write and sometimes he’ll go and do a click track, guitar, and send it to us. Then, Freddy and I will work on that material and that’s that. We’ll put it down. We’re so used to recording remotely now that it’s just a no brainer for us. I think it’s that way for a lot of artists.
Was that shift towards remote recording a product of COVID, or did it happen even beforehand for The Rods?
CC: We did before. We’ve been doing this for…I think Shmoulik Avigal set me up for the Avigal album. I was actually recording in a big living room. It’s a double room. We have an old Victorian house. I set up my drums on one end and put microphones at the other. I recorded Vengeance (2011) there, so we’ve been doing remote recording since then.
What’s interesting about Wild Dogs Unchained is that it fuses the past, present, and future of The Rods into one release, boasting 7 original songs and 3 re-recordings. As far as I’m aware, this is the band’s first time revisiting classic songs on record. Whose idea was it and were there any hesitations upon embarking on such an effort?
CC: No, there wasn’t because at this point, we’ve been doing this so long. I don’t wanna say we’re bulletproof or immune to criticism, but now we’re at a point where we do what we want to do. The way it came about was I had been wanting to do a remake of “Wild Dogs”. I wanted to do a heavier version. David actually came up with this version that’s on the album. “Wild Dogs”, he did a really great arrangement of. It was much heavier. He changed the key. He just did a killer job.
Once we decided we were going to do that, then we thought, “What about some other great songs?” Freddy suggested “Make Me a Believer”. He loves that song and he wanted to play that, so we said, “OK, we can redo “Make Me a Believer”.” What’s the other song? “Hurricane”! I had been wanting to do a remake of “Hurricane”. I believe at some point I may have done just a one-off with us. There were times where David would come here and record, I would go there, but overall, we’ve been doing it remotely. That was it. I wanted to record an updated version of “Hurricane” because I think it’s one of our best songs. “Wild Dogs” is probably one of the favorite songs of the band, and “Hurricane” is the same.
Now most times a classic band announces they’re re-recording old songs, I find myself rather weary and usually letdown by the final product. In this case, it’s quite the opposite, as these new interpretations fit right alongside the new songs. How much of this effort was a desire to revisit the back catalog and how much of it was qualms that you and the band might’ve had regarding production or aspects of the original recording? Is it a little bit of both?
CC: It’s a little bit of both. I really felt that Wild Dogs had some really good material on it, but we had the engineer, Martin Pearson, who was not a good engineer for us. He may be a great engineer. I didn’t see it myself with him. He was co-producing the album and it just never sonically captured the band. I was never really happy with the sound of Wild Dogs. Anyway, I’m probably partly to blame for that *laughs*. I was the one who was like, “Yeah, let’s push that drum up a little bit. I don’t hear my kick drums. Turn those up.” I was probably as much at fault as anyone, or more.
Nonetheless, I didn’t feel he had good guitar sounds at all. I didn’t like the bass sounds. Plus, he made me play…he made me loosen my drumheads so much, and I don’t wanna dwell on Martin too much because I’ve beat him up in interviews too many times, but he made me loosen my drumheads to the point where they had wrinkles in the head. They were barely hanging on, so much so that my drum tech and I, he had to replace bass drum beaters because I was bending them. That’s how hard he made me play. He had me play so hard.
I’ve never been one, my entire career, where anyone has said to me, “He Carl, could you play a little harder? Can you just hit those drums a little harder for us?” No one has ever, ever said that. The opposite’s been true, but no one’s ever asked me to play louder or harder and he did. It was so much so that there was no finesse allowed. You had to slug the drums. It was very unpleasant. I thought the opportunity to redo “Wild Dogs”, a heavier version of it, I thought it was a great opportunity. I’m glad we did. I love the version. I’m very happy of what David did with rearranging the song.
Returning on keyboard duties for this album is Lonnie Park, who played on the last two albums. He seems to have an increased presence on Wild Dogs Unchained, giving the album a strong Deep Purple/Rainbow feel throughout. Was this intentional, or rather just how the songs naturally developed upon recording?
CC: David and I have wanted keyboards. We’re big Deep Purple fans, but more so Jon Lord fans. We just love that. Ronnie (James Dio) had it, the keyboard parts, and we just love that, how it fills out bands and the band’s sound, our sound. Lonnie is involved more and more. He records all of David’s guitars and does the keyboards, so having Lonnie onboard is a secret weapon. He’s a great, very, very talented man, and of course, I have to mention, Grammy award winning. He’s a legit guy, but very talented, a super nice guy, and easy to work with. It’s been a pleasure to work with him.
I’m glad you mentioned Jon Lord. A lot of people focus on his solos, but what a lot of people don’t mention is the way his Hammonds double alongside the guitar during the verses of those classic Purple songs. I hear a lot of that on these Rods songs, that twin riff attack.
CC: Absolutely. It just fills out the sound so much. It’s great. It’s great to have the orchestration. Some of these songs, they needed that orchestration.
Interestingly enough, there’s even a couple ballads on this album, albeit done the only way The Rods know how in the form of “Tears for the Innocent” and “World on Fire”. How did these songs come to be?
CC: David had written “World on Fire” and played it for me. I said, “That’s one of the best songs you ever written. Fantastic song.” That was a no brainer. I was pushing for that song from day one. Of course, when he wrote “Tears for the Innocent”, I loved that. Again, that’s just really heavy. I’m happy the way it turned out. Chris Collier did a good job on it. Chris Collier’s been the secret weapon for Canedy, The Rods, The 450s. He’s worked with me on a lot of projects, including the last three Rods albums.
A common theme that threads all these songs together, besides an undying devotion to metal, is an uplifting, unrelenting spirit as reflected in the lyrics. How important is it for The Rods to convey these messages of positivity in their music?
CC: It was a very conscious thing. Early on, and I probably have the biggest fault in that, we were writing lyrics that could be a little bit, in an older age, as we mature, sometimes a little embarrassing. You’re not writing about women and cars anymore. Back then, what we were writing was juvenile in some ways. You’re talking about girls, cars, whatever. Those songs don’t really stand the test of time when you’re older, more mature. It’s been a conscious effort for both of us to write lyrics that are more age appropriate and more our views, more mature views. We’re not out there like we were when we were in our 20s. It’s a different day for us *laughs*.
One thing I’ve always loved about The Rods is you’re a metal band who’s not afraid to be metal and sing about metal. You’ve done so many anthems about the glory metal, rock n’ roll, guitars, the power of the fans, and so forth. I asked David a similar question last year, so I’m curious on your perspective. For you, at this point in your life and career, is heavy metal even more important for you now than it was back then?
CC: That’s an interesting question. A bit complicated, I think. I think that metal has been, ever since I saw Blue Cheer on American Bandstand and they blew up my little black and white TV with the little speaker and the thing was vibrating because I had it cranked up so much. They were doing “Summertime Blues” and I saw (drummer) Paul Whaley. I always say this because Paul Whaley, when I produced Blue Cheer’s The Beast Is…Back (1984), I should’ve given him a bill because watching him play cost me thousands. I smashed so many cymbals and drumheads and drumsticks from watching him play. He really should’ve paid me some money for all the suffering and money I paid *laughs*. Once I saw that, it was life changing.
Black Sabbath, of course, suddenly…I remember I had a friend, Jim, who passed away kind of mysteriously. His brother and I always talk about that. He kind of disappeared, but ultimately, he passed away. He was a geek wizard. He was a guy that was really into tech and audio. He recorded me on a number of things. He’s the one who turned me onto Black Sabbath. Here’s a guy who looked like the typical showed up to your house to fix the electricity, fix an outlet, crack of his ass showing and very good ol’ boyish. He was into Black Sabbath! I didn’t know them. I looked at the cover and was like, “Oh, that’s scary!” He was playing Black Sabbath and I was like, “Oh, that’s scary music. Look at this cover!” But I loved it! He was the one who got me hooked on Sabbath and brought me from Blue Cheer to really heavy (music).
Today, there’s so many genres of metal, but I’m glad it still gets carried forward. Fans love all different genres of metal and respect it. I don’t know why, but it’s the same for me. It’s energizing for me. I have a love for it, a passion for it. I love all kinds of music, but when I think of playing my drums, I think metal. I want to hit my drums hard, smash the shit out of them *laughs*, play metal.
I’m glad you mentioned Sabbath, because there’s no denying this genre and scene as we know it turned a corner last month, first with Sabbath’s final show and then with the passing of Ozzy Osbourne a couple weeks later. I’ve spoken with some younger acts about this over the past few weeks, but I’m curious your thoughts, as someone who goes back to when those Sabbath albums were first released, of metal in a post-Sabbath/Ozzy world. Doesn’t it feel a bit strange?
CC: It does. It’s interesting that it’s brought the metal community together in an odd way. Old (fans), new (fans), everybody centers around this was the genesis, Ozzy and Black Sabbath. We all owe that. There’s a thread in all this metal music that came from what Sabbath did. The other thing is I’m older now and doing everything I can to stay alive, but the reality is, in 10 years, a lot of these pioneers will either be gone or no longer creating music. That generation of creativity, it will be gone. I think Ozzy pointed out that it’s fragile. Don’t take it for granted.
Of the re-records on this album, the one that most intrigues me is “Make Me a Believer”, which originally appeared on 1986’s Heavier than Thou and featured the late Shmoulik Avigal on vocals. Hearing David handle the vocals certainly gives the song a new twist. How did it feel to revisit this song, and what events led to Shmoulik’s brief stint with the band?
CC: Freddy wanted to do it, and we were talking maybe we’d do it live. I don’t know if we’d done it live. That’s a good question. I think we may have, but I don’t know for sure *laughs*. I’ll have to ask the other two guys. Freddy, even though he’s been in the band for several for years now, he wanted to do it. We were like, “OK, Freddy has a say in the band. He’s an equal member.” That’s how that came about. It was fun to play it. Revisiting it was not a nostalgia thing with Shmoulik. We only did one date with Shmoulik.
Shmoulik and I were very good friends. He lived with me for a while. I was recording and we were doing Heavier than Thou. Shmoulik was with me in the studio and David was on the phone. I had Shmoulik sing some things. He heard Shmoulik sing over the phone and he said, “He has to sing the whole album. He’s fantastic.” That’s how it came about. Shmoulik and I had a few little rows in the studio. You can hear a little bit of it on the album, but there was one incident where he refused to sing it my way. I said, “You can’t sing it with the accent. That’s not the way it’s going to work.” He’s out by the microphone, refusing to sing, and I read the paper until he agreed to sing it my way.
We always had a joke. He gave me a little plastic standup card that said, “Be reasonable. Do it my way.” That was our joke with each other because we’d always have these little rows. I insisted he watch his diction in recording the album. He fought me on it. The first review that came out, it said, “Without the usual diction issues.” He goes, “What man, you were right! That’s it. No bullshit. You’re right.” We definitely had rows about it. He wanted to sing about it and not worry about the diction. I was like, “Not gonna happen.” Anyways, I have really good memories of Shmoulik. He was a really talented guy.
If I remember correctly, was Heavier than Thou the last album of The Rods’ original run?
CC: Yes, it was. I remember, by the way, (engineer) Alex Perialas reporting into the studio and there were scratch tracks. I was recording to those scratch tracks and I remember Alex going nuts when I finished the drum track. He was like, “Yes, that’s a great drum track!” There was a little distortion on my high tom because I was just wailing on the drums and hit them harder, so there’s a little distortion on the high tom at one little spot. We just let it go than try to redo it.
When The Rods split in ’87, was a matter of the band running their course or rather falling victim to the changing landscape? At that point, it seemed if you weren’t a hair band or a thrash band, everybody else, the old guard of traditional metal and hard rock acts, got lost in the shuffle. Would you agree with this?
CC: Absolutely. When I produced the first Anthrax album (Fistful of Metal), when they first started, I played it for my friend, a great musician, who said, “It’s insect music. This is horrible. It’ll never sell.” He goes, “You think these guys are great?” I said, “Absolutely.” He said, “How big do you think they’ll be?” I said, “They’ll be at least a gold act.” He was like, “You’re crazy. This is shit music. It’s horrible. It’s insect music.” I don’t know what that means. I should probably ask him.
Whatever it was, he didn’t believe it and he didn’t see it, but it was changing of the guard. A lot of my friends who were talking, maybe 4 years older than the guys in Anthrax, so when I’m saying “changing of the guard”, we’re not talking a generation. We’re talking several years, just a few years older (than Anthrax). It was a whole different world. I saw it coming and I loved it. I embraced it, but The Rods, we were never gonna be a thrash band. I’m proud of the fact that to this day, all of our albums have a basic thread.
When you listen from the first album to this album, it’s The Rods. We didn’t chase any real trends. We didn’t try to be something we weren’t. There weren’t a lot of missteps along the way, musically. We were just who we were. You’re absolutely right. It was hair metal and it was thrash. It was kind of the same thing that happened in the early ’90s when suddenly everybody was wearing flannel shirts and looking down at their feet and there were no guitar solos. That was it, done. It was overnight. Those hair bands were done, cut off at the knees. As far as everybody being signed, you had to have a flannel shirt, look at your feet, and no guitar solos *laughs*. Some great music, but nonetheless, it shifted quickly. That’s how it was with us.
It was also the fact that touring was not profitable. We didn’t have management. We didn’t even have an agency at that time. The gigs that were being offered to us were few and far in between. It was a case of I was producing. David brought the Hollywood restaurant. (Bassist) Garry Bordonaro, Kim Simmonds from Savoy Brown had been living with me, and Kim started a band, so he was using my friends in Portland and the people who were here, the musicians. They started touring, so Garry was out on the road with Kim, I was in the studio, and David was working his restaurant at the time.
So everybody had their own thing going on in life?
CC: It wasn’t, “Screw you guys. I’m done. You guys suck. I hate you.” It was just a case of, “You’re doing that? Cool. I’m doing this.” David, 40 plus years later, the Hollywood is still going strong. It’s a great place. It’s been my longest endorsement. In fact, I just told David that some expenses came up, $22. I said, “It’s OK, you don’t have to share it with me. Next time I come in, I’m gonna have a great big steak on you.” *laughs* That’s how it went, but it’s been great. It’s a really big accomplishment to keep a restaurant going 40 years and have it be as strong or stronger than when you first started.
Every great metal band has their own diehard fanbase. Twisted Sister has the SMFs, Manowar has the Manowarriors, and The Rods have the Wild Dogs. Off the top of your head, what is the wildest Wild Dog encounter you’ve ever had?
CC: *laughs* And you’re expecting me to actually say that?
Within reason!
CC: Oh, there’s so many. I don’t really know which one to tell, but there’s a lot. Lemmy, after the Motörhead show, which was thee loudest show I’ve ever been to, when we opened for Motörhead, I was standing outside after the show with Lemmy, his arm around me, and we were just talking. There were a couple fans backstage, but for the most part, it was just Lemmy. We were just hanging out. He’s got his arm around me and I remember our soundman, we called him “Trouble” because he was basically a drug dealer who caused trouble everywhere he went. He was the worst person to have involved with our band, but he was (involved).
At that time, if there was a fire in the house, I’d have to take a shower before I went out. “Hey Carl, you’re going to die in 5 minutes if you don’t leave the house.” “Yeah, just let me get my shower. I’ll be right there. I’ll meet you on the curb.” Lemmy’s sweating and he’s got his arm over me. George knows that I’m a clean freak, probably worse then than I am now. I’m standing there and he’s drinking his beer and he’s sloshed. “You want something, mate?” He was a really great guy. I loved Lemmy, but he’s sweating all over me and I’m not loving that. I’m loving Lemmy, but I’m not loving the sweat. George is looking at me. Lemmy can’t see George, but he’s looking at me and just making these faces. He knew I was dying, and he’s laughing because he knows I’m suffering. It was pretty cool to hang out with Lemmy.
I’m guessing that makes Lemmy the wildest and sweatiest wild dog!
CC: Yeah, pretty much! There are so, so, so many. Half of them could never be retold. *laughs* Half of them will go to the grave with me.
I asked Ross the Boss the same question about the Manowarriors, and he told a story about some guy at a festival in Europe who drew a knife and wanted to make a blood pact with him.
CC: *laughs* That guy would die for metal! He would die for metal and depending how is arm was carved, would die sooner than he thought. There’s a couple funny things. One is, and it was just brought up to me yesterday, but when we played in Sweden at Muskelrock, a really cool festival, at the end of the show, fans are lined up and they want autographs. This young kid kept saying, “You’re a leg-end! You’re a leg-end!” He kept calling me a “leg-end”. I was like, “I’m gonna hit this guy. What the hell is he calling me a leg-end for? What the hell is that? How rude! What’s your problem, pal?” Then, our tour manager said to me after, and I always felt terrible about this, “He was calling you a legend. He was so thrilled to get your autograph.” And here I’m thinking, instead of “Thank you so much!”, I’m just scowling. “Are you a dick? Why are you calling me a leg-end? What the hell’s a leg-end?”
Wouldn’t that technically be a foot?
CC: Yeah, a leg-end! I always try to bring it up in interviews, whoever you are, if you read this, I’m so sorry. I hope somewhere I can get to see you again and apologize in person. That was cool. At that same festival, these two young girls, I have it on video, believe it or not, come to the table and they want autographs. We’re signing autographs and I think they brought albums. These girls were young, probably 19, 20 years old. They’re like, “We love The Rods!” I’m like, “That’s bullshit! You don’t even know The Rods. You’re so young. Give me a break.” I said, “Sing one Rods song to us.” Without hesitation, they broke into “She’s So Tight”. The one song I would never expect anyone to even remember, and they nailed it! I’m like, “Wow, who would’ve thought?” It blew me away. It blew me away, but it also embarrassed me that these young girls were singing this song I wrote called “She’s So Tight” *laughs* which is a big regret of mine to have written.
Aside from The Rods, you’re also busy in a myriad of other projects, amongst them being The 450s, the recently rebooted Kelakos, and your namesake band, Canedy. Is there anything new happening with those acts we should keep an eye out for?
CC: Kelakos has a new single out on Deko. That’s “Smoke and Mirrors” and that’s 100,000 views already. It just came out two years ago.
Wow.
CC: Yeah, shocking and thrilling at the same time! We have a couple more videos coming for that album, which I’m really proud of. My drumming on that, for anybody who wants to hear a different side of my drumming, I’m really proud of my drumming on that album, but I’m more of a rock drummer than a metal drummer there. The project for Canedy is a different project now. We don’t really have a name. The album is written. We have 3 (songs) mixed and a fourth one in the process.
John Hahn is playing guitars. John Hahn was a Mike Varney discovery. He played on my solo album. I played on John’s solo albums. Phenomenal guitarist. Mike San Ciro, the singer for Canedy, is the singer in the band, and then Billy Sheehan is the bassist. We’re hoping to finish that album. Billy has a million things going, but we’re hoping to finish that. The stuff he’s played on…I’ve been a huge Billy fan since we were recording the first Rods album and the engineer said, “There’s this bass player and he’s really great. He plays classical music on bass!”
Back then, you’re talking 1979, I was like, “Classical music on the bass?!” It was unheard of! Not only unheard of on the bass, but the fact the fact that he was playing classical music and was competent enough to play something classical on the bass. Once I heard Billy, I just loved it. Then, recording him for Thrasher, when he came in with his rig that was bigger than the entire Rods sound system, that was his bass rig! Chris Bubacz, the engineer, pulls me aside and whispers, “What am I supposed to do with that? How do I mic that?” It was tri-amps, a million speakers. It was a huge, huge system! I’ve always been a fan. I love the tone. I love his playing. It’s exciting to have him on. He’s a great guy too. We’ve been friends a long time.
We can’t wait to hear that. In closing, what does the rest of 2025 have in store for The Rods?
CC: Well, the album comes out on the 5th. At that point, hopefully we will continue to promote this album. I don’t think…we were talking about doing a live show, but I don’t think we’re going to do one in 2025. We’ll see what comes up, if we get offers that make sense for us, but otherwise, it’ll be next year before we do anything live. We have some plans for another recording, which I won’t reveal now, but that’s been in the works and we’re working on that. We’ll start rehearsing some of that soon. I’m excited about that new project.
The new Rods album, Wild Dogs Unchained, comes out Friday, September 5th on Massacre Records. For more information on The Rods, click here.