I ran into Sal Maida the other day, and he mentioned that he’d recently
been over to Iraq on a USO tour. Maida’s the bassist for Cracker, so
they weren’t hanging out with the megastars. They were touring in jeeps
and keeping their heads down. Anyway, it reminded me that my 2009 Stomp and Stammer interview with Maida had never been posted online. (That’s
him on the far left, incidentally.) His weird career certainly needs to
be covered, especially since he was left out of the recent Runaways
biopic. So here’s the story of Sal, and apologies for the headline.
It’s been several months, and I still can’t think of anything better…
Glam Cracker
Sal Maida’s March from Glam to Country to Whatever Cracker is Nowadays
“I was thinking the other day,” says Sal Maida, “that I was the
fifth bass player for Roxy Music, and I’m pretty sure I’m the fifth one
for Cracker.”
No other musician can make that claim—or anything close to it. Maida
has had a stellar pop career by just about any standard. In a very
short period in the ’70s, Maida managed the hipster hat trick of being
in three of the glam era’s best bands. That’s before there were even
hipsters. Maida now gets to be part of a hot band that should
technically be an oldies act, with Cracker touring to rightful
acclaim for their new
Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey.
Maida’s no mere sideman, either. “I’m still the new guy,” he says from
his Brooklyn home, “but this new record seems to make me a full-fledged
member. I have co-writing credits on nine of the ten songs. A lot of
people are saying this record is the best since
Kerosene Hat, so I
guess that’s considered their artistic and commercial high point. I
always thought
The Golden Age is underrated. It’s got a lot of great
songs, and there’s some incredible playing and production. You can hear
on that album why Cracker would be so perfect for me. This new one has
all my old styles, from punk to glam to country-rock, and some new-wave
and power-pop.”
Maida’s old styles are Cracker’s old styles, too, considering how much
territory has been covered by founders David Lowery and Johnny Hickman.
Maida gives them both credit for beating him to discovering country
music, though. He spent the start of the ’80s in New York City while
flirting with synth drums. Maida still managed an unfashionable early
start on Americana with The Lovin’ Kind in the early ’90s.
Maida stayed with that ignored NYC scene, too, and that helped him land
in Cracker for a 2007 tour.
Sunrise makes good use of Maida’s
complicated musical history, which began when the native New Yorker
moved to England after getting his BS in Economics.
“I’d just gotten there,” recalls Maida, “and I saw Roxy on television
doing ‘In Every Dream Home a Heartache.’ Like a lot of people, I
thought they were the most intensely original band around. I knew they
didn’t have a regular bass player, but it never entered my head that I
could play for them. I was working in a record store when [Roxy
drummer] Paul Thompson and [keyboardist] Eddie Jobson came in looking
for a Family album. I hid the copy we had, and told them I’d order it
for them so they’d come back to the store. We got to know each other,
and then I got a call one day from Paul saying that their bass player
couldn’t tour, and inviting me to audition.”
Fortunately for Maida, that would be one of the tours immortalized live
on 1976’s
Viva! album. Roxy’s revolving door soon had him looking for
work, though, which is when Maida landed another classic gig—although
it would take decades to become classic.
“I came back to New York,” Maida recalls, “and was approached about
working with Milk ‘n’ Cookies. There was already a pretty big buzz
about them as a glam-pop band. Then it took forever before the album
was finally released in ’76, and the critics just killed us.”
It didn’t help when the band members made fun of the Bay City Rollers
during a UK promo visit. Still, the sole Milk ‘n’ Cookies album is now
a proper cult item, most recently reissued last year on American vinyl.
Check out the album cover, and you can tell that Maida wasn’t getting
by on his image. His imposing presence doesn’t suggest anything glam or
twee about him.
“Yeah,” says Maida, “I was still this guy from Little Italy, so I had
to shed some testosterone. I was always looking to Overend Watts for
inspiration. He’s a big tall guy, and he was wearing five-inch platform
shoes—so I figured, you know, that’s cool. I was standing out like a
sore thumb in Milk ‘n’ Cookies. Roxy Music was a lot better. Phil and
Andy and Bryan are all at least 6’ tall. I was 6’5” and 150 pounds.
That emaciated look really helped.”
Maida didn’t have to look precious when he joined up with Sparks for
1976’s
Big Beat. “They had the same manager and producer as Milk ‘n’
Cookies, so that’s the way it happened. Sparks had been a big glam band
in England, but they were trying to crack the American market. Big Beat
was their take on Aerosmith—or, you know, as close as they could get.”
Big Beat would also lead to more live immortality for Maida, as he’s
featured onstage with Sparks during the climatic sequence of the 1977
disaster movie
Rollercoaster—in SenSurround! Cracker doesn’t have anyone else with that kind of background. Lowery
only has Camper Van Beethoven to his credit, while Hickman has an
embarrassing history with the failed ’80s guitarslingers of The
Unforgiven. Frank Funaro got his start drumming with the Del-Lords.
Things still work out nicely with Cracker’s latest incarnation.
“We were playing all the time around 2007,” says Maida, “and the
chemistry was really coming together onstage. It was still kind of a
surprise to be told we were heading into the studio to write a record.
They were just touring off
Greenland when I joined the band, and that
had gotten great reviews. Now there’s a real contrast with
Sunrise.
It’s completely different as a rock album. The reviews have been great,
the airplay’s been great, and a lot of shows have been sold out. It
feels pretty good knowing all that came together on the stage.”
As noted, a lot of what’s come together with
Sunrise reflects on
Maida’s bizarre history—which has a few unheralded chapters. Those
include Maida’s unlikely stint as a member of The Runaways for 1977’s
Waitin’ for the Night.
“I was in the Rainbow parking lot in L.A.,” explains Maida, “and
[producer] Kim Fowley came up and asked me if I was Sal Maida. He said
that he needed me for the new Runaways album. He had a dream that
Vickie Blue was tied up by snakes around her arms—or maybe it was that
her arms were snakes. Anyway, Vickie was the Runaways’ new bass player,
and she couldn’t play in Kim’s dream, so he took that as a sign. I told
him that I’d be happy to help out, but he was going to have to tell the
girls before I showed up at the studio. So I walk in the next day, and
all the girls are there. Maybe not Joan, but Vickie sure is, and they
look at me and say, ‘Who are you?’”
Maida never told anyone about his work as a Runaway. Nobody knew until
Waitin’ for the Night was reissued in 2004, when Fowley revealed that
fun fact in the liner notes.
“Yeah,” says Maida, “Kim outed me. I wouldn’t have told anyone. That’s
part of being a working musician. There are a lot of great musicians in
New York who don’t have regular gigs. I’ve been spending the past few
years with Cracker and working with Mary Weiss, so that’s been kind of
great. People ask me if it feels weird, but I don’t know if that’s the
word for it. I’m just appreciative."
