Here at Glorious Noise, we’ve got a soft spot for overlooked bands that never really made it. We’ve done big features on the Sinatras, Two Cow Garage, Chamber Strings, the Blacks… None of these bands achieved nearly the level of success they deserved. And we’re not talking about mainstream, Top 40 success here; we’re talking about the “real music fans ought to have at least heard of these guys” level of success.

The latest band in this series is the Krinkles. They broke up acrimoniously after releasing one good, fun album (Three Ringos) and one great one (Revenge of the Krinkles). These were the days before Napster, before MySpace, before mp3 blogs, and all the niche-level fanbase community-building stuff that has become so commonplace these days. In 1998, the only way anybody could have ever found out about the Krinkles was if they walked by a flyer taped to a telephone poll outside a record store.

Now, after eight years of not even talking to each other, the Krinkles have agreed to get back together for a couple of reunion shows in their former homebase of Chicago. On Saturday, April 19, as part of the 2008 International Pop Overthrow Festival, they’ll play The Spot. As a “top secret” warm-up show, they’re also playing Phyllis’ Musical Inn on Friday, April 18.

We talked to the guys about how it all started, what went right, and what went wrong. It’s not an unusual story when it comes to rock bands, but that doesn’t make it any less poignant. After all, our motto is “Rock and roll can change your life.” Read on to see how it changed the lives of four guys who knew each other since high school, and find out what caused them to set down their instruments and move on…

GLONO: High School, Bill Knapps, and the Lovely Ladz

Jerry: Henry and I went to one high school in Livonia, Michigan, and Matt and Fox went to another.

Henry: I was a misfit and a nerd. Jerry schooled me on Led Zeppelin. We all got jobs washing dishes at Bill Knapps and that’s how I got to know Matty and Fox. Our common freakish senses of humor bonded us all.

Matt: Jer was older, seemed pretty smart, had a car and a goofy younger brother. We both played bass and talked about music during our monotonous, but sometimes funny shifts.

Jerry: I was just starting out playing bass, and Matt helped me along. I was an idiot. I didn’t even know that certain strings were certain notes and that the notes on bass were the same as like the notes on a piano or a guitar. But I knew I loved rock and roll and so did those guys. At that time I was actually just discovering Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. It was an exciting, awkward time and it was nice to have some comrades.

Matt: I thought Henry ran with the “cool/popular crowd” and was a bit nervous about working with him since the cool kids never liked me. Well, during our first shift together, I quickly found out he was an awkward nerd like me.

Fox: Matt and I met in Mr. Kroll’s communications class. I can’t remember how we started talking about music but there is something that I said to him that I still get teased about to this day. He mentioned that he was a bass player, I mentioned that I was a guitar player AND I wasn’t just fucking around in my room: I was in a real rock and roll band.

Matt: Fox said, and I quote, “I can probably blow you off the stage.” To this day he still doesn’t remember saying this to me. But if you know Fox, you’d believe it in a second. From day one, the guy has been cocky, unfiltered, a control freak, and pissed at the world.

Fox: In the 20 or so years that have passed since then I’ve worked hard to change his mind.

Matt: We still joke about this and he’s still my best friend. I really love him dearly…but it happened, it fuckin’ happened.

Fox: I started playing guitar when I was 14 and formed my first band right away. We were called Armageddon, little kids with mullets dressed up like Dokken, and we rocked accordingly. By the time I was 16, I was in a another metal band called Attack and was already playing suburban Detroit clubs like the Token and the Studio Lounge. We even played the Ritz in Roseville a few days before Paul Stanley played there. He was doing a solo tour away from Kiss and the people that worked at the club kept teasing us saying that he was going to be there that night to see our set. I thought that I was the shit. The bouncers used to make me stay back in the storage room of the clubs until right before I went onstage because I was underage, but I didn’t mind because I felt like a real rocker.

Matt: Jerry, Henry, and I started playing together in Michigan around 1989 as The Lovely Ladz. We all played various characters. My main character was Stylez, the flamboyant glam rock drummer. Jerry was simply Jerry Rokker, the crazy bass guy. Henry was Dash Rip Rock, the ULTIMATE cliché hard rock front man. Jerry’s brother Danny was The Baby Velvet on guitar and wore a diaper. Our friend Jim Voss was Don Wa who smashed things on stage and was our “freak-out” guru.

Fox: I wasn’t as close with the other guys as I was with Matt. But he was always doing things with [Jerry and Henry] while I floated in and out of their world. I was always in my “serious” rock bands (Attack, Rock Steady) including one with Matt where he played bass and sang. I wanted to be cool, I wanted to be a rock star, and I figured the only way to do that was to be “serious” musician in a “serious” rock band. The Lovely Ladz were far more creative, hilarious, entertaining and clever than a regular rock band. The first time that I saw them perform was in Henry’s parents’ basement.

There’s another thing that happened between those guys and me that, again, made me seem like a total dick. I had promised Matt an opening spot for the Ladz at an outdoor party that my band was going to be playing. Again, this is something that I don’t quite remember doing. But apparently the guys got all ready for this gig and I then waffled when it came time for them to play with us. It pissed them off.

Anyway, at some point I saw the Lovely Ladz perform at Michigan State and they were fucking awesome. It was so off the wall, entertaining and creative; they had found another way to be cool besides just being a “serious” rock band. I was totally impressed and wished I was smart like them: they found a way to be cool on their own terms.

Matt: Fox joined later as “Mickey Trixxx,” the most cliché hair metal guitar player character you could ever imagine.

Fox: The Rock and Roll that was going on when I was growing up and getting into music is now derogatorily referred to as “Hair Metal.” I loved it all then and I still love it to this day. Along the way, I got into other genres but it’s all rock and roll to me.

GLONO: 1994 – Jerry, Henry, and Matt move to Chicago and form the Krinkles

Matt: We didn’t necessarily move to Chicago to start a band, but figured we’d probably start playing together because we didn’t know anyone else. It was difficult at first because everyone seemed to have a different idea of what the band should sound like. We would have discussions about it and Jer’s attitude was something like, “Why do we have to pick a direction? Let’s just play whatever we want.”

Henry: Early on, I can’t think of any main influence. For Three Ringos, I would just find some riffs and write whatever lyrics came to mind. I didn’t have a plan. Maybe I should have.

Matt: I think we ended up going down the path you hear on Three Ringos because Henry and I were coming in with the bulk of musical ideas at the time and we listened to tons of pop-rock bands like Raspberries, Badfinger, Beatles, Cheap Trick, Blondie, Monkees, Material Issue, etc. My personal influence for the band was The Romantics. But Jer was into bands like Primus and Led Zeppelin. I’m also big into hair metal. Henry also loved “smarter” stuff like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Elvis Costello, etc. We all loved Dread Zeppelin, Spinal Tap, and Mojo Nixon.

Jerry: My influences are the bass showboaters like Les Claypool and Mike Watt and Flea. I think that was always a tension in the band that I wanted to be a “lead” bass player, which doesn’t necessarily work with a power pop band. Though I do think it did add a nice dynamic at times and I hope that I sort of was able to help the band more that hurt, especially the rhythm section.

Matt: It was a messy combination, but it was The Krinkles in the early days. The first show we saw [after arriving in Chicago] was The New Duncan Imperials with Mojo Nixon at Lounge Ax. I remember Jerry, Henry, and I looking at each other and saying, “Oh my god, people love ‘funny bands’ in Chicago — WE’VE ARRIVED!” Little did we know NDI is the exception to the rule, and overall Chicago has a pretty “serious” or dare I say, pretentious music scene for most part. Soon we befriended NDI and started opening some shows in Chicago, the Midwest, and South. We learned a lot from them. They definitely showed us the ropes (some good, some bad), and we also got opportunity to play clubs who would have never looked at us twice. They needed someone to goof on and carry their gear and we needed some tough love. And we got it…big time.

Henry: I think we provided comic relief for them.

Fox: I always felt like a human doormat when we hung around with them but the rest of the guys seemed to really look up to them. Trying to load NDI’s gear into an already packed van in subzero weather in a scary Kansas City alley while they drank beers with their roadie is not my idea of a good time, but what do I know?

Jerry: Matt worked with Skipper at Pravda Records. Matt was really the one in the Krinkles who understood the business side of music. He worked his ass off, and I am forever grateful.

GLONO: 1996: The Krinkles record Three Ringos

Matt: When you listen to Three Ringos you’re hearing a garage band in the purest sense. Henry and I were still learning our instruments and Jerry wasn’t too far ahead. We were also learning how to write songs together while coming from slightly different places taste-wise. Three Ringos is pretty damn raw. It’s kinda like looking at old photos of myself with a mullet in high school: it’s embarrassing, but it takes me back to some great times.

Jerry: I am extremely proud of Three Ringos. Probably more so than anything I have worked on. I think it is because we were so wet behind the ears, and it was just us against the world. A true innocence. For Matt and Henry it was their first time in a real studio, and it was just amazing to hear our little seeds of songs sprout into real recordings. Ahh, the innocence…

Matt: We recorded it with the late Phil Bonnet who played in Cheer-Accident and recorded Smoking Popes, New Duncan Imperials, Green, Screeching Weasel, and a million other bands. We had such respect and admiration for Phil. During the various sessions, I remember Henry saying something like, “We’d rather just pay to hang out with you, don’t even bother recording us.” I also remember during our final session recording the song “Theme?” and Thymme Jones (singer, drummer) from Cheer-Accident delivered us a pizza. He stayed to hang with Phil for a bit and listen in. I was so embarrassed. Here’s this super talented guy sitting here listening to our stuff and we’re big fuckin’ hacks (even though he’s a pizza delivery guy).

Henry: Phil Bonnet was an awesome guy and a huge hero for the Krinkles. He recorded Three Ringos at Solid Sound Studios. As far as studio time, it was probably our most professional setting. Phil would order us Cheesy Beefs on Garlic Bread from Zippys and after we ate them, the session was pretty much over. I don’t remember the exact date it came out, but I remember that people didn’t like it.

Matt: The album title is a total rip on the three of us. We always thought Mr. Starr was the most underrated/least popular/disrespected Beatle and felt a strong connection to him. We always felt behind the 8-ball and seemed to have something to prove (to this day). In retrospect, maybe we had something to prove to ourselves, but at the time, it was Us vs. Everyone. Maybe naming the album Three Ringos confused people. Oh well…

Fox: The guys didn’t record Three Ringos all at once like we did with Revenge of the Krinkles. They did a song here, a couple of songs there, etc. So when I was still back in Michigan, Matt sent me a cassette of their first recordings which I think were “Cry Cry Cry” and “Man O’ Man O’ Schevitz.” I was totally blown away. Matt had turned the tables. He was in the real band and I was the guy just fucking around in his room. More time passed and they kept writing and recording more songs.

I actually joined the band while they were still finishing up Three Ringos. The guys were gracious and had me play some guitar on “Pink One” so that I would feel like I was a part of the album. We played some of those songs live all the way through to the end of the band. If you’re lucky enough to own a copy of the ultra rare Honey I’m Home live EP recorded by Dan Palmer, you get to hear the four-piece versions of a few of those songs in all of their glory.

Matt: Fox moved to Chicago from Michigan a year or so after Jerry, Henry and I, but we didn’t invite him into the band immediately. I remember talking to him on the phone just before he moved and he sorta asked to be in the band. My response was “Why would you want to play with us?” I also knew if Fox joined The Krinkles, we’d be different and he would eventually take over. He has a strong personality and likes to be in control creatively. I also like to be in control, but I’m more passive aggressive about it. I actually didn’t tell Jerry and Henry that Fox asked to be in the band for a few months. But I remember one day the three of us had a band meeting about schedules, gigs, and stupid band stuff. Then out of nowhere, Henry whips his cardboard calendar right in Jerry’s face (I forgot exactly why). Right then, I thought to myself “OK, time to bring in Fox.” Even back then we were about to kill each other and I felt we couldn’t exist anymore as a three-piece band. We needed a change…fast.

Fox: It took a while for me to “infiltrate” the band. I was still sort of “crashing the party” that they already had going on. You have to understand that I had done this in the past with the Lovely Ladz. So with The Krinkles, I was again trying to get in on something that they had already worked so hard to establish.

Jerry: I think for a while we thought of ourselves as a “raw” rock and roll band as a way to sort of cover up any lack of real talent.

Matt: At the time, Henry was a diamond in the rough. His solid songwriting was just kicking into high gear, but his guitar playing was coming along a little slower. Believe me, it ain’t easy being in a three-piece band with wobbly players. I was also to blame; my drumming was coming along very slowly.

Jerry: Fox changed the entire dynamic of the band. It changed our sound from a sort of raw, sparse, 3-piece with 2-part harmonies, to a huge, full 4-piece with guitar solos, and 3-part harmonies.

Fox: Hopefully I brought some power, precision and a few more good songs to the band. The guys always had good songs, but live they weren’t very tight. I always had it in my head that I was there to whip things into shape musically. Maybe the rest of the guys didn’t feel exactly the same way as it caused a quite bit of tension over the years. I can be a control freak, too demanding, and somewhat of a task master, which rubbed people the wrong way at times. But in my warped mind I was trying to improve the sound of the band.

We were all into having good harmonies in the songs. Henry in particular had a real talent for finding harmonies and seemed to enjoy working them into the songs. We used to do acoustic rehearsals where the main objective was to get the vocals right. We’d even record those rehearsals and listen to them later to figure out what we needed to work on. Henry and I usually came up with our two-part harmonies really quick which left Matt having to sing some of the trickier passages to create the three-part harmony.

Matt: It’s always been a challenge to play drums and sing, but the more I did it the easier it got. Kind of a pain in the ass, but I had to if we wanted 3-part harmonies. Towards the end of The Krinkles, I was doing less because Fox wanted me to focus more on my drumming.

GLONO: 1998 – Revenge Of The Krinkles

Matt: I think Revenge Of The Krinkles sounds a lot more professional because we became a more professional band. We were getting our shit together. I remember recording the album with Chuck Uchida — after takes, I would RUN back to the control room to listen. It was exciting.

Fox: We went into the studio way more prepared. We really worked hard on the songs and we actually demoed every single song on our own with a little four track cassette machine. I vividly remember Matt calling me a “slave driver” for working him too hard to get all of his tracks recorded. Before we even went into Attica Studio to record for real, we made sure to give Chuck that demo and we also had him come out and see us live. All of those things made us more prepared and maybe also gave him a better idea about what the band should sound like on tape.

Henry: We wanted to be rock stars. I pictured our fans in the audience relating to the music, and thinking, yeah, I’ve got a ticket to see the Krinkles, life is good. “Atom Bomb” was set to be a much darker song: “I lost my passion, some where down the line. A knee jerk reaction, (something) at the back of my spine.” That line was in reference to a long time relationship I was in at the time that I couldn’t seem to get out of. The guys convinced me to change it so I came up with “Your love is like an atom bomb, spiked right through my vein. Hit of smack or a heart attack, destruction assembly line.” Just fun words that sound good together, painting a picture…

MP3: The Krinkles – “Atom Bomb”

Fox: “Working Girl” really is a true story. I was working at crappy little interactive company that did advertising and wayfinding kiosk systems. I was depressed out of my mind at that point in my life anyway, and that job only made things worse. One of the people on the staff was this absolutely enchanting woman that I found myself having the biggest crush on. At the time, I was in a long term / long distance relationship with another woman. Working so closely with my “secret forbidden crush” created a lot of angst, confusion and stress in my already depressed mind. I already had the bridge part (“I never think about” etc.) without any lyrics, just chords and melody. The rest of the song was really easy to write, it just “came out” one day after work. I never had the balls to present the song to the real “Working Girl” or anything like that. And in the end, I was back with my original girlfriend after the album came out. I always felt like a dishonest chump because when she asked me what “Working Girl” was about, I had to make up a story about how it was about one of our friends, Vitas Zebraitis, because I knew I’d be in trouble if I told her the truth. Henry came up with the “She’s not in love with me…” response parts during the choruses which really added a lot to the song.

MP3: The Krinkles – “Working Girl”

Henry: I find “Stupid Love Song” kind of an embarrassment now. At the time, I didn’t have set lyrics, and one night on stage I came up with “Spread eagle with a plate of lasagna.” I thought it was funny so it stuck. There are also some uncomfortable references to oral sex. I was really into Bukowski and an underground comic called Peep Show by Joe Matt. Those guys pretty much put all the disgusting details of their lives on the line, and I thought it was liberating and brave. In hindsight, maybe some things should stay in the bedroom…

Fox: All of our favorite bands had cool shit that they did with their album artwork. We knew that we wanted to do something really special. Craig Jablonski is the guy that did the Revenge of… artwork. I can’t remember what we had in mind originally for the album. But I do remember that we had some initial conversations with Craig and then he faxed over a few rough sketches. One of the sketches was us as aliens which was definitely not part of our original conversations. We thought it was a really cool idea anyway and began to conceptualize in that direction. We all worked together to write the storyline for the comic book. Henry actually sat down and drew up a rough storyboard for Craig to work off of.

Henry: Again, something we thought we would get a really positive reaction, like the Three Ringos crayon thing [To go along with the diner menu theme, they included a crayon in the clear jewel case. -Ed.], but no one seemed to care. At the time, it seemed the world hated power pop. And us.

GLONO: How close did you come to making it?

Jerry: Who knows? It really is impossible to tell if we were on the verge of any kind of success.

Henry: Some guy supposedly came to show, he was from some record label, we were all excited. I think we played a show at Thurstons, which was one of the cooler clubs we played. Nothing ever came of it.

Fox: One time we played the Double Door on a Wednesday night and Jerry Springer showed with his trophy whore girlfriend followed by a cigar smoking entourage. Does that count?

Matt: The Krinkles were the biggest bunch of low-self esteem, self-destructive, self-loathing, misunderstood dudes you’ll meet. We seemed to relish shooting ourselves in the foot and anything good that happened to the band made us feel funny. But I honestly didn’t start playing in The Krinkles to “make it,” but had the attitude of “stranger things have happened.”

Fox: One of my favorite Krinkle shows was in Detroit at the Magic Stick. We opened for a female wrestling federation. One of the wrestlers saw us in Kalamazoo and personally requested that we perform before their match. We did lots of “long weekend” road trips and we actually did a two week tour after Revenge of… came out. I remember playing at the Melody Inn in Indianapolis on that tour. It was a Monday night and the place was totally empty except for the bartender. At one point during the set he stepped outside for some air and we rocked our hearts out for no one.

Henry: We opened for NDI in Winnipeg, Canada for a three day tour in the middle of winter. The van got stranded in Fargo for a night.

Fox: That van was like a fucking thermos: It kept us hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. But we loved every minute of it.

Henry: In Winnipeg the show was at the Royal Arms, a live rock venue/junkie hotel. I slept in a room that someone died in.

GLONO: So what the fuck happened?

Henry: We all fed off of each other’s negativity. Fox was, and is, a great musician, and maybe the rest of us couldn’t quite keep up. It’s hard to stay in a band when you have no fans and no one cares. We loved the music, and each other, but it just got too hard. We all had to grow up on our own. Together we kept ourselves in a childlike state, unable to move ahead. There was a girl, but really it could have been anything. Our time had just run out.

Fox: Like any relationship that ends, the breakup of a band is always a slow downward spiral, not an instant event. Our breakup was no exception. When a band is trying to find success and isn’t achieving it they begin to wonder why. That usually starts a process of questioning themselves and changing things to try to find something that works. You could argue that the guys had already started doing that when they decided to bring me into the band. As the process continues on and success still doesn’t come, things can only get worse. The band begins to turn on itself. So yes, Jerry and Henry fought over a girl but that wasn’t our downfall, it was just another event in a long string of events that had begun long before that incident. Even after Jerry’s exit from the band, in our quest for success we continued to do things that contributed to our demise.

Matt: There was lots of frustration building up in the band. When you’re not successful or as successful as you think you should be, you start pointing fingers. Lots of fingers were being pointed at Jerry and me. But when Fox would talk to me about issues he had with Jerry and Henry, I found myself defending them more than reinforcing Fox’s complaints. I always wonder if Jerry and Henry had my back when Fox complained to them about me.

Fox: One of the stupidest decisions that I ever made happened during the recording of the third album. I wanted the third record to sound bigger and better than Revenge of… I got it in my head that Matt wasn’t going to be able to record with the precision that we needed. I talked Henry into the idea of getting another drummer in just to record the tracks. Matt would still be in the band, he just wouldn’t be on the record. And to make this boneheaded idea even more ridiculous, I was certain that I could pose this to Matt and he wouldn’t mind! Obviously, that wasn’t the case and at the time it caused a lot of damage to our friendship.

Matt: The “straw that broke the camel’s back” was the night we played Rory’s Music Café in late 1999. Henry started dating [a woman] who had recently broken up with Jerry. It was complicated. On top of that, Jerry was struggling with a lot of other issues in his life. So that night, with [her] in the audience, he drank too much and started acting out on stage. He started screwing up songs on purpose and being totally self-destructive. It was really dark and sad. I understand it was a fucked up situation, but don’t take it out on us and the audience.

Jerry: I guess all I can say is that I had a massive nervous breakdown due to a number of factors. After an onstage meltdown I spent 48 hours in a mental facility and was fucked up for a while. I was drinking way too much overall and trying to teach high school math in inner city Chicago. The fateful night I got shit-faced and played like crap and told my bandmates to fuck off. It was the worst time of my life. Within a week I lost my girlfriend, my band and my best friends. I was honestly very suicidal. I was having daily panic attacks and was just generally freaking out all the time. Before the breakup I was acting like a pompous ass who thought I knew what was best for the band, and I thought I was a big rock star or some such shit.

Matt: At that point we couldn’t work with Jerry and had to let him go. We auditioned lots of bass players, but couldn’t find anyone who was any good. Then we found this one guy and he couldn’t commit. We ending up having Johnny Million and Chuck Uchida fill in for live shows and some recording for 3 – The Mordorlorff Collection.

Fox: Another thing that really fucked us up was the working relationship we had with our engineer for the third album. He excelled at the art of manipulation and lived to pit people against each other. He saw our weaknesses and subversively worked to exploit them. What really gets me to this day is the fact that we had to pay him to do it. And in the end, we only had tracks that were half done.

Matt: Today I’m glad we recorded those songs for 3, but it was brutal for me at the time. Fox wanted me to drum to a click track, and I was having a problem with it in the studio. It wasn’t a major problem when I practiced with one, but for whatever reason it wasn’t happening in the studio. Why Fox wanted me to play to a click track makes no sense to me to this day. Overall, I don’t think he ever liked my drumming style and wanted me to fail to prove his point. After our weekend of recording “disappointing” basic tracks, we decided to go back to the practice space so I could “sort things out.” I distinctly remember practicing the song “I Want You” to the click track and getting through it about 95% flawless. After finishing, I personally felt really good about the run through, but Fox said something like “we need to work on that a lot more.” Right there, at that moment, I thought to myself, “What the hell am I doing here? This sux, I quit.” I ended up quitting for real the following week when Fox called about setting up a time for our next practice. I didn’t necessarily quit because of the click track issue but because Fox had completely taken over with Henry supporting whatever Fox said, and I no longer had any input whatsoever. Also, in my opinion, the band had gotten so far from its original intention…it just wasn’t fun anymore.

I’d like to point out that Fox and Henry went on to form The Millions who I think are a great band. Shortly after leaving The Krinkles, Fox and I repaired our friendship and we are still best friends to this day. I consider Jerry, Henry, and Fox my brothers and always will. I really have a lot love for those guys.

GLONO: Any regrets?

Henry: Before the Mordorlorff album came out, I was wishing that the Krinkles never happened and that I would have grown up sooner and gotten my life into some kind of order. But after hearing the great job Fox and Matt did on the CD, the music shines and really shows our love for rock and roll. I became a proud member of the Krinkles again, and was able to appreciate that part of my life.

Fox: I wouldn’t change a god damn thing and I’m really happy that we’ve put all of the negative shit behind us. Although it would have been nice to have been huge somewhere… maybe Japan? I’m really looking forward to hanging out and rocking with the guys again.

Matt: No regrets at all. I’m proud of what we did and wouldn’t change or do anything different.

Jerry: Regrets?! Of course… fucking up the band is the biggest regret of my life. Though in hindsight after the breakup I did do some really positive things in my life that might have saved me. I quit drinking completely for a year, exercised, climbed mountains, moved to Colorado, drank herbal tea, blah, blah, blah… (Why are those “Behind the Music” shows always the same and always so unintendedly hilarious?) I know that I have a fucked up, selfish, self-destructive personality. I would like to think that if my on-stage blowup of the band never happened, that we would have continued and been successful and been rock stars. But at the same time I really can’t imagine myself on tour where people actually come out to see us, and every night is a party, and being able to stay sane. The rock and roll lifestyle really is what you see on VH1, and it takes a certain type to manage the madness. I dream all the time about “What if?” with the Krinkles, and feel horrible that I fucked up the band. But at the same time maybe I saved my life by getting out while I did. Yep, the biggest regret ever…

GLONO: 2007 – The Mordorlorff Collection

Fox: Matt was the guy that came up with the idea to do it. We had a lot of music laying around and we thought it would be nice to have it out there. He and I spent a couple of months putting it all together. It’s not that we didn’t want to include Hank and Jer in that process, it’s just that Matt and I literally live right next door to each other so it’s much easier for us to get together and work.

MP3: The Krinkles – “Gimme Gimme”

Fox: The tracks on that album come from quite a few different places. A little while after Revenge of… came out, we had already built up some more new songs and went in to demo them. So some of the tracks on 3 were from those sessions. They feature the original band at the same studio where we recorded Revenge of… (Attica), with the same producer (Chuck Uchida). Some of the other tracks on 3 came from our final recording sessions at K——- studios. Since we broke up in the middle of those sessions the tracks were instrumental only. Henry and I decided to keep playing together after The Krinkles so we completed those tracks at home by adding vocals and some overdubs to use as demos for a new band. The rest of the 3 tracks are either home studio demos or live.

Jerry: When Matt sent me the CD last year I had really forgotten how good some of those songs were. I would listen to them and say “Wow! We really were a good band at times.”

Fox: Putting that album together with Matt was a lot of fun and great way to work toward getting rid of our “demons from the past.” Plus, Matt did such an amazing job of promoting it and I literally couldn’t believe the positive reaction that we got. The critics finally seemed to “get” the band.

Jerry: Funny story. In the song “Girls, Girls, Girls” by Mötley Crüe there is a line where he sings about the “Marble Arch” strip club… Well, Matt thought it said “Mordorlorff” and thought what the hell is that?!! The Mordorlorff…and we all laughed…. Well, a while later we had to come up with a name for our publishing and we knew that in business there is always the chance that you choose a name that is already taken or similar to some other name, and you have to change it and lawyers get involved. We needed a name that we knew would be unique. Hence, Mordorlorff!!

Fox: After 3 came out and was so well received, it really went a long way to heal some wounds and open up some communication. Matt and I started joking around about doing a reunion. The more we joked about it the more we realized that it was something that we seriously wanted to do. We weren’t sure that the other guys would even be interested but we made up our minds to find out in late 2007. Matt reached out to Jerry and Henry in January of this year and they were both willing to give it a shot.

It sounds corny, but all of these events coming together was really exciting and inspiring to me. So I decided to try to write a new Krinkles song. The song began to come together really quickly and I played what I had for Matt. He and I got together once or twice to finish it off. We recorded it in my apartment. It’s the first time Matt and I have recorded together since 2000. The track turned out great and we had a blast working on it. It was so much fun that maybe, we just might work on some more music. And I heard a rumor that Henry was working on a song or two as well…

MP3: The Krinkles – “Still in Love”

See for yourself how much the Krinkles still love rock and roll on Saturday, April 19, at The Spot and at the “top secret” warm-up show at Phyllis’ Musical Inn on Friday, April 18.

Video: The Krinkles – “Atom Bomb” (live on No Cover)

Video: The Krinkles – “So Many Girls” (on Chic-a-Go-Go)

Video: Krinkles Call-In on Sam Actor’s 10pm Rock Concert Special (30 minutes)

MySpace: The Krinkles

Previously: The Krinkles – Still in Love; The Krinkles – 3 – The Mordorlorff Collection (review).