Diving for pearls

Origin: Boston (USA), settled in New York (USA)

DIVING FOR PEARLS

Peter Clemente - Jack Moran - Danny Malone - David Weeks - Yul Vazquez

Discography:

st - 1989 (with lyrics)

Notes:

- Diving For Pearls, named after a line in an Elvis Costello song, was an American melodic rock band founded in 1984 whose self-titled debut album was released in 1989. A follow-up, Texas, was issued in 2006 without much fanfare.

Diving For Pearls originated in Boston, MA and was formed by Danny Malone (lead vocals, guitar) and Jack Moran (keyboards), both former members of local act The Trademarks. After slugging it out on the Boston scene for a couple of years, Malone and Moran moved to New York City where they were eventually joined by Yul Vazquez (guitar, vocals), formerly with Urgent, and Peter Clemente (drums), who had played with the Michael Monroe fronted NY act Secret Chiefs and appears on Monroe's 1987 debut solo album, Nights Are So Long; Vazquez and Clemente had also both been part of Jean Beauvoir's Drums Along the Mohawk touring band. L.A. native David Weeks (bass) would complete the DFP line-up.

Things began to move for the band when Epic Records A&R man Michael Kaplan came out to a NY gig in 1988 and convinced Epic to sign the band to a $20,000 development deal. He subsequently introduced the members to up and coming producer David Prater who cut half a dozen songs with the group. Not fully convinced yet, Epic head of A&R, Don Grierson, allotted some extra money and another half a dozen songs were recorded under the guidance of Prater. One of the new tracks was "New Moon" and according to Malone, it was this particular track that convinced Grierson to sign the group.

Diving For Pearls eponymous debut was recorded from April 14 to June 10, 1989 at the Eleven-Eleven Sound Studios in Nashville, TN with Prater at the helm. The album's release in October 1989, was preceded by the release of the first single and MTV video, "Gimme Your Good Lovin'", and spawned another radio favorite, "I Don't Want To Cry". The record went on to sell over 250,000 copies in the U.S. alone and was named as one of Kerrang! magazine's Top 20 for 1989. A second album was in the works but never completed when the band was dropped by the label due to the changing musical climate.

Diving For Pearls was remastered and re-issued by English label Rock Candy in 2006, including 5 bonus tracks, a studio demo of The Beatles' "Dear Prudence", and 4 live cuts recorded at the Toy Tiger club in Louisville, KY in 1990, including a cover of The Cult's "She Sells Sanctuary".

Danny Malone would move on to join Band Of Angels, led by Elliot Easton of The Cars, whose Roy Thomas Baker produced album for Atlantic Records was shelved and remains unreleased. However, 5 songs from the BOA sessions with Malone on lead vocals would surface as bonus tracks on the 1996 re-issue of Easton's solo album Change No Change, originally released in 1985. Malone would also team up with former Styx member Glen Burtnik in a short lived band called Dunaways who played a half dozen shows at New York's famed CBGBs before calling it quits.

In 2002, Malone resurrected Diving For Pearls and secured a recording contract with Swedish label Atenzia Records. A new album, Texas, eventually surfaced in 2006; it was their first release in 17 years. The band now consisted of Malone as the only original member along with contributions from returning producer David Prater. Though the CD was well written and performed it received little fanfare. As of 2008, Malone was studying for his art major in his hometown of Boston.

Since the demise of Diving For Pearls in the early 1990s, guitarist Yul Vazquez has gone on to a successful TV and movie acting career, starting in 1992 with a role in the movie The Mambo Kings. Between 1995 and '98, he appeared in several episodes of Seinfeld as Bob, The Intimidating Gay Guy. Vazquez was nominated for a 2011 Tony Award for "Best Featured Actor in a Play" for his role of Cousin Julio in The Motherfucker With the Hat. In 2009, Vazquez played acoustic guitar with Ian Astbury of The Cult under the name The Soft Revolt appearing at The Bowery Electric in New York City on the opening night of John Patrick Shanley's play Savage in Limbo, which Astbury was producing. They performed songs by The Cult and Astbury solo material as well as covers by the Rolling Stones, Radiohead, among others.

Peter Clemente later became vice president and director of online entertainment practice at Internet customer relationship management firm Cyber Dialogue. Early in his career, he had been a member of The Mundanes, a new wave band based in Providence, RI, whose 1982 demo was produced by Mick Ronson.

Former bassist David Weeks made the headlines in 2002 as a lawyer representing Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee in their infamous sex video lawsuit against Seattle-based Internet Entertainment Group. He is head of his own law firm based in Westlake Village, CA. -

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_for_Pearls)



- Their one and only album may have been released back in 1989, but the music of Diving For Pearls is still deeply etched in the memories of melodic rock fans the world over. They still clamour over rare copies of the bands classic self-titled debut on eBay, and have been eagerly anticipating its long-awaited follow-up since news broke that vocalist Danny Malone was once again working on new material.

Well now the wait is over, Diving For Pearls sophomore album Texas, has been released on Atenzia Records. It feels great to finally have this record completed and ready for release, says Malone. I think the songs stand up to, and perhaps in some ways are even better than, the songs on the first record. Diving For Pearls aficionados will undoubtedly be excited at such a statement of intent, and with a host of ready-made successors to cherished classics such as New Moon and Gimme Your Good Lovin on Texas, its certainly not without good reason.

Founded in 1988 by Malone and named after a line in the Elvis Costello song, Shipbuilding, Diving For Pearls 1989 self-titled debut gained a coveted five-K review in rock bible Kerrang! But the grunge revolution and poor promotion by Epic prematurely ended the bands career and it would be more than a decade before Malone would reunite with producer David Prater to recreate the distinctive Diving For Pearls sound. Texas was recorded in Allen, Texas and latterly, Massachusetts, during 2004, and the musical chemistry between the two during recording sessions in 1989 was evident in abundance this time around too. Danny affirms: Only David Prater could have produced this record and got the vocal performances that he did out of me. He has a reputation for being extremely demanding, but I would have to say, he has always been capable of getting the best out of me.

While Texas remains true to the timeless sound of Diving For Pearls, the albums 12 tracks demonstrate a contemporary edge and the result is an effortless combination of the modern and the classic, as Malone notes. David and I wanted the new record to have a sense of continuity with the first record without sounding nostalgic, he says. We are both fans of the records being made by bands like the White Stripes and Audioslave, and wanted to see if we could incorporate a few of the elements that they use, without abandoning the sound that we established on the first record.

Crunching opener Thinking About Things That Will Never Be certainly achieves that aim along with possible standout track, The Colours Show and the bluesy album closer, Stop The World From Turning but those traditional Diving For Pearls melodies and Malones superb vocals are always at the forefront. There are a good amount of similarities between the new material and the old material, says Malone. I hope the fans are able to relate to the songs melodically, in the same way that they related to the stuff on the first record.

With material as strong as the heart-stopping ballad The Truth Is, the rocking If I Only Knew and Lonely Is The Dark, that wont be too hard for Diving For Pearls fans to do. Former Diving For Pearls keyboardist Jack Moran contributed to the song writing on three tunes on Texas but Malone believes the albums highlight to be Thinking About Things That Will Never Be, one of his solo compositions. Thats the most notable song for me, Im actually very proud of that particular song as I wrote it myself, he says. I guess that most of the songs started with an idea of mine, and because I enjoy working with other people, were finished with someone elses help. But the contributions of Jack along with David Zycheks guitar and bass guitar playing really helped to shape a sound that is both reminiscent of the first record, without sounding like a obvious attempt to mimic it.

Diving For Pearls were cruelly denied the opportunity to build on such a glorious start to their music career, and though the musical landscape has significantly altered in the 15 years since the band first burst onto the scene, with the release of Texas, Malone believes some things never change.

Were still a good little rock n roll band, with good songs, and hopefully a believable lead singer, he says. And I dont think that weve strayed too far away from what weve always been good at…melodic rock. -

(http://melodic-hardrock.com/bios/diving-pearls/)