superGARAGE Interview

I’m really excited about sharing this with you today. This is the very first interview I ever conducted. It was done for community television nearly 15 years ago.

I just figured out how to turn the TV show into a radio podcast so we can enjoy it together. Here is the transcript. I hope you enjoy it and that you download the show so you can listen to it for free as well.

Chase: “All right everybody, this is Chase March and I got a special treat for you today. This is the first interview that I ever conducted. Yeah, way back in August 1995. It was originally done for Roger’s Community Cable 14 for a great music show that we put together. This was one segment. We had a bunch of different bands on there preforming their songs live and then we talked to them in between the songs. It was really cool to do.

I was so nervous doing this interview because it was my favourite band at the time, superGARAGE. They are an awesome, awesome band. I wanted to see if I could figure out how to turn a television show into a radio podcast so that you could hear it along with the other artist interviews I’ve been doing recently.

superGARAGE consists of,

Marco DiFelice – vocals, guitar
Mike Palermo – back-up vocals, guitar
Rob Passero – bass
Roger Habel JR – drums

So without further ado, here is superGARAGE from the interview I did back in 1995. Enjoy!

Chase: “Hi! I’m here with superGARAGE today on ‘Expose Yourself’ and we’re gonna start off with a tune by them that’s called ‘Post Teen Crisis.’ Stay tuned we’ll be right back.”

I found this footage on YouTube to share with you here. The drummer of the group Roger Habel Jr posted it. Enjoy!

Make sure you download the podcast to hear all the live songs they played in our studio.

Chase: “What a great song, I gotta tell ya. SuperGARAGE, thanks for coming down. Marco, I gotta ask, ‘Where do you get all the energy?’”

Marco: “Pasta, lots of pasta. I make a lot of pasta. Even when I moved away from home and I lived on my own, it was the first thing I learned how to make was pasta.”

Chase: “That’s cool. How do you guys go about writing the songs? Are you the main lyricist?”

Marco: “Ya, myself, the lyricist. Mike’s usually the music. It’s not set, but it’s usually music first. He gets me a tape. I play around with the tape for a little bit, get the lyrics to him, and he changes it all around. And I change it all around, give it back to him and he changes it all around, and we come to some form of an agreement.”

Chase: “That’s cool. You guys have a tape out now. It’s called ‘Duct Tape.’ How long have you guys been working on it?”

Marco: “I would say, when Mike?”

Mike: “February to March.”

Chase: “It’s really good. I definitely recommend this tape. It’s only 5 songs but they all rock. Is it available in stores yet?”

Marco: “It’s gonna be soon. It’s in a few stores in St. Catherines, not yet Toronto but we’re working on it. We’ve just been kind of slow about it. At this point it’s just been mainly the live shows that people have been picking them up.”

Chase: “Ya, we’ll have to keep a look out for superGARAGE in a store near you pretty soon. So I hear you guys are involved in a radio contest. Do you want to tell us something about that?”

Marco: “Q107 has a homegrown contest that they’ve been having for about 16 years. They narrowed down to 12 bands on the CD. They called us up about a month ago and they’ve narrowed it down to 4 bands now; Anyhowtown, Poor Get Fat, and Naked Planet are the other three bands and we’ve got to play for the big prize two days from now which would be August 29th.”

Chase: “Unfortunately, the show is not going to be aired before that so people aren’t going to know about that.”

Mike: “We won!”

Chase: “Yeah, they won.”

Marco: “Just in case…we won, even if we didn’t…we won!”

Chase: “You guys put out a newsletter. Very Comical. I love this. You’re coming out with shoelaces, googles, and farm equipment? You guys put on a great show. Very energetic, great live show, I really like that.”

superGARAGE: “Thanks!”

Chase: “I was wondering, what’s the plans for the future of superGARAGE? What’s in store?”

Marco: “There’s a lot.”

Mike: “Basically writing and playing. Hopefully, maybe, more people will hop on the ride.”

Marco: “The bandwagon?”

Mike: “Yeah.”

Marco: “Whatever band wagon we want to create. There’s definitely more songwriting coming up, a CD, we’re working on getting some stuff on the Internet, ya know, talking to a lot of people that listen to our music through that, and video. There’s probably going to be a video done for ‘Post Teen Crisis’ in September. And touring. We definitely need to get out there in the next couple of months because the tape just came out and we really feel that we need to kind of explore Canada before we jump to the States.”

Chase: “That’s great. So, we’ve got lots to look forward to from superGARAGE. You guys have been together for a long time haven’t ya? Not a new band.”

Marco: “No, not a new band, maybe by name. A lot of different names over the past 10 or 12 years. Mike and I started back when we were in grade school like every band starts but we just stuck with it a little longer than most.”

Chase: “That’s great. So we’re going to go to another song now. It’s called ‘Away.’ It’s not on this tape. It’s off your first album but it’s a great song. So let’s go to it and check it out, superGARAGE.”

Chase: “Where does the time go? Thanks for coming down from St. Catherines. This has been a great show. I love having you on. You’re one of my favourite bands. I gotta recommend you to everyone out there in TV land. Look out for this tape. It’s gonna hit stores and check View Magazine to see when they’re coming down because it’s one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen.”

superGARAGE: “Thanks.”

Chase: “We’re going to go to one of my favourite songs on this tape. It’s called ‘Except You’ and thanks a lot for coming down. This is superGARAGE.”

superGARAGE: “Thanks!”

That was the first interview I ever had the pleasure of conducting. It was pretty cool how it came about. I was volunteering for community cable television, and put on this great show called ‘Expose Yourself’ every week. We interviewed local, independent artists and had them play their songs live, and we talked to them to promote their music.

I’d been working on the show for quite some time behind the scenes doing floor directing and camera operator and whatever else they needed me to do for the show.

One day I saw this great band named superGARAGE perform. I just stumbled across them. They were opening up for another band that I went to go see. They put on such an amazing show. Marco, the lead singer would jump and run around the stage like crazy. He had so much energy and their songs were full of energy and I just really loved the band.

I bought their tape and a T-shirt that day and I went home and I saw the contact information on the tape. I thought. I should get these guys on the show. I talked to the producer at the time, Dave Goddard, and he said, ‘Great! Ya, get them on the show and you can interview them.’

‘Woah, me? Doing an interview? I’m a behind the scenes kind of guy.’

Dave was like, “No, it’s your favourite band. You should do it.’

So, I jumped on board and that was my first taste of being an interview host. And I really loved it. I’ve got to interview some really amazing bands since then too. It was the start of a journey.

I’m really glad that I got to share this interview with you all these years later.

SuperGARAGE are an amazing band. They put out several albums. The first album was done under the moniker of ‘Free Spirit’ and it called ‘Yup.’ After that came the cassette release of ‘Duct Tape,’ which was followed up by a CD release with a new song on it as well. They then got signed and released ‘The Self-Titled Debut Album By…’ They followed that release up with two more, ‘Demolition’ and ‘Elvis was Bigger than the Beatles.’ The lead singer has also put out a solo album. So if you like what you heard, go find these releases. I think you’ll be happy that you did.