I recently had a conversation with musician Kenny Sandler of The Deep Drags. He and my sister Patti Rothberg, a famous 90s musician is the co-producer of his music along with Wayne Dorell and Dan Dubleman. She also sings back-up and plays guitar on the songs. The Deep Drags music is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Facebook, Pandora, Bandcamp, etc.
Check out the transcript of my interview and the video here:
And Halloween comes early with his new song, “Creepy Girl” where my sister Patti sings the “Creepy Girl” outro!
https://youtu.be/Qi2skKNJelY
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:00:12] So Kenny you’re with the Deep Drags and I want to know, how did you come up with the name?
Kenny Sandler: [00:00:20] Well, originally years ago when I first started writing music, I always wanted to be in a band. So, you know, whatever it may be, the Stones, the Kinks, whatever. So, I was like, Oh, the dregs, because I wanted to honor the blues. Because when you have the blues, you know, it’s a bummer. You know, it’s a downer, it’s a drag. So that’s it was basically that it was kind of to honor the blues, which is the process of rock and roll. But then as I started writing today, I noticed that in the span of those decades, there were a couple of other bands named The Dregs. So, I’m like, well, I still want to be The Dregs. I can’t be the original drag. So, the first original dregs, it’s kind of long. So, I just said, well, what about the Deep Drags that make sense? So we’re sticking with The Deep Drags.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:01:11] It’s cool. And you were saying you met Patti and I decided to collaborate together as she produces your music and plays rhythm guitar and lends vocals. And it all started with an Uber ride. You drove Uber, right? You were telling me.
Kenny Sandler: [00:01:30] That, right? Yeah. To make ends meet, I’m driving Uber full time. And I had a drop-off at Newark Airport and then a pickup there. And usually, I try to describe my car or whatever to the passenger. And this happened to be Dan Dubleman, who was the co-producer of several of the first three singles that we just released and played guitar. And I’m standing out there with a guitar case. It’s like, and he’s coming back from a show from LA and it’s like, Oh my God, this guy’s a real musician. La has a show. And then I played him some of the stuff from Back from Extinction, which is my first EP, and he liked it and I asked if he’d work with me and he said, Yeah. And then from there he introduced me to Patti initially to help me with vocals, and then I began playing for Patti some of the songs. And then Dan brought Patti in, and then the three of us recorded Forgotten Man, Creepy Girl, and She Runs Through My Veins. So that’s how I met Patti through Dan.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:02:27] Right. I really enjoyed the songs, Creepy Girl, Forgotten Man. And what was the inspiration behind both of those songs?
Kenny Sandler: [00:02:40] Well, for Creepy Girl, I was just playing with the bass. That’s how I generally start to write some songs. I fiddle with a bass guitar. Most people would fiddle with a regular guitar or piano. So I was working out a structure that sounded really cool to me. And then when I find that I started doing gibberish, you know, making nonsense words out, but Creepy Girl kept popping up. So, I said, oh, Creepy Girl keeps popping up. It has to be about a creepy girl. So. So I just went to work. I started writing tunes for, for Halloween. And then when I played it for Patti and Dan and in the studio, they were like, No, no, no. Creepy Girl. No, it’s more than just a novelty song. This is a really good song. We got to record it. And so, it’s a good song for all year round, I suppose. And the interesting thing about Creepy Girl, it’s not really based on anybody, but the song initially started with the second verse, Behind the gates. She lives alone, blah, blah, blah. And but I felt I need to describe who she was. And a long, long time ago I was on a blind date before I was married, of course, and I knock on this chick’s door. She says we’re going to this club, Aldo’s.
Kenny Sandler: [00:03:52] And it really was a club Aldo’s in Lyndhurst, by the way. It was a big new wave punk, you know, kind of a gothic club, but I didn’t know that. So, when I got dressed up, it was like kind of that Miami Vice look. So, I’m like getting this the light sport jacket with the t-shirt and the sneakers and the jeans she opens. She’s really in that white, pale makeup and the dark lips and the dark eyes, and she’s all goth out and black. And so I use that blind date, which, by the way, didn’t end up very well has the kind of the model for the Creepy Girl. The other song you asked about was What Forgotten Man? I believe Forgotten Man again, it started off, I like the song structure I was coming up with and I was just playing with a lot of different themes. And then there was like a three-week period where like everything just sucked. You know, my wife and I were in conflict, fighting and sniping one another. I was really in some physical pain. I felt alone. There were money issues. Everything that could happen happened. And I just felt like a forgotten man. And that was kind of the genesis of writing for Dan.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:05:02] And the video that was used for getting back to Creepy Girl. You know, it was taken from clips of the old Dutch 1922 film, The Haxan. And I love the witches dancing around and flying on their broomsticks like, oh, you are. We think it’s Halloween, right?
Kenny Sandler: [00:05:21] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I’m a one-man marketing department, so it’s not easy for me just to get a director to make a movie. So was suggested to me to try to find something that was part of the public domain. And so I looked up a whole bunch of horror and creepy movies that were public domain. And one of them that came up was the movie which is considered by film buffs to be one of the first true horror movies. And it was a Dutch movie, black and white, silent. And I just downloaded that and chopped it up and edited it on iMovie and put the song into it. And then it came out great. And then the next day I get a letter from YouTube saying it’s banned in five countries simply because I believe that, you know, it’s Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland that it’s blocked. And I think it’s probably because it’s a national treasure there, because it initially was a Danish movie. But I like to sensationalize it. Banned in five countries. Yeah. So that’s behind the video of Creepy Girl.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:06:23] Now, Benjamin Christiansen. He’s no longer here, but yeah.
Kenny Sandler: [00:06:30] I don’t think he is. No, no. He was the original writer and director of the movie back in 1922. I just felt like, you know, it’s his work. I should give him a little credit.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:06:39] And he edited it. Well, you edited your version of the video, but he edited the original film. Right?
Kenny Sandler: [00:06:49] Or was it not sure. I mean, I know he was the writer and director. Yeah. I didn’t look at it all the credits back then. I don’t think they listed all the credits like they do today. And today’s movies, they have like 500,000 credits for everybody from catering to the accountants, you know? So I really don’t know the answer to that.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:07:09] Mm-hmm. And these songs, will this be produced as a full album or just singles?
Kenny Sandler: [00:07:17] For now? It’s going to be singles. I was initially thinking maybe to break it up into two EPS of six songs each. So right now we have three out. There’s a fourth one that we’re working on now. We just recorded Patty and I and Jacob Sandler was my son. We were just up at Kaleidoscope Sound Studios in Union City, and we were just working on a new track called Karma is a Cruel, Cruel Mistress. And again, it was just funny how this came along. I simply just wrote the song, and I was at Patti’s apartment in the city and just going over, right? What songs are we going to try to do for the studio? And I played on about six or seven songs, and she said, Okay, okay. And then I played her. Carmen is a mistress. Oh, that song speaks to me. We’ve got to do that song. Got to do that song. So, we did Carmen. And I’ll tell you what, I got the first real true mix from Wayne d’Oro, who does an incredible job. And Wayne, I’m sorry if I didn’t say your last name correctly, but I just got it back. And it’s amazing. It’s really going to be a great song and it’s coming out really well. And Patti did an awesome job in that as well. So did Jacob.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:08:32] And the songs are very they’re very original. So you come up with them all yourself, you know, based on different experiences that you’ve had.
Kenny Sandler: [00:08:47] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all the songs are certainly that I’ve recorded so far, originals or no covers. The influence behind the songs is there’s basically two music periods that inspired me. One was The Sixties, British Invasion, you know, Your Stones, your Beatles, The Kinks, who and then mixed in with the eight or the late seventies, early eighties. There was this move away from classic rock back then. It wasn’t classic, it was the contemporary era, but now it’s classic rock. But things were moving away from the metal and the hair bands and going more into the punk and the new wave and all the alternative stuff so I got into listening to the Buzzcocks and the Violent Femmes and the bongos and a lot of those groups and that kind of garage rock kind of inspired me like, Hey, I can do this too. And I think it was a convergence of those two disciplines that kind of give me that kind of sound that I have that people say, It sounds familiar, but I can’t tell you exactly who it sounds like. And that’s a great, great thing.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:09:55] And how long is the band? Well, not band. But in the collaboration been around like, you know, the stuff that you’ve composed.
Kenny Sandler: [00:10:06] Well Back from Extinction which came out about a year and a half ago, was really a compilation of about five songs that I had written decades ago. It’s funny, I just uncovered a notebook of all these lyrics that I wrote back in the early eighties, and most of them were terrible, but some of them were not so bad. And so those that weren’t so bad with a little bit of renovation and improvement and adding a bridge here, or maybe in a chorus or just tidying up a cliche lyric or so, turned out to be the music that you heard back from extinction, with the exception of the blues number The Lipstick on a Cigarette, which I recently wrote for that album. Everything else is pretty much brand new. That was written probably within the last year. Creepy Girl was probably the first song written after Back From Extinction, but there’s still a huge catalog of songs that are even older than that, that are new that I need to do. So, we got I got about a dozen more tunes that we can do. So, Patti has a lot of work ahead of her.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:11:15] And you were saying that this is your debut interview with me on Zoom here.
Kenny Sandler: [00:11:21] Yes, this is my debut interview. Yeah. I mean, I shaved. I tried to get as even as possible. Really. And I got my best black shirt, wise blood records. A little shout out. Yeah. So, this was very cool, very exciting for me. You know, it’s important for me just to get the music out there and get people to listen to it. And that’s all I can really ask for. It’s really a passion project for me and to show it to everyone, something that I enjoy doing and I hope everybody gets something out of it as much as I do.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:11:59] So the creepy girl and the forgotten man, that that’s not your first. You said you got Back from Extinction. Is your first album or singles?
Kenny Sandler: [00:12:11] Yeah, the Back from Extinction was the first record that I went into a studio recorded with musicians and actually for the first time heard the music that I wrote back decades ago. See, when I was writing this stuff early in the late seventies or early eighties, you didn’t have all the recording technologies you have today. You had to get signed that label. There was a whole bunch of things. Plus, I didn’t think it was all that great. And so, you know, I kind of hid behind that creative output and never heard what those songs would sound like with instrumentation, you know, recording wise, imagine being like a baker and never tasting your cupcakes or being an artist and never seeing your painting, right. I’ve only heard my songs on a bass guitar and in my head and me singing. Back from Extinction was a great exercise to finally hear what my songs would sound like. And then based on that, that got my creative juices flowing. And then I started writing a ton of new shit. Can I say shit? I don’t know if I could say shit, so I guess I can think of other adjectives for it, but we won’t go there. But anyway. So. So the newer stuff kind of starts with Creepy Girl, She Runs Through My Veins, Forgotten Man, which would be the three releases that you can find now on Spotify and Amazon and pretty much every streaming service around the world. And YouTube and YouTube are everywhere. It’s everywhere. The Deep Drags are everywhere. Sonic annihilation. Take a deep breath in exhale. You’ve just been inhaling Deep Drags.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:13:48] And what would you like your fans to know about the Deep Drags and the music? And what would you like to say to listeners out there?
Kenny Sandler: [00:14:00] Give the music a chance, and if you do listen to it, I just I’m flattered. And thank you so much for listening. You know, and by the records, you know, cost a lot of money to make these things for you, my fans. All three of them. Thank you, Mom. Dad.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:14:19] And where can they? They could get it online or wherever.
Kenny Sandler: [00:14:24] They bought it. The music’s everywhere. It’s on all the streaming services. Like I said, it’s on Amazon, Pandora, Apple, Apple. So to talk YouTube, it’s Facebook, it’s everywhere scanning. And there’s definitely a Deep Drags you to page and there’s a deep tracks Facebook page and if you want to purchase the music, you can go to Bandcamp to do tracks.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:14:53] Yeah. So, it’s also on Reverb Nation as well?
Kenny Sandler: [00:15:00] If you say so, is it?
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:15:02] I haven’t seen it.
Kenny Sandler: [00:15:04] Know. I don’t know. It could be. It might be. If it’s not, we’ll get it on there. Quick. Get it on there. You do something anyway. Yeah. So, this is this has been fun. And the other thing I also I just want to just add in terms of the music, you know, what’s very important to me is the lyrics as well too. I work very hard on the lyrics. You know, lyricists like Chris different from Squeeze is a very big influence on me. I mean, he kind of taught me to have fun with lyrics, you know, like, it’s okay to have some odd words, rhyme, you know? And a lot of their lyrics also have a really great cadence and bounce to it as well. To. Ray Davies from The Kinks is also an amazing lyricist, of course, Paul McCartney and Lennon. And those are probably the biggest influences in terms of lyrics. I spent a lot of time on the lyrics, so when I’m sorry. So, and actually listen to Creepy Girl. Yeah, they were an educator, and you know, there’s some words and Creepy Girl, there’s morose, there’s magenta, there’s macabre, you know? And this teacher says, “Wow, there’s so many good sad words in your song, you know, like, you should play this song for my students, you know, because it’s great sad words.” Anyway.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:16:29] So you would like to work with the influences that you’ve mentioned. You’ve never actually worked with them.
Kenny Sandler: [00:16:34] Yeah, no, no, I’ve never worked with them. The closest I’ve ever gotten was Patti Rothberg. That’s the closest I ever got.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:16:41] My sister Patti is.
Kenny Sandler: [00:16:43] Your sister. That’s the closest I ever got. I mean, listen, I have a Johnny Thunders story, but I don’t want to have to do drugs and rock and roll and CBGB’s. But that was the closest I ever got to see. I’m a big Johnny Thunders fan, so that was a huge moment. I got to do a little nose candy with Johnny Thunders and his guitarist Walter in the men’s room at CBGB’s right before the show. So that was kind of cool. Oh, a long time ago. Katy’s a long time ago. I don’t do that anymore. It’s a very long time ago.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:17:13] All right. So, is there anything else you would like to add before we close the interview?
Kenny Sandler: [00:17:21] No. But, you know, stay tuned. I think probably within the next few weeks we’ll be releasing Karma as a crew mistress. And in the meanwhile, just keep listening to the three we have out there. Creepy Girl, Forgotten Man, and She Runs Through My Veins.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:17:36] Okay. So, it is a pleasure speaking with you, Kenny.
Kenny Sandler: [00:17:40] Thank you so much. It was really nice to be here, and I appreciate you having me tonight.
Suzanne Rothberg: [00:17:45] My pleasure.
Kenny Sandler: [00:17:46] All right. Thanks so much.