INTERVIEWER: What steered you toward becoming a musician in the first place?
DANNY DEAN: Women, of course!

Start of interview, Redondo Beach, California 4/20/00

One of my old best friends father was a waiter at the Proud Bird [a famous banquet hall near the Los Angeles International Airport] and his dream was to be a guitar player and singer. He never got to live his dream. And he would tell me and his son, You guys ought to learn how to play the guitar and live the life that I dreamed about. He bought each of us an acoustic guitar, and I ended up taking about two lessons. I wasn't interested. I liked music, but .... I wasn't connecting yet. Well ... that was one potentially romantic false start. Although Danny Dean Phillips had been toying around with guitars as early as age eight, the real beginning of his journey through the rock and roll world happened about two years after the episode related above. It wasn't until I was about 14, when I saw the A HARD DAYS NIGHT film. I said, Wow ... those guys are living a good life. The women and the fun and, you know, the bonding of the band members ... it seemed very exciting. That's why I started playing music. And then, years later, I got to meet George Harrison and tell him that. Like a true musician, Danny didn't really ask him any questions about the Beatles. I asked him if he still had his old '55 or '56 Gretsch, and he said, Yeah, I still have it!

Accordingly, this teenager of the 1970's was first drawn to the sounds of earlier years. I didn't care for disco or country or things like that. My band friend's father was the road manager for the Knack, and he had an enormous collection of records from the fifties and sixties. We used to look through 'em to get ideas for songs, and that's how we started liking that kind of music. Even when I listened to the Beatles when I was young, I used to say, What a great song they wrote, "Rock And Roll Music"... I didn't realize it was a Chuck Berry song until I got a little older and I understood. That's when I started listening to the Beatles influences, and then I started listening to Chuck Berry and Eddie Cochran's influences, and it goes further and further back. It's kind of interesting to see how it evolves.

My grandfather actually bought me my first electric guitar. I told him I wanted one, and he came home with a Fender in one hand, and a Hofner copy bass in the other because he didn't really know if I wanted a bass or guitar! The first stuff that I played was instrumental, like the, Ventures. My first band, Skinny Memphis, played lots of surf music ... and I actually wanted to be a bass player, but one guy in the band already had the setup, so I ended up being the guitar player. The funny thing is that when I originally first saw the Beatle movie, I actually wanted to be a drummer. But I figured it's too hard to carry all those things on the bus!

He didn't get his experience by studying music in grade school. I played by ear. I took some singing lessons in college. Dr. Claude Heimer, at El Camino College, was the first one that helped me understand how to sing. He's very patient. I never really wanted to sing, either, I just wanted to play and be part of the band, not be the front man and all that. But I always ended up being forced to do that because I'd be the only one [in the band] who could sing most of the notes on key. I think from singing and yelling in the punk bands that I was in [later on] helped me work my way to becoming a singer, if you want to, call me that. I listen to a lot of singers now, and I think a lot of them don't have as much power in their voices as they should.

It wasn't long before Danny took an interest in the alternative rock scene. The great thing about punk rock music was that you didn't have to be that good [in order to] be creative and write songs. So I dropped out of doing the Ventures and Beatles covers and got into it. It was very fresh and it was something from my generation. But I took what I'd already learned and brought a little bit of it with me, and that helped me understand the way songs work. Danny recalls his punk years as rewarding but rough. That's when it was new and society did not really accept that type of music at all. You used to get beat and chased away by people, and the cops would always hassle you. You'd tell a girl at school you're into punk groups music, and they'd think you're weird and didn't want to associate with you. But that paved the way for that type of music to be accepted nowadays.

I used to go places with my friends and we'd get escorted out because of the way we were dressed. We were actually previewing the fashions twenty years ahead of time! I'd go to thrift stores to buy clothes, 'cause I didn't have much money. Bowling shirts for a buck fifty ... it kind of was my style. The blue-collar worker and all that. Now, you go to buy a bowling shirt and it's fifty bucks! It's incredible how fashions and styles go in circles. I'm glad I got to do that when I was young. It was a great release and a great adventure. Plus, it was back before AIDS, too! So people were a little more wilder then...

Danny ultimately did three albums with the punk band Anti and then spent one album's time with a group called Mood Of Defiance, a psychedelic flavored group with a female lead singer. By 1983, Danny opted for a sound balanced between pop and punk. This led him to join the band Easter, which survived as a performing unit through the rest of the decade.

Though it was good to be part of an established act with a fairly consistent lineup of members, he feels that his performing skills were still improving: It wasn't until after I left that band [and] got to play with other musicians that were even better [that] it enabled me to grow ... It seems that when you play with other musicians who are at your level or lower as far as ability goes, it kind of holds you back because you're always teaching them or directing them. You can't really focus on yourself or your writing, 'cause you're constantly having to correct or lead. It's really hard.

It's a lot more fun when you're playing with people who are a lot better than you, 'cause you're learning things from them and you can start listening to yourself more because you know that people with more experience are going to do the right thing. Easter did allow him to work with one already well known local musician who was destined for success. The original guitar player quit the band right before we were about to do a video. I had to call somebody else, and I wanted someone with a lot of charisma who was going in the same [musical] direction as we were. So I called up Mike Ness and had him come out. His band wasn't doing anything at the time ... and he ended up liking [our] band. He played with us for about a year and a half.

I liked him a lot because he was exactly what you imagined him to be. He was not pretentious or fake. He wasn't really much on words, but he did talk a lot about music and stuff. He was a simple guy, down to earth. He moved on, and Hess done really well. I saw Mike Ness web site last night. It was ... HUGE. He has a store and everything! Overall, Danny considers recording with Easter a learning process. I think the best thing we did was the first demo! Our live shows were great, but we could never capture that sound [on tape]. I don't know why. I did record a lot of material that never got released, and I might soon try to release all of that on a retrospective CD.

[NOTE: Since this interview took place, work has commenced on the Easter anthology, marking the first time their music will be released in the digital format.]

Eventually, the group evolved into an act with a more progressive sound and a new name: Mercury Tilt Switch. It began with Easter's last guitarist, Bill Lindsley. He was kind of the main influence on that. He said, Let's try something different, may be a little more up-to-date. He was influenced by a lot of Manchester groups, and at the time I really liked Tin Machine's direction. I said, Let's get two other guys and let's each of us bring in our own influences and see what we come up with. Then I took a few of the last Easter songs and revamped them. We ended up with a funk-rock pop sound.

Though Mercury Tilt Switch released one album (1994s AUTOMATIC TILT, issued on Danny's own New Underground label) and even snared an appearance on the Fox TV network's local morning show GOOD DAY L.A. (That was pretty exciting ... to do something like that when you know there's a million people watching or listening.), they didn't last long. Disagreements about money and responsibilities came to a head when most of the band refused to play on a multi-band bill featuring punk oriented acts. They didn't feel that they would fit in, or were intimidated, but I wasn't 'cause I came from that scene and I think we would have won them over. These guys were real talented, and I think the other musicians there would have respected that. A lot of bands respected Easter in the underground scene, like the Adolescents and TSOL. But anyway ... after they didn't want to show up to that one show, I decided to go on my own.

Now came his biggest stylistic change to date. Blending together a back-to-the-basics sound with newer influences gleaned from the likes of Adam and The Ants and Gary Glitter, Danny reemerged with the Hot Rod Orchestra. Essentially, this aggregation was an updated version of Bill Haley and The Comets, complete with horn section. It was a timely move, considering the so-called swing revival that was becoming popular across the country. But after only about a year, keeping the number of band members involved together proved somewhat untenable (Horn players are kind of flaky if there's not a lot of money coming in). The outfit was pared back down to two guitars, bass, drums and eventually sax and piano. The rockabilly content of the material was increased, and Danny Dean and The Homewreckers assumed the form we know today.

Hence, this new band represents not only a wide spectrum of styles going back to the days even before rock and roll was rock and roll, but also two decades plus of personal experience from one of the more scholarly and resilient figures to toil in Southern California's music scene during that time. I think I'm more excited to record songs and hear them finished and released than I am playing a live show. I think it's because this band is new and the following isn't really there yet. [There were times] when I was in Easter and the audience would be singing the songs along with the band. That feels great when you know the people know the material and they're there to hear the songs. .It seems to be easier to play for more people [than a smaller audience]. There's more excitement in the air. Just like .... we've played a few shows where there's just a few people, but they're DANCING.

When you play a show and nobody's even clapping, you start feeling weak and depressed. But when You see the people reacting, it makes you want to play harder and better. After all this time, does he ever think twice about the life choices he's made? Oh, yeah. Don't we all? I tried to give up music when I got a day job, but something always brought me back into it. Someone would come up to me when I was carrying mail and say Aren't you so-and-so? and I saw you guys play at this club, and you were so great and I love that song, I've got your video or whatever... Do you think you could sign my record sometime or whatever ... and something like that will bring you back into it. But I play it because I really enjoy it, not because I expect to be rich, or to be this rock star. I'm very happy just being able to still do it, you know? It's kind of a teenager thing if you think about it. Sometimes I feel like... God, am I maturing? Why do i still do this? It's kind of silly ... you go up there, you play your instrument and sing ... you act crazy ... but it's fun, it's exciting, it's almost like a party, and you're celebrating with music. But ... whether I make a big mark or not is not important. If I can continue to make records and grow as a musician, then that would be success to me.