We did it. We survived another year as a band, as human beings, as denizens of Earth. No small feat, these days - keeping a band together, OR being human. The Earthling bit’s a piece of cake by comparison - somewhat embarrassing at times, but hey,  “You can’t pick your family.”, right?

Existential achievements, and/or shortcomings aside, it was a pretty decent 365 (so far, at least).

Our schedule was light, due in part to my recovery from wrist surgery in the first quarter, and the retirement of our beloved Jean-Claude Damme Van not long after, but we eventually managed to squeeze in a handful of higher profile engagements that made up for the overall low mileage.

Dates with Styx, Everclear, and The Verve Pipe gave us a chance to do our thing for some bigger audiences, and reminded me once again that foregoing a lucrative career in elbow modeling was the right decision to make. Sure, I sacrificed money & fame, but those joints get to age discretely, under cover of denim, for as long as we can dream the dream.

 On that note, 2026 is nigh, and we’re gonna kick it off with a Nashville date, at The ’58 in Eastside Bowl on Thursday, January 15th, with Salmon In The Current (featuring TGA/fORMER alumnus Henry Go). Doors are at 7PM, and we’re first up, taking the stage at 8 sharp. If all of your favorites happen to be the same as all of OUR favorites, then you can expect to hear all of your favorites.

 Lately, I've contemplated making a new solo record…not because I have the songs, because I don’t, but because it’s the only way I can think of to pressure Kenny into finishing his own long-gestating album, and actually RELEASING it, so I can hear the damn thing in its entirety.

 If he had done so already, it might’ve made this list:

 Denny Smith’s Top 10 (give or take a couple) Favorite Albums of 2025 (and thereabouts)…in no specific order
———
James McMurtry - The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy

Pete Droge - Fade Away Blue

Marcus King Band  - Darling Blue

Stereophonics - Make ‘em Laugh, Make ‘em Cry, Make ‘en Wait

Inhaler = Open Wide

My Morning Jacket - is

Ruston Kelly - Pale, Through The Window

Craig Finn - Always Been

Zoe Dominguez - Out The House

The Virginmarys - The House Beyond The Fires

Sam Fender - People Watching

Billy Idol - Dream Into It

Sloan - Based On The Best Seller

………not to mention a slew of Deluxe & Expanded Editions, Remasters, etc. We’d be here all day if I had to start culling that mess.

I’m sure I missed a bunch of stuff. It’s really tough to keep up with these things in the streaming age, where I don’t have physical copies of everything I’ve purchased throughout the year to flip through, and consider more thoroughly. I do know this much though, I have straight worn out the Sam Fender and The Virginmarys records.

 I’m sure the guys have their own lists, and I’ll get those posted to our Facebook page, if they find their way to me, along with any other “news” that may present itself between now and our next communiqué.

  Until then…

 Be good to one another, (an early) Ho! Ho! Ho!, and (an even earlier) Happy New Year!

               D.

p.s.

 If you know me, you know that I’m pretty laid back…secretly high-strung, yeah (those who REALLY know me know this), but not big on confrontation, unnecessary social entanglements, or sticking my nose where it has no business being inserted. (Full disclosure: I also give exactly ZERO sh#ts about “sportsball” of any kind, have no frame of reference, and am only nodding & smiling because it seems more polite than asking if we can find some Law & Order reruns to watch on one of these screens. “Closed captions, please.”)

BUT, there are three things you may not malign in my presence - my family, my friends, or the band KISS. It’s OK if I talk smack on any of these, but if a stranger starts in on anything from my trinity, there’s a high probability of fisticuffs in the forecast.

 With that said, let’s have a moment of silence for Ace Frehley, the Spaceman, from the planet Jendell, who left us yesterday, after 74 years away from his home world, having been sent here to not only inspire an entire generation of guitarists, but also to piss off Paul Stanley & Gene Simmons at virtually every turn of their star-crossed association. Our planet will never be the same.

 OK then, I’m gonna slap ‘Hotter Than Hell’ on the turntable, and time-travel for a while. You should probably do the same. Ack!

           D.

I’ve got Rock N’ Roll Over tattooed on my arm
I’ve got a pistol for action
I’ve got my Fists & Guitar

            -KW
 

Catering is nice. I like catering.

Green rooms are nice. I like a good couch.

A big audience, most of them unfamiliar with our music, ripe for conversion, held captive, as they wait for the headliner they actually paid to see….yeah, I like that setup too.

So, thanks, Styx (and crew), for giving us the shot, not once but twice, and for being truly gracious human beings, who treated us like we’d always been there, rather than unwelcome party guests. I hope we get to do it again soon.

photo by Bud Gambrell

We also got to support Brother Cane in Huntsville, and raise a little cash for canines in need. Damon Johnson & co. absolutely slayed, with our buddy Rob Hammersmith of Skid Row filling in on drums.

We got a sweet shoutout on this week’s episode of the Narcissistic Music Disorder podcast, featuring John Lamoreaux, host of one of my other favorites - The Hustle Podcast. You can check that out HERE.

I even managed to squeeze in a quick, late afternoon solo acoustic set, fresh out of the van from our Evansville show, and a little worse for wear, possibly due to a late night in the casino that just happened to be attached to our hotel. It was cool to dust off some other tunes that don’t get much attention. Maybe next time I’ll be a little more prepared, and a lot less hungover.

Speaking of next time, I don’t actually know when that will be. For the first time in a long while, we have absolutely nothing on the calendar. I guess all I can say is the old “stay tuned”, and hopefully we’ll have some news to share before long.

Until then, you know what to do…..

D.

It’s August, and while it’s not exactly “balmy” here in Middle Tennessee, it’s at least been less-than scorching these past few days, so maybe we’re coming out of the heat wave, just in time for another round of outdoor shows.

We’ll be in Huntsville, Alabama on Saturday, September 6th, to play the Rock Your Paws benefit, headlined by none other than Brother Cane, at a place called The Furniture Factory. We’ll be parked smack in the middle of a 5-band lineup for this event, organized by the Greater Huntsville Humane Society. Doors at 3PM, with the bands kicking off at 3:30.

Just a few days later, we’re off to Illinois, specifically Decatur, and The Devon Lakeshore Amphitheater, where we’ll be opening for Styx on Wednesday, September 10th. I’m hoping to see some of my Central Illinois peeps at this one, (Yeah, I know, it’s in the middle of the week, but hey, Rock N’ Roll happens on “school nights” too.) because this one’s a pretty big deal to me, having spent a considerable amount of time wearing out the grooves of my mom’s ‘Paradise Theater’ vinyl as a kid.

We’ll be following Styx up the road to Evansville, Indiana the next night, and doing it all over again at the Aiken Theater, in the Old National Events Plaza. It’s been a while since we’ve played Evansville, over 4 years in fact (I just checked), which seems crazy. I’m not sure where that time went, but we’ll try to make it up to anyone who’s been waiting for us to swing back around.

Speaking of overdue returns, we made a much-needed stop at the world famous John Brown’s On The Square last month, and played a set so long that both Matt AND Corey left the stage to use the restroom, at different times, while I was tuning my guitar between songs. Luckily for them, I was in a particularly verbose mood that night, as was Matt, on the way home, after approximately 27 pints of high-gravity draft IPA. 
We’d missed the folks of Marion, IL, and intend to find our way back onto that stage a little sooner than later next time.

On a somewhat somber note, we bid farewell to our beloved, trusty steed Jean-Claude Damme Van a few weeks ago. He was a loyal road warrior, and had been in our service since 2018…an especially admirable run for a vehicle of his vintage….but it was time for him to transition to the “family truckster” phase of his life, and he’s now toting a car seat or two in his Captain Chairs. We hail you, JCDV!

What’s next, you ask?

I don’t know. I heard (and actually contributed to) another tune from Kenny’s eternally-forthcoming solo record, and it sounds amazing! When the finished product will materialize is up to Kenny W. Rose to decide, but he has to be getting close to a finish line.

Otherwise, we’re just hoping to survive the scrutiny of a few thousand Styx fans. We’ll plan our next move when that smoke has cleared.

Be good to yourself…and one another,
D.
 

Photo by C.J. Gardineer

Michigan, you never let us down.

Weather? Well, that was something. I thought the app on my iPhone was messing with me, but there was indeed a significant environmental difference between Ludington and Paw Paw, with one stage a comfortable 70°, and the next nearly 90° when we kicked into our opening number on consecutive evenings.

As strict adherents to the “No Shorts In Rock N’ Roll(except Angus)” rule, this made Night 2 a real sweat fest, but the crowd rendered possible heat stroke, and sloshing around in our sopping trousers an afterthought, as we got to catch up with some folks we don’t see often enough, and meet a mess of new once-strangers.

Because the guys insist on premium accommodations, we booked rooms at an Econo Lodge that really wowed us with its amenities. Outlets that refused to retain anything you plugged into them, one dead min-fridge, 2 broken coffee makers(both missing the same part..sadly, a part critical to the unit’s sole function), a  variety of unique patterns of discoloration on some of the sheets, one useless key card, and a host of other “blessings”. The AC was kickin’ though, so we had that going for us at least, and there was a brewery in walking distance that had some pretty sweet chicken tacos, and a solid draft selection. It’s the little things, right?

We got 45 minutes each night, supporting The Verve Pipe. I think we held our own, despite falling well outside the confines of the post-Grunge, 90s Alternative genre the headliners are known for. Hell, they played 70s Rock covers (Supertramp & Fleetwood Mac) during THEIR set, so it wasn’t like we got paired with Ministry.

Up next, we make an overdue stop at our favorite Southern Illinois haunt - John Brown’s On The Square. Friday, July 18th, we find out if we’ve still got the legs to slam through 2 straight hours on stage. We’ll be playing a thing or two for the first time ever, and trying to remember a bunch of stuff we’ve done a hundred times or more, just most of it not recently.

“I have the utmost confidence in our recall, and stamina.” - That’s what my therapist has me saying to the mirror, several times daily, as we approach this engagement.

In September, it’s a fest in Huntsvllle, AL, with Brother Cane, and a pair of dates with Styx(Decatur, IL & Evansville, IN). After that, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe we should be thinking about some new music, I don’t know. Right now, it’s all about making the rest of the Summer’s shows the best they can possibly be, but somewhere along the way, I’d imagine those conversations are gonna start happening. They always do.

See you soon, and stay safe out there…the world’s getting weird.

D.

p.s. Be good to one another. 

We’ve been gone for a minute. What did we miss?

Matt went to Georgia. I was in Florida. Kenny was locked in a bunker, reading comics, and eating nothing but Sweet Tarts. Plus, Rizzo’s still in Germany, using only the lyrics of “99 Luft Balloons” to communicate with the locals.

We rocked Maryville, TN with Everclear, to a huge crowd of folks who just didn’t seem to give a damn that Mother Nature was determined to drown us all. You can check out some cool video clips of the first few songs by clicking on their titles below.

I’M ALRIGHT
HEAD LIGHT
LYVIA
STEVIE

Matt & Kenny both recorded episodes of the Narcissistic Music Disorder podcast that are now available. You can check out Kenny’s HERE, and Matt’s HERE.

We’ve got a new T-Shirt that’s available directly from us exclusively, either at the Merch table, before or after one of our upcoming shows with The Verve Pipe, or via this LINK (while supplies last).

Finally, speaking of shows - in addition to the ones already mentioned, we’ve got a long-overdue return to John Brown’s On The Square in Marion, IL,  set for Friday, July 18th, and a date with Brother Cane in Huntsville, AL, on Saturday, September 6th.

Oh yeah, and we’re doing some dates supporting STYX in the Midwest in September as well, but more on that later.

OK then, I told myself I was gonna keep this as brief and concise as possible, and I’d like to think I hit the mark for once.

Be good to each other,
  Denny

On May 3rd, I was SUPPOSED TO BE pushing road cases for Metallica, at Nissan Stadium, after they’d wrapped up a 2-night stand in Nashville…. Matt & I do the stagehand thing part-time, if you didn’t know. In fact, we spent most of yesterday building(and later, breaking down) Mary J. Blige’s light rig at Bridgestone Arena, and I went to bed at 4AM, so I hope you’ll be kind in excusing any typos that may populate this missive, as my dog seems to think I need to get out of bed at the same time each morning, regardless of when my head actually hit the pillow.

Back to the May 3rd change of plans. Instead of playing roadie for someone else, I’ll be my OWN guitar tech that night, as we’ve been added as support for Everclear at The Shed in Maryville, TN. Doors are at 6, and we should hit around 7 or so, followed by Art & his gang shortly thereafter. You can find ticket info, and all the other pertinent details on the SHOWS page of our site.

This will be our first engagement of 2025, and my debut outing with these newly-repaired wrists (They’re feeling much better. Thanks for asking.), and I can’t tell you how stoked we are to be back in the game, after a little hiatus. We’re gonna try to make up any lost ground over the Summer & Fall, and in addition to the handful of dates we’ve already posted, there are some great shows yet to be announced, for IN, IL, and AL, including some of the biggest opportunities we’ve had to date, so please keep an eye on our socials, because we’ve got juicy news in the pipeline, and should be able to share bits of that soon.

I think that’s about all I’ve got at the moment though, so I’m going to attempt an intonation tweak on a wonky E string, and see if I can’t get this new amp dialed-in before our next rehearsal. I’ll leave you with this - links to a recent podcast Rizzo & I guested on, along with Ryan Roxie (Alice Cooper), Freddy Herrera (Everclear, The Exies), Ryan Waters (Liv Warfield, Heart), and Nick Perri (Silvertide), where we all geek out over Cheap Trick with A-Sides host Andy Halleen. If you get your pods from Apple, click HERE, or Spotify HERE…and it’s everywhere else too, but I’ve got gear to futz with, and no time for tracking all that additional info down, so you’re on your own.

Cheers,
  Denny

p.s. A nice lady made me this hat. I think it’s pretty sweet.

Jean Claude Damme Van is under the knife this time. No sooner do my wrists start to heal, than our trusty whip needs a power window regulator replaced. I think we’ve put more money into repairs for this thing than we have at the fuel pump. If it didn’t already have its own T-shirts & coffee mugs, emblazoned with that ridiculously cool name (You’re welcome, JCDV), we likely would’ve retired the beast long ago.

The Van, The Myth, The Legend.

Speaking of T-shirts, we have a new design available from our Printify store, and you can make one yours by simply clicking right HERE (and remitting a nominal fee, of course). Inspired by the single greatest love affair in celluloid history, that of Ellen Aim & Tom Cody, in Streets Of Fire, it’s one even Billy Fish couldn’t say no to owning, probably in an ill-fitting Small.

We’ve added a couple of shows to the calendar since our last update, both of them a ways off yet, in July(a return to John Brown’s) & September(a fest in Huntsville, AL w/ Brother Cane, Lost Hearts, & more), but we’ve got a few other things in the pipeline that could materialize a bit sooner, so keep an eye on our site & socials for additional dates popping up.

We’ve been refreshing the set list for these upcoming engagements, going through our back pages to see what kinda trouble we can face-plant into by reacquainting ourselves with some material that got committed to tape, but never made it to the stage. Once I convinced Matt that a certain chord progression in “Unfound” (from 2018’s ‘Ten & 2’) was actually A to C, rather than the A to B he insisted on playing; repeatedly, we got that one by the horns, and it finally seems to have earned at least a walk-on. “Dirty On The Stereo”, from 2014’s The Die Youngs side-project has shaped up nicely as well, so I think we might continue digging, and see if there are any other overlooked also-rans in our oeuvre. Feel free to fire off suggestions.

OK then, as you were. My dog needs a walk.

Cheers,
 D.

The Before:
No sleeping through the night.
No feeling in my hands after 30 minutes of playing the guitar.

The After:
I sleep like a rock.
ALL the feeling, including some fairly frequent pain.

BUT, I can play the guitar. Now, I can’t play everything quite as effortlessly as I’d like, or entirely free of occasional discomfort, but I’m getting there, and I’ll take that over the alternative any day.

In fact, we finally got to plug back in Wednesday, and spend a couple of hours trying to determine just how much rust had accumulated in our nearly 2 months off.

A few squeaks, some righteous clams, and a missed lyric or two, and we had our answer.

I’m probably gonna be grimacing occasionally, for a while at least, when certain chords have me flexing my wrist at just the right angle to pluck whatever still-tender nerves are bumping up against the leftover scar tissue that has yet to fully disperse in there. I’ll gladly limp along, grin & bear it, man up, knuckle down, etc., if it means we can get back to doing our thing, because this business of sitting around healing, for weeks at a time, is not nearly as relaxing or therapeutic as it sounds.

Besides, I take pride in the fact that my waist size hasn’t changed since high school, and my recovery diet was about to put that in serious peril. Between meeting my insurance deductible, and being out of work for over a month, I’m in no financial position to overhaul my wardrobe. That’s a sh#tload of black t-shirts to replace, if I have to start wearing a Large.

OK then, enough about weight gain, and medical crises, let’s talk band stuff.

There’s really not much to speak of, at the moment, other than us kicking around a few show opportunities, and working up some new/old material into the live rotation, so we can keep it interesting this year, as we ponder whether or not we wanna make another record somewhere down the road.

Hopefully, we’ll have some new dates to post soon, but that’s in our agent/bass player Matt’s hands, which  are tiny, delicate, and as of late occupied with building a refrigerator-sized rack containing our in-ear monitor rig, and all of its related accoutrements.

Alright then, I’m signing off until such time as there is something more newsworthy to share. As always, please be good to one another.

Cheers,
   Denny