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Rod’s professional music career began as a founding member of the groundbreaking group the Dixie Dregs when, as a student at the University of Miami in Florida, he met Steve Morse, Andy West and Allen Sloan. The university was a hotbed of musical activity during this period, playing host to brilliant future talents like Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius, Danny Gottlieb, T Lavitz and Bruce Hornsby. Playing under the official Studio Music and Jazz curriculum title of Rock Ensemble II, the Dregs honed their fusionesque chops. It was here that the band recorded its classic Great Spectacular album now available on CD.

The Dixie Dregs’ music combines rock, jazz, bluegrass, folk and classical influences into a rich, ever-changing tapestry of sound. All the while, Rod’s drumming weaves its way seamlessly and colorfully through this swirling musical landscape.

His unique, dynamic and musical drumming style has led to Rod’s winning the Best Progressive Rock Drummer award in Modern Drummer Magazine’s Reader’s Poll 5 years in a row (1986-1990) and Best All-Around Drummer (1999), earning him a permanent position in the magazine’s prestigious Honor Roll. The Dixie Dregs, whose last 6 recordings have each received Grammy nominations for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, are best described in the following Philadelphia Inquirer concert review, “The Dregs have their own unique language and style familiar to bluegrass and country music, refined with classical finesse and delivered with high-powered technology and rock energy. The band is possibly the most important, and certainly the most technically advanced, instrumental group in progressive fusion.”

When the group temporarily disbanded in 1983, Rod joined forces with Steve Morse who, along with bassist Jerry Peek, formed the Steve Morse Band. Rod remembers, “One of our biggest breaks came when we had the opportunity to tour for 3 months with Rush on their 1985-1986 Power Windows tour. I felt a surge of popularity, both as a band and as a drummer, as a result of performing night after night in sold out arenas packed with appreciative progressive-rock fans. And it was more than obvious that many of them were drummers.”

The Steve Morse Band recorded two albums, at which point Rod found himself at a crossroad in his career, as Steve Morse joined the reforming group Kansas. “I was ready for a musical change and to try something both new and challenging.”

Within a year of moving to New York City in 1986 after living in and around Atlanta, Georgia, for the previous 11 years, Rod met Kip Winger and Reb Beach, namesake and lead guitarist of the as-of-then-non-existent band Winger. “Kip and Reb had been writing and recording demos and forever being rejected by record labels. I met them at a point in their lives where they were completely driven to get signed. Nothing could shake their determination. We got together and jammed, hit it off, and two months later they called to say they got a deal and to see if I’d be interested in doing the record.”

The rest is history! Their self-titled debut album in 1988 sold over two million copies worldwide, earning the band a platinum album in the U.S. and gold albums in Japan and Canada. It also led to an American Music Award nomination for Best New Heavy Metal Band. This album was followed by In the Heart of the Young and, once again, platinum and gold awards were in the offing, coupled with non-stop international touring.

The band ceased activities in 1993 after touring for the highly acclaimed Pull recording, as dramatic changes were taking place in the music scene. Alternative music had replaced metal as the accepted music of the day.

In 2002, WInger reunited for a summer tour with Poison, CInderella and Faster Pussycat in support of ‘The Very Best of Winger’, a greatest hits collection. And in 2006, the band released the critically acclaimed, ‘Winger IV’, followed by tours in Europe, US, Japan and Australia.

In 1993, when Winger temporarily disbanded, Kip Winger set out to record his first solo album, This Conversation Seems Like Dream (1997), a dramatic departure from the first three Winger recordings, drawing heavily on world percussive rhythms, dark imagery and heavy grooves. Rod recorded the drum tracks for this album and the more recent Songs From The Ocean Floor (2001) at Kip’s home studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

1997 also saw the self-titled debut release by the Rudess/Morgenstein Project, an instrumental progressive power-duo, featuring Rod and Dream Theater keyboardist extraordinaire Jordan Rudess. The seed for this project was planted one evening on the Dixie Dregs 1994 Full Circle tour in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, when a sudden power failure shut down the guitar, bass and violin rigs. For whatever reason, the keyboards remained unaffected. And what followed was a blistering, 10 minute drum/keyboard power-duo jam, which brought down the house. It was that evening’s events, which inspired Rod and Jordan to form their “small in numbers yet mighty in sound” band. The Rudess Morgenstein Project has played concerts in the US, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Mexico, Germany, Holland and the UK. Additionally, Rod recorded the drum tracks for Jordan’s solo cds, ‘ Rhythm of Time’ and ‘The Road Home’.

Other on-going projects that Rod is involved with are jam band Jazz Is Dead which features creative improvisations of the music by the Grateful Dead. Members of JID have included T Lavitz, Alphonso Johnson, Jeff Sipe, Billy Cobham, Jeff Pevar, Dave Livolsi, and Jimmy Herring, with an ever-changing line up. Another project is Platypus, whose two recordings feature John Myung (Dream Theater), Ty Tabor (King’s X) and Derek Sherinian (Planet X). The music is a mix of instrumental and vocal tunes that blend many different styles together. An offshoot of Platypus is The Jelly Jam, a power trio featuring Rod, Ty Tabor and John Myung. Their debut release came out in 2001, and The Jelly Jam, ‘2’ was released in 2004

In addition to his recording and touring credits, Rod is very active in drum education. He is currently a Professor of Percussion at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass. Also, his highly recognized instructional materials include videos, audio cassettes and books. His most recent offering is Drum Set Warm-Ups, touted as the definitive text for developing and improving all aspects of drum set playing. Additionally, Rod has been a columnist for Modern Drummer Magazine (U.S.), Rhythm Magazine (UK), Sticks Magazine (Germany) and is an international clinician and involved with product development for Sabian Cymbals (Signature Tri-Top Ride), and Vic Firth Sticks (Signature Sticks and Isolation Headphones), with whom he has been an endorser for many, many years.

Kip Winger is one of the best writers of the past three decades. The quality never dips. From his own solo stuff through to the Winger hits.” – Classic Rock Magazine

While Kip Winger has arrived at the highest level of achievement possible for an orchestral composer, his professional journey has been utterly unpredictable and remarkable for its diverse musical path.

Early in his career, Kip toured as a bass player with rock legend Alice Cooper, moving on to perform and record with Alan Parsons (as the lead singer for Alan Parsons’ Live Project), Roger Daltrey, Bob Dylan, and Twisted Sister. In 2012, London’s Classic Rock Magazine called Kip Winger “one of the most gifted composers and arrangers in the rock genre” and praised his “compulsion to experiment”.

After establishing his hugely successful, eponymous band — which sold millions of albums and charted six Top‐40 radio singles — Kip started writing and producing music without limits. “It was incredibly freeing to connect to music without any preconceived ideas about what it needed to be or what niche it needed to fill”. It is in Kip’s solo work (This Conversation seems like a Dream, Songs from the Ocean Floor, From the Moon to the Sun) that he has been able to exercise the breadth of his talents as a composer.

Kip always knew he had to turn his attention back to his first loves: classical music and ballet. He studied composition with Richard Danielpour, Michael Kurek and Richard Hermann. Since then, his works have been commissioned and performed by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, the Sun River Music Festival in Oregon, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, and the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra in Greece. Teacher Michael Kurek has publicly praised Kip for “his great ear and innate musical sensitivity… beautifully crafted phrases and nuance”.

Kip Winger’s score for the ballet Ghosts, written for string orchestra, piano and harp, is one of the most celebrated contemporary ballet scores in performance today. Championed by the world‐renowned and Tony‐award‐winning choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, Ghosts was part of the San Francisco Ballet’s repertoire from 2010 to 2014, with performances at Manhattan’s Lincoln Center, London’s Sadler’s Wells, and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. In 2010, Ghosts was nominated for the Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music/Sound/Text. Ballet Austin and the Austin Symphony Orchestra included ‘Ghosts’ as part of their Valentine’s Day weekend performance in 2020, alongside Stravinsky’s Rubies by Balanchine.

In 2016, Kip recorded Winger: Conversations with Nijinsky with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. The album, which included music from Ghosts, reached #1 on Billboard’s Traditional Classical Chart and was nominated for a Grammy in 2017 for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Tamara Nijinsky said at the opening performance of Conversations with Nijinsky, “Kip Winger has captured my father’s heart and soul… and reminds us of my father’s genius with his own work”.

His band, Winger, continues to record and tour and their 2014 album Better Days Comin’ entered at #4 on Billboard’s Hard Rock Albums Chart and at #85 on Billboard’s Top 200. Winger’s 7th album Seven, released on May 5, 2023, entered at #21 on Billboard’s Top Current Album Sales. To support the new album, Winger has been touring the US, Japan and Europe.

Kip Winger also made his theatrical composing debut with Get Jack, A Musical Thriller, which is currently on development stage and was presented in concert in New York in October 2019. The album entered at #7 on Billboard’s Cast Albums.

Kip has forged an ongoing relationship with the Nashville Symphony, his hometown orchestra since settling in Music City in 2002. The ensemble’s music director Giancarlo Guerrero persuaded Winger to write his first symphony, Atonement, which the Nashville Symphony premiered in March 2022. His newly commissioned violin concerto will premiere in May 2025 and shortly after, the Nashville Symphony will release a CD of these two pieces on Naxos.

American artist Tommy Heath shot to stardom in the early ’80s after he laid down the vocals for his band Tommy Tutone’s now-classic track, “867-5309/Jenny”, which found its way onto the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks charts and caused a phone-calling frenzy in search of the mysterious woman in the jam, Jenny.

Tommy and I have shared the stage many a time, and our conversations have always been lively and interesting!

Check out the reimagined version of Tommy’s famous hit with No Resolve here:

Keep an eye out here for the new singles from “New Wave Americana”!

Founding members Dennis Seaton and Michael Grant sit down for a chat about their formative years, the years after the phenomenal success the band had before many members even became teenagers, and what drives them today.

Musical Youth are a British reggae band formed in 1979 in Birmingham, England. They are best remembered for their 1982 single “Pass the Dutchie”, which was a number 1 in multiple charts around the world. Their other hits include “Youth of Today”, “Never Gonna Give You Up”, and a collaboration with Donna Summer, “Unconditional Love”. Musical Youth recorded two albums and earned a Grammy Award nomination before disbanding in 1985 after a series of personal problems. The band returned in 2001 as the duo shown here in the chat!

Sponsored by Five Star Guitars

Stacey Lynn Swain, known by her stage name Stacey Q, is an American pop singer, songwriter, dancer and actress. Her best-known single, “Two of Hearts”, released in 1986, reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and the top ten on charts in other countries. Stacey Q joins me for a backstage chat in Paso Robles, California on the Lost 80s Live tour.

THE FLIRTS are a female trio spawning several Dance hits and music videos in MTV in the early 80’s. The group was created by American producer Bobby Orlando, known around the world for their smash dance club hits “DANGER” & “JUKEBOX”, receiving heavy airplay on MTV and appearing on several 80’s New Wave compilations including the VALLEY GIRL film soundtrack.

Their biggest chart success in America was with “YOU AND ME”, which hit number one on the Hot Dance Club Play chart, and have had several world tours, including Europe, South America and several Latin American Countries.

The current lineup features founding member Christina Criscione and her vibrant and talented partners Kim Rowe and Danielle McKee. I was fortunate enough to play with them for a couple of shows in recent years, and have gotten to know them as incredibly lovely and sweet humans. Come Flirt live with us!

ALL ACCESS LIVE is excited to have founding members Robert Sarzo and Tony Cavazo on the show to share a remarkable journey, currently bringing us to the premiere of their new album due in August 2023.

Hurricane is an American heavy metal band formed in 1983, originally featuring current Foreigner lead vocalist Kelly Hansen (vocals/rhythm guitar), Robert Sarzo (guitar), Tony Cavazo (bass), and Jay Schellen (drums).

Quiet Riot’s Kevin DuBrow introduced Sarzo and Cavazo in the early 1980s. After deciding to form a band, they recruited Hansen and Schellen.

The Band’s discography includes: Take What You Want (1985), Over The Edge (1988), Slave To The Thrill (1990), Luiqifury (2001)  and RECONNECTED (2023).

Current Line-up is Robert Sarzo (Guitar), Tony Cavazo (Bass), Mike Hansen (Drums) & Dan Schumann (Lead Vocals), all of whom feature on Hurricane’s latest Album “RECONNECTED”.

Sponsored by Five Star Guitars

Men Without Hats formed in 1977 amid the Montreal punk scene. They became pioneers of electro-pop in Canada after adopting a New Wave sound that made extensive use of keyboard and drum synthesizers. Their sound is characterized by infectiously simple melodies, socially and politically idealistic lyrics, and the distinctive baritone voice of lead singer, principle songwriter and chief member Ivan Doroschuk.
The band enjoyed phenomenal success in the 1980s with the worldwide hits “Safety Dance” and “Pop Goes the World.” Both songs were inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in September 2020.

Ivan’s in the studio recording new material, and will take some time to join us for an update on Men Without Hats!

We opened Ivan’s fortune at the end of today’s episode:

Sponsored by Five Star Guitars

MTV VJs: Best of All Access Live w/ Kevin Rankin (Alan Hunter, Downtown Julie Brown & Riki Rachtman)

Segments of our fun and spirited conversations, the best of the MTV VJ hosts! We talk about the early MTV days, what they’re up to now, some hilarious and shocking moments on- and off-air, and some great times that we’ve all shared together.