The Rockfords

Carrie Akre (vocals)
Mike McCready (guitar)
Chris Friel (drums)
Danny Newcomb (guitar)
Rick Friel (bass, vocal)
and special guest Nancy Wilson (vocal, “Riverwide”)

It’s really quite simple.

The five musicians who comprise The Rockfords share twenty years of personal friendship and professional music-making. In 1999, they came together in their home town of Seattle to make a record of new original songs called THE ROCKFORDS. Produced, arranged and mixed by John Goodmanson (Goodness, Sleater-Kinney), THE ROCKFORDS is due out February 1, 2000 on Epic Records.

There’s no world tour, no million-dollar video, no five-year plan for global domination. Just an exceptionally good rock record, full of memorable melodies, soulful singing, propulsive rhythm, and some ripping guitar solos. No rampant brutality, no phony sentimentality_just smart, heartfelt electric music to make your blood run a little bit faster.

“But do they have any songs?” Oh yes: “Adelaide,” with a chorus alluring enough to put you on the next flight to Australia. “Silver Lining,” a stirring ballad with just the right touch of strings. “This Life,” a furious rocker complete with dueling guitar shootout. “Spiral,” a compassionate portrait of a girl in trouble that will bring to mind the best of the Pretenders.

Now let’s go way back_

Guitarist Mike McCready was eleven years old when he first began playing with two other eleven year-old classmates, bassist Rick Friel and guitarist Danny Newcomb; and Rick’s eight year-old brother Chris on drums. “We went to the same junior high together,” Mike recalls. “Danny Newcomb is kind of the reason I started playing, a kid who could play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ with his teeth when he was 12 years old. I was really a rhythm guitar player at that time, so Danny was a huge influence on me.”

In late ’78, the four friends became a band called Warrior, playing both originals and cover tunes (KISS and Aerosmith were heavy favorites). “In high school, we’d rehearse every day, five days a week,” says McCready. “It was crazy, the amount of rehearsing we did. But it certainly helped me to do what I do now.”

In 1982, with the addition of lead singer Rob Webber (a/k/a Berko), Warrior became Shadow (Rick came up with the new name). This group lasted through six years and many gigs, but never released a record. After a year in Los Angeles, Shadow returned to Seattle and played on. The group finally split up in 1988, at the dawn of a new era in Northwest rock.

“Shadow fell apart,” McCready notes, “at around the time bands like Soundgardenwere just starting to come up in Seattle.” In 1990, Mike formed Pearl Jam with singer Eddie Vedder and two former members of Green River, bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Stone Gossard. “Green River opened for Shadow a long time ago. That’s why I’ve known Stone forever, because he’d come to [Shadow’s] shows.”

Danny Newcomb, Chris Friel and Rick Friel went their own ways, playing in such local-hero combos as the Cheap Ones, Give, and El Steiner. In the summer of 1994, Danny and Chris formed Goodness with ex-Hammerbox singer Carrie Akre, guitarist Garth Reeves, and bassist/vocalist Fiia McGann. The band’s self-titled debut album first appeared on Y Records in 1995, and was re-released nationally by Lava/Atlantic the following year. In the fall of 1998, Goodness released a second album, Anthem (Immortal/Epic) and resumed touring as both club headliners and support to Pearl Jam and Candlebox, among others. For his part, Rick Friel went on to form another new band called Jodie Watts.

Mike McCready was in the audience for a Goodness show on New Year’s Eve, 12/31/97. “I saw the show and thought, I’d love to put together a project with a woman singer. We got together, started jamming_and it brought back all the weirdness. All the really good stuff and all the other stuff, too.”

“Stone and I have been playing together ten years,” he continues, “but Danny and I have played together twice as long. That’s really a powerful bond you have, with the guys you grew up with while you were learning to play your instrument.”

McCready (who came up with the name The Rockfords) says he had “about five song ideas, and Danny had five or six of his own. ‘Flashes,’ ‘Distress,’ ‘Spiral’_these were things I’d had in my head, or sometimes on tape. But ‘Silver Lining’ is one of my favorites, and Danny and Rick wrote that one THE ROCKFORDS was like any band project: Everybody brings in as much as they’ve got, and some ideas work and some don’t.”

It was McCready’s first crack at writing words to his own songs (“really scary,” he says). But for Carrie Akre, “it was great for me to just walk in and be told what to sing instead of having to put, like, my personal issues into the songs. It was kind of a load off me! Mike was so excited to be writing these songs, it was really refreshing and inspiring a really good energy.” Carrie recalls that three or four Rockfords numbers were created out of live improvisations in the studio: The noisy, post-punk blast entitled “Sure Shot,” for example, “was done virtually on the spot.”

The dark and haunting “Riverwide” is a collaboration between Mike McCready and Northwest rock icon Nancy Wilson of Heart, who wrote the lyrics and sang lead on the track. “We cut that song 10 or 15 times, but it was fun,” Mike recalls. “It was a huge pleasure to have Nancy come in and play live in the room with us.”

With THE ROCKFORDS, “we’re focusing more on the joy of writing and the joy of playing,” says Carrie Akre, “as opposed to ‘gee, where is this gonna fit in our scene?’ Because when the scene is gone, the writing and playing is what you’re left with_so you better enjoy it.”

“It’s like we’ve come full circle,” says Mike McCready, “but this time we’re leaving out the KISS covers!”