It’s thanks to young Anthony Menghi that fans of some of the top metal bands in the world have some of their musical heroes lashing and bashing their way through some classic 1970s rock cover songs as part of the bold, fun and badass new musical agglomeration known as BPMD.
The young mister Menghi is the son of the M in the band, veteran metal bassist/songwriter Mark Menghi, the driving spirit behind the already popular metal supergroup Metal Allegiance. A little over a year ago, the Menghis were enjoying a good old fashioned American family Fourth of July celebration. As the ashes on the barbecue cooled and the fire pit was roaring the back yard, the elder Menghi was nursing a cold beverage as the sun started to set as the familiar guitar riffs of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Saturday Night Special wafted out of his speakers.
Alm ost absent-mindedly, Menghi said to himself, but out loud, that he would love to play that song. Anthony was nearby, also enjoying the festive evening with his own non-alcoholic beverage when he apparently replied something to the effect of, ‘so, why don’t you.’
Out of the mouth of babes comes truth and wisdom, to paraphrase an old proverb, and in this case, it also generated an excited flurry of phone calls, the result of which brought together four of hard rock and metals most respected artists to record an album. The four are Menghi on bass, Overkill’s Bobby ‘Blitz’ Ellsworth, the man of a thousand bands, drummer Mike Portnoy (formerly of Dream Theater, now of Winery Dogs, Sons of Apollo, the Neal Morse Band and many, many more) and former Machine Head axe master Phil Demmel. The band name is simply the first letter of the surname of each band member.
Starting with the aforementioned Skynyrd stalwart, BPMD band members all chose favourite 1970s songs they would like to cover, regardless of their popularity or notoriety at the time. Other tracks covered in blistering fashion include Grand Funk’s We’re An American Band, Aerosmith’s Toys in the Attic, Walk Away by The James Gang, Ted Nugent’s saucy Wang Dang Sweet Poontang, ZZ Top barn-burner Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers, Cactus classic Evil, and Mountain’s Never in My Life. Two of the most surprising and potent tracks are the cover of Van Halen’s D.O.A. and Tattooed Vampire originally recorded by Blue Oyster Cult, a deep cut from their huge hit album, Agents of Fortune.
“Bobby and I were already toying around with doing something anyways. We were going to do something, I don’t know what it was going to be, but we definitely toyed with the idea of doing something together. And when this idea kind of came about, thanks to my son, I called Blitz up and he started spouting song titles out of his mouth. He actually already named the record during that first phone call, so he was all over it,” said Menghi, from his home on Long Island, where he and his family are practicing all the appropriate Covid-19 protocols.
“Literally, within 30 seconds he rattled off that he wanted to do Never In My Life and Cactus’ Evil. And I was like, ‘ah man, I would totally have picked Cactus.’ We just started naming songs and he was like; we have to do this. He asked who could play drums and I said I’m sure Mike can do it. He’s in 80 bands already so what’s the different if he’s in 81 at this point. And then it came down to guitar and we thought Phil would be perfect. Phil jokes that he was actually our third choice. He said, ‘oh you probably called Alex Skolnick [Testament’s guitar player and a co-founder of Metal Allegiance with Menghi]’ which I didn’t. ‘Well then you probably called [Sepultura’s] Andreas Kisser [also a participant in Metal Allegiance]’ which I didn’t. Phil was the choice because he’s well versed in all this music and we wanted someone who knew the 1970s inside and out, and somebody we had chemistry with. He’s been my stage right partner at a lot of MA shows, and I know he had both amazing rhythm chops and amazing lead chops.
“And f you really listen to this record at what Phil is doing, it is, in my opinion, his best playing to date on any record and that includes some of those Machine Head records, because it’s so diverse. Everyone knows him as the Machine Head, Vio-lence guitar player, but he hasn’t recorded with Machine Head in over 12 years. So, this is the first recording experience from Phil in over 12 years, where he’s playing rhythms and doing all his stuff. I mean, honestly this whole project is about fun, it’s four guys getting to act stupid together and make some music – and we both really well. And the chemistry was born from the Metal Allegiance experience, there’s no denying it.”
With a quartet of very experienced, very talented and very driven rock musicians, the process of settling on the song choices, their arrangements and doing the recordings came together at a breakneck pace – an energy and breathless urgency that is aptly captured on every track.
“It was just a few weeks later and the four of us got together and we hashed it all out at Mike’s house. We kind of arranged it, we got all our visions together of how we wanted to present these songs. Mike recorded his drum tracks in one day, so that’s what you’re hearing is one day’s work – 10 songs in one day. And that was the result of him just jamming to us. We were all in the main room having fun jamming and he has an isolated drum room where he records, and he just hit record and went for it, playing along to us, which I love because this record definitely has that live 1970s feel to it,” Menghi explained, adding that there were no restrictions or rules or people looking over their shoulders to impinge on their fun and their creativity during the entirety of the process. Napalm Records simply accepted the album as is, lock stock and barrel.
“Just like the early days of Metal Allegiance, there were no record labels, or anything, just the four of us getting together in a room. In fact, every record I have ever done has been with no label [except for distribution purposes]. No label, no outside influences it was, ‘let’s just do this to have fun and we’ll see what comes of it. And it was awesome. We have fun tougher. Both bands, MA and BPMD were born the same way – very spontaneously with no planning whatsoever, and it seems to be working.”
The music of the 1970s has been much maligned at times over the intervening years, but it’s gaining respect, particularly amongst the so-called Millennial generation, who aren’t as tied to the more close-minded thinking of their forebearers. Especially in the earliest part of the decade, it spawned heavy metal and hard rock in the form of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, there was the progressive rock stylings of Yes, Genesis and Emerson Lake and Palmer, the southern rock boom started with the likes of The Allman Brothers and the aforementioned Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the ‘peaceful easy feeling’ of a more folk and Americana-based rock and roll was being expressed by the likes of The Stone Poneys (featuring Linda Ronstadt), the Flying Burrito Brothers, The Eagles and Jackson Browne. Within a couple of years, the first fruits of the burgeoning punk scenes in New York City and London would begin to upset the musical applecart. All in all, the 1970s are, in hindsight, one of the most diverse eras in the history of popular music, and indeed, Menghi’s favourite era.
“I love 1970s music. That’s what I listen to the most. And when my son came to me and said, ‘you guys should cover this.’ I was like, yeah, that would be cool. Obviously, it wouldn’t work for Metal Allegiance, because we’re pretty defined now, but it’s not out of the ordinary for us as individuals to do it. I started thinking about how I would perceive songs from the 1970s, how would I cover and record them. And what you hear with Saturday Night Special on our record is literally what I had in my brain that Sunday night last year: the double bass drum, the way Phil’s playing it – that’s what I heard. And I love that track,” he said.
“And that’s to take nothing away from the original songs. To me, the original songs are perfect. This is just our presentation as to how we would do them. We all came into it with our vision of how to do these songs, and it’s primarily for fun. It was never meant to be anything more than us having fun and the listeners having fun listening to our interpretation of these songs that we love.
“Listen, the musical creativity of that era is off the charts. All of those different styles that you talked about coming out at the same time, they are all influenced by the Chicago blues musicians of the 1950s: Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon and that whole Chess Records scene, in tandem with Sun Records out of Memphis. You can hear those blues influences in every one of those 1970s artists. And that’s the beauty of that decade, because they were all around at the same time and there were all inspired by exactly the same thing, but they all had their own unique interpretations of that influence.”
So, what songs turned out in the most surprising manner once everything was recorded, mixed and mastered? Turns out, it was arguably the most obscure track covered on American Made.
“Tattoo Vampire, 100 per cent. I didn’t know that song at all. I had never heard it before Phil suggested it. I know the record and obviously I know the hits on that record [Don’t Fear the Reaper, E.T.I. and This Ain’t The Summer of Love] but I was never a big BOC guy. But Phil selected it, and the rule was that we couldn’t argue anyone’s choice, so it’s like ‘oh shit, I’ve got to figure this one out.’ And when I first listened to the song, I called Blitz and said, ‘what the hell are we going to do with this song?’ And he said, ‘well, it’s Phil’s vision, so we’ll see what happens,’” Menghi said.
“When he got into the recording room with Mike, I remember I was sitting on the couch and me and Blitz were kind of just looking at each other. Phil just said to Mike, ‘go Ramones style. Just do one, two, three, four and launch into it, playing fast.’ Then Phil started laying down those downstrokes and it was like, man this is borderline thrash, I like this! One we got it back from the mixer, I was like ‘this is fun, this is awesome.’ So that was the big surprise for me on this record.”
On a closing note, it needs to be reported that Anthony Menghi approves of the way his dad and his nutty metalhead pals put together American Made. He told Music Life Magazine that even though is favourite band is Metallica {not his dad’s Metal Allegiance!!] he too loves 1970s rock and roll.
“My dad was listening to this music and texting Bobby and I just came up with this good idea. I just thought it would be a good idea to make this record, because I really do like the music. I think they did a good job,” the junior Menghi related.
For more information on BPMD and American Made, visit www.napalmrecords.com, or the band’s social media accounts.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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