- 'LOST IN THE WILD', IN RETROSPECT, WAS A RATHER APPROPRIATE TITLE FOR THIS ALBUM. MELIDIAN ARRIVED ON THE SCENE JUST AS THE WIND OF CHANGE WAS ABOUT TO BLOW THROUGH THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND BRING WITH IT A REVOLUTION THAT WOULD OFFER THREE OPTIONS TO MELODIC HARD ROCKERS; STICK WITH IT AND HOPE TO RIDE THE STORM OUT, TAKE THE 'IF YOU CAN'T BEAT 'EM JOIN 'EM' APPROACH AND GO GRUNGE, OR SIMPLY GIVE UP ALTOGETHER.
MELIDIAN ENJOYED A modicum of interest when the aforementioned album first appeared in the racks, including an enthusiastic page and a half spread in 'Kerrang!' penned by yours truly. Released in 1989, 'Lost In The Wild' is a record that, truth told, has something of a mixed reputation amongst hard rock fans. Search for online opinions now and it's either one of the undiscovered gems of the era or a patchy album with dodgy vocals. I prefer to go with the former opinion and a good few agree as the original CD release generates a hefty premium when put up for sale. Mind you, the vinyl version is rather easier to obtain and thus deemed less collectable.
As we shall see, to say that life in Melidian (a five piece unit that ultimately comprised vocalist Chris Cade, bassist Dave Clark Howell, guitarist Jayson Lane, keyboard player Eddie Wohl and drummer Pete Greene) was slightly surreal would be something of an understatement. Here was a band so named due to a psychic's vision and a group that 'adopted' Grandpa Munster on the steps of City Hall in New York City!
THE ROOTS of Melidian can be traced firmly back to Chris Cade's first real foray into the world of hard rock, with the New York based Hellion. This quartet released an album entitled 'Dangerous Maneuvers' (sic) in 1984 on the Stampede label, distributed through Important Records. It was pretty decent for an independent release of the period, although the record gained a disappointing, although not entirely unsupportive review from my 'Metal Forces' colleague Bernard Doe at the time of release, likening the material more to commercial pop and pedestrian hard rock and "lacking that killer punch to put them up alongside the best."
Still, the very fact that the album had been released caused tidal waves of anger over on the West Coast due to the fact that Ann Boleyn - clearly a disciple of Ronnie James Dio and, in fact, who was initially managed by his wife Wendy - had already been making waves fronting a band with the same name and reckoned that her band had first claim to the moniker. This was a statement that, naturally, didn’t go down too well in New York as the East Coast version stated that they had copyrighted the name in 1982 following the release of a 45 single ('One Way Or Another') the same year. It all got quite heated. Actually, pretty abusive, with perhaps the more printable of exchanges from the New York camp reckoning that the L.A. based group were "nothing more than a foul smelling gang of selfcentred bullshit artists, with massively overblown egos.”
Catching up with Cade for an interview for the aforementioned 'Kerrang!' article, shortly after the original release of Melidian's album in 1989, I found him rather amused by it all, sheepishly laying the full blame for the whole episode firmly at bassist Dave Clark Howell's door (who, to be fair, the bulk of the foul mouthed abuse had been credited to in the likes of 'Metal Forces'). The whole row had only really been settled by the longevity of Ann Boleyn's group.
"The album came out and we toured for six months solid before the gurtarist and drummer left,” recalled Cade.
He also claimed that the record sold something between 10,000 to 20,000 copies, which was perhaps slightly exaggerated, as the band "became known in 44 states and six countries!"
THE REMAINING duo of Cade and Howell recorded around twenty new tracks at the Hit Factory in New York, for an album that was intended to be titled 'Blood Letter'. Intriguingly, the album was being produced by erstwhile Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley, alongside Eddie Solon and Cade, with Frehley's on-off guitarist sidekick Richie Scarlet and the now legendary Anton Fig (Spider/Shanghai/Frehley’s Comet/David Letterman) filling in on guitar and drums respectively.
However, this material would not see the light of day as Hellion morphed into a new project by the handle of Cade 88. Scarlet played with the band a couple of times in clubs and an album was due to be recorded, but the company involved went under so the record remains unreleased. Cade and Howell went back to the drawing board and began plotting a new path upwards that would lead them to the door of co-managers Ron Bard and Michael Blutrich.
How Cade told it back in 89 was that the new band was booked to play at a club but for some reason the show failed to come off. To cut a long story short the club owners eventually heard the band, liked the material and took a tape away. The next thing they knew was that a prominant New York psychic called Yolana Bard (the mother of Ron Bard) was predicting a deal with CBS and giving the fledgling new outfit a name.
Actually, Yolana wasn't just an ordinary psychic; she has been dubbed 'the queen of the psychics' who, until her death at the age of 66 in 2007, worked with political figures, celebrities and law enforcement agencies. Indeed, she was regularly consulted on high profile criminal cases. Interestingly, since her death Ron and his sister Melody have both continued in the same line of work as their mother; although back in the late 80s Ron was more interested in a career in artist development and working with Melidian in particular.
"Yolana is a well known psychic in New York and reads for plenty of famous people who don't want publicity," Cade told me at the time. "She came down to the studio, touched the tape and some posters and said that we were going to sign to CBS."
FOUR DAYS later CBS heard the tape and offered the band a deal. It’s rather hard not to be a little cynical at this point given that it would appear that the then head of Columbia Records (home of the CBS imprint), Walter Yetnikoff allegedly had some of his artwork stolen and Yolana apparently found it for him through psychic means. She told him that her son managed rock bands and, as a favour to her he had a meeting with Ron. He wasn't interested in the first band he had played to him, but he liked Melidian.
Still, Yolana's powers carried an awful lot of weight with a large number of people who consulted her on a regular basis. Chris Cade told me back in 1989 that she was even on the board of directors of an airline and would inform the company if they were going to have problems with the planes they flew. "She once told me not to take a particular flight," recalled Chris, "so I went on the next one and later heard that the original plane I was due to fly on had developed engine trouble."
"She certainly had a presence and was a powerful person," notes Eddie Wohl adding on a very light hearted note and certainly not wishing for any offence to be taken that, "I did once beat her at poker. You'd think she'd know what cards I had."
THE BAND had actually already commenced recording at Metalworks Studio in Toronto before Eddie Wohl and Jayson Lane joined the band, but by that point the project had moved back down to New York from the initial bout of recording with Thom Trumbo as the producer (who had previously produced 'Sport Of Kings' and 'Surveillance' by Triumph). Although happy that the producer had singled out an old Hellion cut as being suitable for re-recording ("I gave him the Hellion album and he really liked 'Broken Toys', which was surprising. I mean I liked the song too, but I hadn't thought either Thom or CBS would go for it. It's much better than the original version simply because we had more studio time." said Cade), unhappy though with Thom's overall approach Cade took over production duties, assisted by Ron Bard, and finished the rest of the album off after bringing the project to the Hit Factory.
Wohl had been playing in Saige, a local band that also included Jayson Lane on guitar and Al Fritsch on vocals. They had gained some interest from Alan Parsons after he had heard some of the band's demos on a flight back to the UK, thanks to a friend of friend of Wohl's who was on an internship with Parsons. Although nothing came of the proposed deal, partly due to Al Fritsch's reluctance to travel to London at a time when he was just about to get married, it did create an amusing anecdote on how fickle record labels can be.
"I knew this girl who worked in A&R at Capitol in New York at the time and had given her a tape of three Saige songs, one of which was the original version of 'Sleepless Nights'," recalls Eddie. "Her comment to me was that "the music was nice and the lyrics were neat". The lyrics were 'neat'?!!
After she found out that Alan Parsons had developed an interest in the material she called me up two weeks later and told me that she'd listened to the songs again and thought they were "amazing!"
EVENTUALLY WITH Fritsch Drive, She Said bound (even making it to the UK after all with that Mark Mangold founded project) Eddie wound up meeting Melidian's management in a club and giving them a tape of his material that included 'Sleepless Nights' on it. Instead of simply getting his song on the album Eddie was actually invited to join the band as the keyboard player.
"They had already recorded five songs in Canada by that point, but it hadn't worked out so they started work in the Hit Factory. The first day there was spent cutting the drums and I remember we got invited to this party upstairs that Keith Richards was at. I didn't drink at the time, so I declined. Anyway, the next day the assistant engineer failed to show up and this big tall guy turns up and says he's the new engineer. I was like 'where's Tim?' It turns out he'd gone to the party and had died from a drug overdose that night!
"The new guy never got credited on the album because our manager failed to proof read the credits properly. We hadn't known his full name so just put 'Paul (?)' hoping it would get corrected before it went to print. It didn't happen. That was his first ever engineering credit and his name wasn't on there! We met again many years later and have become good friends and have worked together, so, for the record, Paul Logus was one of the assistant engineers on our album!"
SO, HOW on earth did Grandpa Munster get involved with the band?
"We used to hang around Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village a great deal," revealed Cade in 1989. "We went to this place to eat and Al Lewis was the owner. We got talking and gave him a tape of our material. He loved it. It's no secret that he's a great rock fan — he went on tour with AC/DC in 1981 - he's a real maniac. He's in his 70s, but he's a real rocker, always has these babes on his arms."
Eddie Wohl offers a more realistic assessment of Lewis' involvement. "As well as being our comanager, Michael Blutrich was a very powerful New York lawyer who also co-owned the Scores strip club. He'd helped out Al Lewis with some issues and the pair of them started a pasta company together (producing 'Grandpa Munster's Pasta Sauce that was even sent out to US newspapers with copies of Melidian's album in a press package at one point). We did this promotional thing on the steps of City Hall in New York whereby we 'adopted' him and he went on tour with us."
ALMOST IMMEDIATELY after the album was released Pete Greene left the band. In fact, according to Eddie the drummer more or less quit after hitting his last cymbal during the recording of the album. Greene's replacement was Kirk Henry from Virginia, who had seemingly been in the frame for the drumming job in Winger had Rod Morgenstein not opted to take up the offer of joining the then fledgling group.
"I got to know Reb Beach after he'd moved from Pittsburgh," states Eddie. "Reb recommended Kirk to me. In fact, when he auditioned for us he was also in the frame to join Raging Slab too, but chose us over them."
Following the album's release Melidian toured on a three band bill with Tora Tora and Mitch Malloy.
"We never had a great deal of support from the label," states Eddie. "I think it was because we didn't have anybody that cared about it because the president of the label signed us.
"The Tora Tora tour had its moments. They were a pretty young band, but we kinda pissed them off from the start due to a total misunderstanding. Now Dave Clark Howell is one of the nicest guys in the world and would never knowingly offend anybody. He was watching the sound check and he just remarked that he thought Tora Tora must be getting real big because they had their roadies sound checking for 'em. Of course, it was the band that was sound checking. They were just young kids. One of their crew heard what Dave said and it got back to 'em."
AS TIME went on the band would slowly begin to fragment and plans for a way out began to be hatched by Eddie and Kirk under the code name of the Halibut Steak Theory. Eventually, the band imploded and the duo put together Redbelly from the burning embers, eventually being signed to Elektra by none other than Rock Candy's own Derek Oliver, at the time working in A&R for the label in New York.
Redbelly (Henry and Wohl with Damon LaScot on guitars, bassist James Buhre and drummer Edward Wurzburg) were a completely different beast to Melidian, a band very much immersed in the grunge scene that had transformed the early to mid 90s. The self-titled album, released in 1995, is very much akin to Stone Temple Pilots and Soundgarden musically.
Indeed, the album was recorded at London Bridge Studios in Seattle and produced by Kelly Gray.
Eddie later signed a deal with Island, with another band Vibrosoul (named by Eddie's long-time friend
Kara Dioguardi, now a hugely successful song writer and judge on 'American Idol'), but sadly, due to company politics, no material was released, although the band did tour with the likes of Econoline Crush.
SINCE THE demise of Redbelly and Vibrosoul Eddie has immersed himself far more in music production. He has been the president of Scrap 60 Productions since 1999 and has worked on a whole host of projects, mainly in the nu-metal field, such as Il Nino, Bitterness The Star, Primer 55 and (rather interestingly) actress Jada Pinkett-Smith’s group Wicked Wisdom, but also Cradle Of Filth, Anthrax and a band featuring Kirk Henry on drums called Pepperfarm. More recently Eddie has re-gained an interest in being in a band and is currently putting a new group project together called World Fire Brigade that draws from influences such as Fuel, Filter (both acts he has worked with) and Stone Temple Pilots.
"The best part of being in Melidian was that I pretty much got to make a record on a major label right out of High School," he states of the band now. And although Eddie has no contact with any of his former band mates that he cut the record with, he is nevertheless justifiably proud to see it become part of the Rock Candy family of releases. -
(Notes by Dave Reynolds, Nottingham, August 2010)
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