Tell Us about:

Your latest single you have released:

Sal Baglio: “Radio Wam Bam Boom” – it’s a jumpin’ little record I want my jockey to play!!

Dan Kopko: A barely-controlled detonation set to a bouncing floor tom beat. This song is what every little rock n roller wants to be when they grow up!

Your favourite lyric in this song:

Baglio: “Yeah we skipped school again / Up The Pru to ‘BCN / 52 stories / Callin’ Maxanne Sartori” – because that really happened back in 1973, ‘74. 

Kopko: “Guitar picks playing peppermint licks dissolving in the mouths of the rock n’ roll kids around the world” – classic Sal Baglio pop poetry!

Your favourite song that you have created that is an album track:

Kopko: Well, they’re all on the album, so that’s not a fair question! It’s like asking which of your kids is your favourite! They’re all beautiful and flawed in their own way!

Baglio: I don’t have kids, but what Dan says.

Your favourite song to play live:

Kopko: I can’t wait to play “Radio Wam Bam Boom” for the first time in front of a live house! Lots of babies will be born nine months from that show!

The song that was the longest to write and why?

Baglio: The one we are working on now called “Please Put A Drill Bit In My Brain [Let’s Rock]”

Kopko: Ha! None took particularly long. But the shortest to write was “Out Of The Trash Can Into Your Heart” — I got the idea just before ordering a pizza, came up with the lyrics for 85 percent of the song in my car on on the way to the pizza joint, recorded it on my phone on the way back, ate the pizza, then cut the demo that became the backing track that night. It took a little longer to write the bridge because it’s in French… and I don’t speak French.

Your most emotional track:

Baglio: The aforementioned “Please Put A Drill Bit In My Brain [Let’s Rock].”

Kopko: “Gigantor” – It’s a cry for help to a superhero robot that has more humanity than humankind. “They say a robot has no mind, still twice as sharp as yours and mine. He’s never cruel and always kind. Gigantor.” In these times, it hits a little too close to home.

Dream collaboration:

Kopko: Sal Baglio. Honestly, working with Sal on the two Peppermint Kicks releases is the most fun I’ve ever had making a record. I think there’s just a level of trust and spirit of fun and adventure that is hard to come by. And we both like to get shit done. That’s the definition of a dream collaboration.

Baglio: Someday I’d like to meet and work with Danny The K.

Describe the feeling you get when you walk on stage to do a show:

Baglio: It’s like shooting a gram of Viagra with a cough syrup chaser.

Kopko: I still get really nervous before a show. But that’s the fuel that makes it fun and powerful. I think Sal’s explanation is pretty apt!

The hardest track to play live:

Kopko: Ha! They’re all pretty hard because we come from the Roy Thomas Baker/Jeff Lynne school of production. Lots of layered vocals, mellotrons, strings, horns, you name it. You’d think we’d need a 17-piece band to pull that off! But they’re power pop at their core, so we do alright with a four-piece!

Essential items you always take on tour with you?

Baglio: Fingernail file, floss and soap from a Motel 6! 

Kopko: My 2010 Honda Minivan — essential cargo space, and you can put the annoying guy in the third row.

Describe your fans in three words: 

Baglio: Well, he is lonely, has a receding hairline, bleeding gums and stays to himself mostly but can you blame him? Wait, that’s more than three words – sorry! 

Kopko: Yes, but we are expanding our reach… I think he may have a girlfriend now, who comes to every third show. Or that could be his mom.

A song by another artist or band you wish you had written:

Baglio: “Strawberry Fields Forever.”

Kopko: “God Only Knows.”

What we can look forward to from your band this year:

Kopko: The release of our killer 10-song album Pop Rocks In My Chewing Gum on Rum Bar Records in August! A jellybean jar full of sweet and sour rock n roll goodness for all the boys and girls!

Thank you again for all your support in reading and engaging with the website.

If you want to help support the website then you can! You can buy Holly a cup of tea (and a biscuit!)