The Awesome Frank Meyer Of The Street Walkin’ Cheetahs
Interview By: Ginger Coyote
I revamped an old interview with my friend the amazing Frank Meyer who has done almost everything… You gotta love the guy… Enjoy the interview….
Punk Globe: Thanks for the interview. You are one hell of a busy guy, Tell us about your upcoming Street Walking Cheetahs new release. How long has the band been together and who is playing in the current lineup?
Frank: The new Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs album is called “One More Drink” and will be out this Spring on Dead Beat Records. It’s our first full-length album in nearly 20 years. We recorded it right before COVID, thankfully, and it features guest spots from Rikk Agnew of The Adolescents, John Easdale of Dramarama, and Paul Roessler of The Screamers. It’s the original lineup of myself on vocals and guitar, Dino Everett on bass, Mike Sessa on drums, plus our longtime collaborator Bruce Duff on guitar, and newer member Geoff Yeaton on sax.
Punk Globe: You mentioned you are working with Eddie Spaghetti. Tell us more…
When the pandemic hit, the Supersuckers were in the middle of a tour of Europe that they had to pull the plug on. When they got back, all the gear went into storage like it normally would between tours and everyone went back to their various homes to wait it out. But obviously, no one knew how long this would go, so they’ve been on hiatus ever since. Meanwhile, I was recording at home anyways and wrote this all-star charity song called “Flatten the Curve” that Eddie appeared on. When he found out I did most of it from home, we started talking about the idea of collaborating. We wrote and recorded a song called “Shit’s Fucked” and released it via Bandcamp under the name Spaghetti & Frank since we both have food references in our names. Then we recorded an updated cover of Tom Petty’s “Jammin’ Me,” and made a music video for it, and it came out on Acetate Records last summer. Now we are halfway through a full album of all new material plus a few covers.
Punk Globe: And how about Thor? He was a trip.
I met Thor back in the mid-‘90s when he was retired and I was a writer at POPsmear Magazine. I was a big fan and once he started playing again, we some songs together and ended up making his album “Thor Against The World” in 2005. I’ve continued to write, produce and play with him ever since, on and off. We made a fun album in 2017 called “Metal Avenger” that features Henry Rollins, Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys, Joey Shithead of DOA, and the last recorded solo by Fast Eddie Clarke of Motorhead! I just worked on 3 new songs on Thor’s upcoming album too, with Warrior Soul as the backing band. It’s pretty epic. I also co-produced and appear in the feature film documentary “I Am Thor, which came out in 2015. Big fan.
Punk Globe: I interviewed Brian Coakley of the AntiVirals and Cadillac Tramps and he mentioned you two doing The Anti Virals. How long have you been involved with the project?
Brian and I started a band a few years ago out of Long Beach called Blind House, who put out a single last Spring called “California Sound.” We were selling out clubs around the OC and doing really well until COVID hit. That band has been on hiatus ever since. But Brian started writing these politically charged hardcore punk songs and I asked if I could jump on a few and add some backing vocals and lead guitar. Soon we had a whole album and decided to call it The Anti-Virals. The album, “Brainwashed,” is out now on Nadine Records Music.
Punk Globe: It seems to me that White Trash Debutantes and The Street Walking Cheetahs played shows together. I remember really liking the song Lil Tokyo.
I remember playing with White Trash Debutantes at Dragonfly and Hell’s Gate in the mid-90s, and more gigs during that era I’m sure. I’m guessing Bar Deluxe and Al’s Bar too. We used to play with White Trash Debutantes and Texas Terri a lot back then, plus B Movie Rats, Bellrays, ADZ, and Hellbenders.
Punk Globe: I had never really met your long-time bass player Dino Everett until recently. He worked on some Underground films I made with Karl Hinz. He is involved with a punk film project..
Dino has always been a film buff. In fact, he used to run a drive-in theater in Florida in the ‘80s. We met in a video store in the valley in the early ‘90s nerding over obscure horror movies and punk rock. The Cheetahs were founded on these things. Over the years he got a degree and now runs the film archive department at USC and flies around the world giving speeches to film students. When I first met Dino, he had just moved out of a dumpster he was living in. True story. He has come a long way.
Punk Globe: A couple of years back we interviewed James Williamson. You were playing with him… Tell the readers what is happening with the band. Is it Rachel Hayden playing with you guys? I know you had one of the triplets in the band.
I met James through Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys. I was playing second guitar in Cheetah’s band when we got a gig supporting James at the Bootleg Theater in LA. He was doing an all-star set of Stooges songs with different singers and needed someone to cover a few tunes. Cheetah recommended me and I did the gig, which was an amazing night where I got to sing alongside Jello Biafra, Allison Mosshart, Jesse Matlin and more. If the story had ended there it would have already been perfect. I got to play with my hero. But a year later James texted me and said the Stooges were finally wrapping up the reunion trek and would not be doing any more work, and he needed someone new to write songs with. He gave me a few musical ideas he was working on and we quickly made them into songs. When we went into the studio, he brought Petra Haden, who sang in That Dog, sings with Mike Watt, jazz legend Bill Frisell, and has her own group with her talented sisters, the Haden Triplets. James loved the combination of our voices — an unlikely pairing but he had a vision — and we decided to make it a band. We became James Williamson and the Pink Hearts, completed an album called “Behind The Shade,” and did some music videos and shows when it came out in 2018. Last year I worked with James and Deniz Tek of Radio Birdman on their album “Two To One,” co-writing 3 songs with the guys. So at this point, I guess I’m one of his go-to guys for songs, lyrics, and vocals, which is beyond awesome. Iggy and the Stooges were a HUGE influence on me. I mean, we named our band after the first line in “Search and Destroy,” for crying out loud! The whole thing is a trip.
Punk Globe you recently did something with one of my favorite bands The Bellrays. Give the details Frank. What a talent Lisa is…
The Bellrays were the first band the Cheetahs met when we started out. We met them at a gig in the basement of the Coconut Teaszer in Hollywood in 1995. Our original guitarist Art Jackson knew Tony Fate, who was in the Grey Spikes at the time but was writing and producing the Bellrays. Little known fact, I briefly sang in the last incarnation of the Grey Spikes before Tony decided to join the Bellrays full-time. Anyways, we played a million gigs together, toured together, and Lisa and I both played in Wayne Kramer’s band for a spell. Plus, she was one of the guest singers at that James Williamson show at the Bootleg. We even sang a Christmas song together called “Christmastime Again” on a compilation record back in the day. Lisa and Bob are dear friends and I absolutely love them to death. Incredibly talented folks with hearts of gold. And yeah, Lisa is one of the best vocalists on the planet. In fact, I was just on their IGTV podcast a few weeks ago and we sang our Christmas song together for the first time in decades. It was a blast!
Punk Globe: Tell us about your work with Fender?
I was Sr. Content Producer at Fender from 2016 until COVID hit last year. I directed and produced the tutorial content for the Fender Play app, so basically very high-end guitar, bass, and ukulele lessons. I was the first hire on the digital production side of the product and, along with Cinematographer Jason Valdez and a killer team we built, created the look, workflow, and content approach that defined Fender Play. I’m very proud of the world we did there and met lots of incredible music instructors that really inspired me to take my skills to the next level. I also bought a metric shit-ton of guitar while I was there!
Punk Globe: You are also an accomplished writer. I enjoyed the book you did with a long-time acquaintance Monte Melnick. That must have been fun and very interesting… Monte was the anchor for The Ramones on the road. I hung out a lot with Joey while he was touring. Fun Wild times
“On The Road with The Ramones” was my first book, and was a co-write with the band’s tour manager Monte Menick. It was really his life story with the band and I just helped him write and assemble it all. But it did really well and is in its fifth pressing in 8 different languages. Then I worked with Dave Mustaine from Megadeth on his book Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir and photographer Neal Zlozower on his book Van Halen A Visual History 1978 – 1984. After that I wrote When the Wall of Sound Met the New York Underground: The Ramones, Phil Spector and End of the Century for Rhino/WB. At that point I thought I was done writing books, because non-fiction is just a gigantic amount of work and I was getting a little burnt doing this on top of my day job, my music, and being a single dad. But then I met this guy named Chris Pegula, who ran a company called Diaper Dude and was the first guy to start making baby Bjorn and diaper bags for men. He cornered the market and was doing talk shows chatting about being a young dad, so we scored a deal with Penguin/Random House and wrote a book called “From Dude to Dad” about what soon-to-be-dads need to know when women are pregnant. It did really well and we wrote a follow-up called “Diaper Dude” that covered the stuff dads need to know for the first 2 years of fatherhood. We made ‘em easy-breezy reads that are funny and anecdotal with sidebars chock full of info and tips. After those two, I again was feeling burnt out on writing books, and said I was definitely done. But now since COVID I started, I’m doing it again and I have three book proposals out there. Never say never, right?
Punk Globe: You also directed a film about the Wu Tang Clan and the aneurysm That must have been tough. Did you interview the wonderful Bridget Powers aka Bridget The Midget who was in a film with them?
Sadly I did not interview Bridget though I remember her from the Howard Stern Show. But back in the ‘90s my day job was as a publicist in the music business. One of the artists I worked with was a Wu-Tang Clan offshoot group called Sunz of Man. I became good friends with the rapper Hell Razah and we stayed in touch. In 2010 he suffered a brain aneurysm and lost the whole left side of his body and the ability to rap. I filmed his recovery and rehabilitation for 5 years because I thought it was an inspirational story and I was a big fan of his music. But mainly I just loved the guy and thought he deserved a spotlight on his story. The film is called “Risen: The Story of Chron ‘Hell Razah’ Smith” and won a bunch of awards. It came out on Amazon Prime last year and is now also on Tubi, Google Play and Youtube Movies. Myself and my film partner Robert Juster are currently shopping around a second documentary feature I directed called “Freestyle 101: Hip-Hop History” that is narrated by Chuck D, stars Ice-T, and is about the history of freestyle rap.
Punk Globe: Do you enjoy doing Comic Con in San Diego? My pal Pauley Perrette attended it when she was playing Abby on NCIS.. She had fun..
From 2004 to 2012,I worked at G4tv, NBC’s lil’ TV network dedicated to videogames, pop culture and tech. That’s’ where I cut my teen as a producer, director, and editor, and learned just about everything I know about production. Part of the job was being a field producer at events like Comic-Con, E3, Games-Con, PAX and stuff like that, so I worked all those for many, many years. I even went to Japan to cover Tokyo Game Show! It was a ton of fun.
Punk Globe: You have ventured into commercials tell us about that.
After G4tv got the plug pulled on it, NBC started the Esquire Network and a handful of us G4 folks were asked to stay on board to help launch this new network. Soon after, I slid into directing and producing TV commercials. My specialty became writing/directing/producing co-branded TV commercials for clients like Sonic, Dyson, State Farm, and stuff like that. It was cool. I got to helm some pretty big-budget commercials on big locations and cool sets, with casts and extras and all that showbiz stuff. Later when I worked at Fender, I went on to direct a lot of their proms, marketing videos and social media spots as well.
Punk Globe: How long have you been living in Long Beach? How do you relax?
I moved to Long Beach in 2006 after my daughter was born. I was married at the time, but after we got divorced I decided not to move back to L.A. as I had fallen in love with the LBC. I’ve lived here ever since. I dig the vibe. It’s more chill than L.A., but not too far if I need to get up there to get work or music done or whatever. But Long Beach has a really thriving music scene (pre-COVID) and clubs like Alex’s Bar, DiPiazzas, and the Good Bar are great venues for musicians like me. These days, I spend my time making music, writing, and working on various projects out of my home studio. To relax I take my dog Mojo, a pit we got from a rescue, for walks around town. Lots of record stores in my hood too, so we like to bop around bars and record stores. I also hang with my 17-year-old daughter a lot, when she can stand it. She’s at the age where I’m either really cool or a total embarrassment to her. I get it.
Punk Globe: Do you have any Internet addresses you would like to share with the readers?
You can find my solo music here: https://frankmeyer.bandcamp.com
My Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyvSIb8Vvl5K2DTLwQuAb1w
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankmmeyer/
My film: www.risendocumentary.com
plus
IG:
@thefrankmeyer
@streetwalkincheetahs
@spaghettiandfrank
@theantivirals
FB:
@frankmmeyer
@thestreetwalkincheetahs
@theantivirals
Punk Globe: Tell us what is on the horizon for you?
The new Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs will be out by this summer, as will the full-length Spaghetti & Frank album. I co-wrote and play on the new single by The Dogs, called “Under The Coast,” out on Die Laughing Records in March. I also started a side-band with the guys in GayC/DC called BFF and we have a single called “Triggered” out real soon. There’s a killer UK band called The City Kids that I met when I played on the last Warrior Soul album. I am all over their new album “Rats” and their upcoming album “Filth,” plus we started a side-project band called Anti-Fashion that has an album of Social Distortion covers out soon. And keep a lookout for my new movie “Freestyle 101: Hip Hop History.”
Punk Globe: Describe yourself in three words.
Art Like a Beast
Punk Globe: My pal Mollie Heckerling who is Amy Heckerling’s daughter asked me to convey to you that she misses your brother Brecken who was in Clueless and sends her love to him.
I will pass on her love to my brother Breckin, sure. Lots of folks don’t know that Breckin was the original drummer in the Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs and played with Tom Morello for years. Despite his actor image, he is a rocker at heart.
Punk Globe: Any last words for Punk Globe readers?
Always finish what you started. Don’t let anyone tell you can’t. Don’t let anyone drag you down. Don’t listen to haters. It’s ok to fail, just learn from it and move forward. Don’t let all this COVID shit stop you. Take those lemons, add Vodka, and make spiked lemonade, dammit!