SE: Did you grow up in the Bay Area?
RM: I was born in San Francisco, but my folks moved to Denver Colorado when I was a couple of years old, and I didn’t come back until the late 60s when I became a hippie.

SE: What brought you back to the Bay Area?
RM: The whole San Francisco hippie movement. Me and a few of my friends all came out from Denver, like everybody did from across the country…cool place to be. 

SE: The earliest sessions I know of you doing were the Van Morrison records. Were there any earlier stuff then that?
RM: That was about it. I played with Boz Scaggs. I did a little tour with him and I played with Van Morrison and uh….that was it. I mean I did a few things around the Bay Area. I was in a band called ‘Sawbuck’ for a little while. That was my first band that was in the Bay Area. It was like a Dave Robinson, Bill Graham you know, record deal thing that we did with him for one time and I had actually left the band when they signed the deal, but I came in and I played on a couple of tracks on their record so…

SE: So you kind of got your foot in the door right away. That’s pretty lucky.
RM: Yeah. 

SE: What were you listening to growing up?
RM: Oh, just standard stuff, like radio stuff you know, I mean…what ever was on the radio. I’d listen to the Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks, whatever was being played on the radio. Hendrix, Cream..all that kind of stuff. That’s why I recut “Telstar” on “The Speed of Sound” album. Because these kind of sounds that got through to me when I was a kid were just amazing, you know? 

SE: Yeah. One thing I’ve always noticed about the Montrose albums is that you guys did alot of oldies…
RM: Not really. 

SE: A handful of em, the old rockers.
RM: Like which ones? 

SE: Like, “Good Rockin Tonight”.
RM: Yeah that was mine…actually I know that was an Elvis tune, but that’s my arrangement that I’d gotten off of a P.J. Proby record that I had. 

SE: Really?
RM: Yeah and I had heard his version which I really liked. I mean, I know Elvis did a great version, but I really liked P.J.’s better and I adapted his arrangement for, as you know, the band cause I thought a really good shuffle like that would be great. 

SE: And the song “Trouble” is another Elvis song that you guys used to do.
RM: Yeah, but we didn’t record that on a record. 

SE: You just did it live?
RM: Yeah. Once in a while. I think it actually may have shown up on one of those radio bootlegs or whatever, but no we never recorded that one. And once again, I dug the Elvis tune and that’s why I did it. All those cover tunes we did I brought to the band. That was just kind of my thing. If I found something great, I’d like to do it. that’s why we did “Connection” by The Stones.  

SE: That was cool. How you’d pull out the obscure songs and re-do them.
RM: That was my thing. I’ve always listened to music and found things that I really liked and would end up just putting my own slant on them. I’d heard later that someone had spoken to Keith Richards and said in fact, the “Connection” song…he had written it slow, like I arranged it. Cause it as a real fast…almost a country and western song, you know? And he had mentioned it. That he had written that song slow. 

SE: So then you jumped from Van Morrison to the Edgar Winter Group?
RM: That’s right. 

SE: And you were only with them for one album huh?
RM: Yeah. One record. It was a fun time. Good band. 

SE: Then when you decided to form your own band, how did you go about recruiting the other three members?
RM: I think the way this happened…now, the band Sawbuck…uh..I had met Bill Church before that and we played together in a couple of bands and in fact, Bill and I were like camping and fishing buddies. He played bass and I played guitar, but we used to just hang out and go fishin’ and campin’ so my connection to him was already there. And then when I left Edgar and wanted to do my own band, I can’t remember who the guitar player was….but somebody gave Sammy my number and told him that I was looking for a singer and Sammy had contacted me and said,” I’m the man!” I went to see him play at this club called The Warf Rat in San Francisco and he looked good. He was in a band doing all cover tunes and so that was it. I said, “You’re a good singer and he had played me a couple of tunes that he had written and we started figuring out how we could co-write things, and it worked great. And he had mentioned how he had used Denny Carmassi on a demo that he’d done a couple of months before then or whatever, and I went to see Denny play a live gig and just basically cut the deal with him at his break time and said,” You’ve gotta be in this band. This is right for you!” and that was it. That’s how we all got together. 

SE: And when you cut that first album, that was done in 1973?
RM: Yeah. 

SE: And how long did it take you to do that record?
RM: About a month. 

SE: It almost sounds like it was done in the same day.
RM: Well, it was done pretty quick let me tell you. Most of the tracks were cut live. There were a few guitar solo overdub kind of things, vocal overdubs….Sam you know, wasn’t as experienced as he is now with vocals,…so it took him a while to get the right vocal track down just because he didn’t have the chops that he’s got now. But other than that, it was there. It was done, it was mixed, and it was over. 

SE: It’s just got that constant energy throughout the whole record.
RM: Uh huh. Two different studios,…”Rock Candy” was cut at Sunset Sound because we knew that Zeppelin had recorded there and we wanted that big Bonham drum sound even though I mean it was gonna sound like Denny, we just wanted that ambient room that they used, and the rest of it was cut in another studio, but I think we might have done one more song there too. 

SE: I’m jumping ahead a little, but when Van Halen did their first record, did you see any similarity in the sound of those two records?
RM: Oh yeah. Eddie is quoted as saying that he specifically went to Ted Templeman and told him that they loved the Montrose album and that’s why they wanted him to produce it. They loved Ted’s ears and his production chops and the engineer’s ears, Don Lande. And that was it. The rest is history. 

SE: And Bill Church left the band right after that?
RM: Yeah, actually it’s always been a thing with me like uh,….musicians in the band….He didn’t leave the band, actually we just wanted to get another player. It was a mutual group decision that we wanted somebody that could handle a little bit more than just bass, so we brought in Alan Fitzgerald. 

SE: For keyboards and bass?
RM: For keyboards and bass, yeah. Somebody with a little more musical depth. And not that Bill isn’t one of the greatest rock player around, cause he is, but at that point all of us were figuring that we needed a little bit more. 

SE: Today, we all kind of hunger for somebody to sound different on the next record….
RM: Right. 

SE: But everyone has a formula and just makes records like cookie cutter records….
RM: That’s something I never did and still never do…and will never do! 

SE: Every record sounded completely different.
RM: Yeah. I mean it hasn’t been to my…you know, I haven’t built up a financial portfolio and bought tons of property because of it. But that doesn’t matter. I have to do it that way. 

SE: Why do the same record twice?
RM: I can’t do it. 

SE: So, Ted Templeman is responsible for that big thunder rock sound you guys go on that record?
RM: Yeah. I mean literally we told him…I mean it’s a real simple equation,..we told Ted that we liked Zeppelin and Deep Purple and Ted ,you know, he was in a band called…what was their name uh… 

SE: Uh…Harpers Bizz…
RM: Harpers Bizzare. They did a recut of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Feelin Groovy” and he had just started working as an A&R guy with Warner Bros. and was doin’ staff production stuff and he produced Van Morrison’s “Tupelo Honey” which is how I met him. And when I had left Edgar’s group I had my options of between going with Warner Brothers and going with Epic Records. The head of Epic flew out to California to my house and wanted me on the label, and Ted flew me down to L.A. and wanted me on their label. And I want with Ted because I had more of a camaraderie with him because I’d worked with him with Van. And we told him what we liked and I’m sure he went out and got Don Lande and I’m sure that he and Done Lande went out and got Zeppelin records and Deep Purple records and said let’s get these guys this sound. I mean I have memories of Don Lande crawling around…you’ve got to remember this is 1973, and there wasn’t any such thing as digital reverb. There were live echo chambers…live rooms that had speakers and microphones in them and they were called you know, live rooms. And I have memories of Don crawling up in the attic, crawling around in the room and spreading out packing blankets to dampen it just the way he wanted it. So that was the fine tuning of the live reverb room…to dampen the room physically with packing blankets. 

SE: I’ve gotta say, that record turned out alot heavier than any Zeppelin or Deep Purple record that I’ve ever heard.
RM: That would be what we call…debatable, but I’m glad you think so. 

SE: I had never heard anything that sounded that in your face… I mean, I remember that record…when you dropped the needle and hadn’t turned your tuner on yet, you could still hear the damn record.
RM: Yeah, and one of the beautiful things about that era was that….you know, now with CDs, and Dats, and mp3 files and Liquid Audio files…all those new things that I think are great in their own right, but one of the things about that record in that era was that..I mean it was on vinyl. 

SE: Right.
RM: And the technology was such that, you know… Todd Rundgren was famous, or dare I say infamous for putting out this 25 minute per side record. But the physics were that on a vinyl record, the more time you occupied on one side, the less deep a groove you could cut because by virtue of the turns around the turntable…do ya understand what I’m sayin’? 

SE: Oh, yeah. Just ask Mr. K-Tel.
RM: There you go! The less turns and the less volume you could get. And I look back and I’m goin…you know, that first record was like, only 35 minutes long! We had like 17 minutes per side. So you know, which allowed Don Lande as a mastering engineer to cut the deepest groove on the record, and the thing was like…literally twice the volume of alot of records out then in vinyl. 

SE: Yeah, it was.
RM: And that’s one of the things we now know to this day ….we realize was a strong point on that, which we didn’t know before, you know, we weren’t really aware of that. I was sort of interested in the technology, so I was the only guy in the band who would like venture into the cutting room and just check out how they were doing it because I loved mechanics you know, but it was very interesting. But that’s why that thing jumped out and was in your face because, think about it…Today you couldn’t get away with putting out a record that was 35 minutes long. That’s like half of a CD. 

SE: Or an EP.
RM: Exactly, but back then, that was not a problem and the thing just flew off the shelves. Everybody had to have it. 

SE: And then “Paper Money” was alot more quiet and subdued.
RM: I have no idea why. I have no recollection as to why that process came about. I know we were having problems with “Paper Money” just conceptually, you know, it’s like..I was at that point where it was my second.. I guess personal album, that I wasn’t working for somebody else. It was my band. And I just wasn’t interested in doing another like, first “Montrose” album. I mean, God bless “AC/DC”, they’ve done the same record for 30 years. And God bless ’em, you know? But it’s the same thing and I just couldn’t do it. So I was just trying to experiment more with other things. 

SE: When you guys reunited for “Warmth of the Womb” for Sam’s album, you pretty much proved that you could put that magic back in the bottle anytime you want to!
RM: Oh yeah. As soon as we got together..that was the first time that the four of us had been in a room for probably more than twenty years, together playing music. I mean, all I had to do was hear one single kick drum hit from Denny…that was it! His pocket has gotten…like any good master, has gotten so much deeper, so it was incredible! So Denny and I rebonded immediately. It was great. My condition to do the track with Sammy,..and when he called me and asked if I would do it I said, “Well, I’m just finishing up with Sega. I happen to have all my gear up here and I’ll be glad to come up and do it with you, but I’m tellin’ you right now, you’re not touching a guitar.” 

SE: (laughing)
RM: And then he added some extra stuff on there after we did the session and I really wish he hadn’t done it. I’m serious. He added some little tags on there, some stuff that it’s like…I’m goin’, you know man….keep it pure! Keep it what it is. Keep it a power trio with a vocal! And I told him while we were recording that I don’t want to see him with a guitar. So he came in, and it was actually cut as a live 3 piece with him doing the vocals, and I laid a solo over the top of it. And that’s when…as soon as we were playing it….and we actually recorded… I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but we did just a spontaneous version of “Rock Candy.” 

SE: I read in some interview that Sam gave, that you guys did do that.
RM: Yeah. It came out somewhere. I’ve got a copy of it from somebody. He released it in Japan as the B side to one of his singles. 

SE: You’re kidding?!
RM: No, it was on a CD single in Japan. 

SE: Uh-oh.
RM: Ah, it doesn’t matter. Denny called me from Japan and said…”Hey man, you know what he just did?” (laughs) I said, “Well, you know, hey at least it was a good take.” But as soon as we played that and finished “Warmth of the Womb”, I realized that there was and is a chemistry with the four of us that is undeniable. I mean it was a plain as day. It literally took us 10 minutes to completely get back into the groove, and to do the thing we did 25 years ago. I mean there was no question about it. 

SE: That’s phenomenal.
RM: Yeah. 

SE: Because most bands after that amount of time need 10 months just to rehearse.
RM: No, it took us.. I mean literally within a half hour we were there. And the groove was there. The vibe was there, the whole thing. Then it was great for me. It was cathartic because I really didn’t want to do it, but I did it because of the fact that it was going to be not only just Sam, but it was going to be Denny and Bill and it was all four of us. It was like seeing your old high school buddies. And what I realized is…I mean, it was a great experience for me to see how the way all of my….you know, the things I’ve been through, and the paths that I’ve led in my life, to look at it more objectively and to see what a great band those four members were without having to deal with it on a personal level in that way, but just realizing that the combination of the four of us was pretty high energy and good chemistry. 

SE: So for the duration of Montrose, before you did the Gamma thing, was there any weirdness between you and Sam all those years.
RM: There was always weirdness. And there’s always gonna be weirdness in any band period! It might be just a guitar player/lead singer thing, but I mean I’ll guarantee you that Pete Townsend and Roger Daltry have had fist fights. 

SE: Oh Yeah.
RM: I’ll guarantee you that Steve Tyler and Joe Perry have had fist fights. 

SE: Oh yeah.
RM: I’ll guarantee you that Bon Scott and Angus Young have had fist fights, you know what I mean? (laughs) It just is what it is. 

SE: I’ll guarantee you that Mick put up his fist and Keith nodded off, yeah.
RM: That’s right, exactly. So, yeah there was weirdness there because if there isn’t that means you don’t have the kind of egos that are necessary to make that kind of thing happen. I mean, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, I’m sure that they had serious battles. Our problem was that with us…that it never resulted in fist to cuffs or anything. We just sorta like…because of the kind of the personality I am, I’m not a guy that is interested in that kind of conflict so I didn’t take it to that level and neither did Sam. So yes there was always weirdness… I don’t know how to explain it…except that it was like…it was personal, and it was there and it was what we did at the time not really knowing how to deal with each other. We just tried to find common ground that we could relate to and that we could all meet upon and we just never really did it. 

SE: The reason I ask that is because I’ve heard him interviewed on the Howard Stern Show and he said that after the Paris gig you just fired the band to get rid of him.
RM: But that was a joke. Sam even told me that people go…”What happened to Ronnie?” and he goes “Well, I think he fired everybody and now I think he fired himself” you know? So that’s just his schtick. That’s just Sam. We’ve always gone after each other in the press and have done that schtick thing with each other. People used to ask what happened and I said, “We got in a fist fight and I won and he left” you know? That stuff means nothing. Whatever he does, he does for his own thing. It just isn’t an issue to me. I didn’t fire the band. I fired Sam. 

SE: You did?
RM: Oh, yeah. From that band on the way back from Europe, yeah. He had just like demonstrated that his only interest was in promoting himself at that point and I wasn’t capable of dealing with that. If it were a different time I would’ve realized that that’s the nature of a lead singer and might’ve been able to be a little bit more tolerant to the fact that it was a total self-promotion thing. I just wasn’t interested in dealing with that. 

SE: Legend always had it that after Paris, you just fired the band.
RM: No, no, no. It was on the way home on the plane and I was basically saying…”Look, it’s not happening, and I’m gonna do something else.” 

SE: So, could there ever be a possibility of you guys putting that magic back in the bottle ever again?
RM: Actually, to tell you the truth I really, really fought for it on the 25th anniversary which was in ë98. I actually lined up Sam, Denny, Bill… we all talked about it after we’d done the song for Sam’s record. And I even line up Ted Templeman to produce a live CD. But my problem was that Sam wasn’t willing to rehearse the amount of time that it took #1, and #2, he wasn’t willing to do a live CD because he was just releasing “Marching To Mars.” He said, “Well, I’m with you guys. I’ll do a live show for our fans, but I won’t do a CD.” Because whatever his record company was…which has gone away now… But whatever it was at the time wasn’t into it. And my problem was that…I’ve received quite a few hundred emails from fans of that record saying…”Man, we would love to see that happen!” I mean hundreds and hundreds of emails. But like I said there is no way that I would do it in a “masturbatory fashion.” To just go out and like get a couple thousand fans off at a gig without recording it and documenting something like that, ….Denny was in absolute agreement with me that we would not do a project like that without doing a CD. So since it was sorta political and Sam couldn’t do the CD and wasn’t interested in that, we all just said no. But I really worked hard for it. A 25th anniversary would’ve been great you know? But…didn’t happen. 

SE: Well, maybe on the 30th…
RM: Yeah, 27th, 28th, 29th…don’t look good, you know? 

SE: Well I hope that does get together at some point.
RM: I have no thoughts of it whatsoever. The only way that it would ever happen now is if it happened under mutual terms from all of us. That we agree…this is who we are, this is what we wanna do, and this is why we wanna do it. The basic concept would have to be agreed on by all. That this is what we’re doin’. The thing about it is like…you know, I mean everyone…I don’t have delusions about this, I just know from the email I get, that if we were to ever do it, we would go across the country and everyone would be there. It’s the only band left in the United States that hasn’t done that kind of thing, you know. Grand Funk did it..The Eagles did it. I mean, granted we weren’t multiplatinum sellers, but we had a vibe goin’. We’re the only band in the United States who hasn’t done that kind of reunion thing that could do it…that people would dig it if it was genuine. My main problem with it is that I wouldn’t do it just to go through the motions. I mean, I would want to make sure that if we ever did it – and that was my thing – that the rehearsal time would have to be enough to where we really got back in that deep groove and not like you said in 10 months, just back into what we were doing and write a couple of new tunes and do the whole thing. 

SE: You’re probably the only band left that can get up there and like you said within a matter of minutes…
RM: It’s there. 

SE: Yeah, it’s there. Almost everyone else who’s come back has had to basically relearn how to play their instruments.
RM: Yeah. 

SE: I mean, look at Kiss.
RM: Yeah, absolutely. 

SE: Well you don’t have to look at Kiss, but…
RM: No, I know what you’re saying though and that is schtick and the one thing we weren’t is anything other than just raw and playing music. You know, we didn’t have a gimmick or an image or anything. We were just guys in T-shirts and jeans playin’ music. And when we got back together we sounded exactly like us, period. 

SE: Are there any old live tapes that exist?
RM: No. Not that I know of. 

SE: Just the one’s floatin’ out on the web?
RM: Yep, just the ones on the web.