Axminster

A word in passing from Steve:

If you’re reading this, then you’re a fan of the band or at least interested in who we are and where we’ve been and maybe where we are going. But once in while, you have to stop and reflect and take a moment when you’re flipping pages in the scrapbook and trying to write the next chapter.

This is one of those times… On Thursday March 30th, 2023 we lost one of own.  Mike Lamm, an original founding member of the band succumbed to his long battle with cancer. We haven’t spoken much about it in public and thought it was best to keep his illness private in the hopes that Mike would win his battle with lung cancer and come back to his rightful place behind the kit.

It didn’t happen.

Mike and I go back to Jr. High School, where I first saw him behind the kit, singing Grand Funk Railroad and just owning the crowd. He was just straight up cool. We asked Mike to join us around 1979, right after we all just got out of high school- but he didn’t have a drum kit at the time. After we spoke he needed to make a decision…to buy a car to get back and forth to work or buy a drum kit and join us. 

His then girlfriend told him to get the car…Mike bought the drums. 

He hooked up with Jeff Callan, the original bass player and me and we became the three musketeers. We had no idea what we were doing, or how to do it…but we decided were going to write songs and conquer the world. Or at least play a few gigs…

Mike took on the role of band carnival barker…he was our P.T Barnum…selling the band, booking the band, being “seen at every scene” and we all dragged each other up and around… We spent almost every single day together for 6 straight years…practicing, writing, recording, practicing, gigging, practicing, promoting… showcasing… and being “almost famous”.

We thought anything worth doing was worth overdoing and Mike was the poster child for that. He became the “Maddog”.

Had a blast…best of times.

We were like brothers, family… Life interrupted around 1986 and we had to break-up. Yeah…Bands breakup all the time, but this one hurt. Hard business….Tough on the wallet and the soul. Ran out of gas.

We did get back together, with a few “pieces missing” at the turn of the century and we he hit it again and it was fun again… Through it all, no matter if we weren’t gigging with each other at the moment, or someone was in transition, or we were playing with other dudes, or recording with or without each other…Mike, like all the band members, was just a phone call away -and there was solace in that.

On Thursday March 30^th, 2023…Mike is not at the other end of the phone, and I can’t call him. There’s no moral to this story…no reminder to “stop and smell the roses”…or a cautionary tale of excess gone bad, or a “don’t put off tomorrow what you can do today greeting card” attached…

It just is what it is… and I miss my friend.

Here’s to 2022!...and more in 2023. 

Happy New Year! 

2022 was such a great year for the band and we want to thank everyone who has reached out and gave us the thumbs up for continuing our journey. When we started writing new songs during the pandemic spring of 2020, we didn’t know if the songs were going to stake a claim or if they were going to be a reclamation project. We found out quickly that we just didn’t care! We wrote what we wanted and were excited about putting them down, and putting them out… 

We did hit a few bumps along the way…drummer Mike Lamm is battling lung cancer and after a few months of starts and stops, we were disappointed that he couldn’t join us in the studio, but his spirit is always with us. His son, Shane…helped us out with pre-production and he is certainly a chip off the ole’ block. Shane is “Bamm, Bamm Lamm” with the band Above Snakes, who are getting it done and touring the country. Check em’ out! 

We found Xannon (Shannon) Xicay, to take over behind the kit, and he’s a monster. Keeps us on time! 

Tightrope, our 6-song EP was released in February 2022 and it has been quite a marathon navigating the new world of on-line music marketing. Even though we are really renaissance men at heart, we built a website, found new fans all over the world, have been getting great reviews from digital rock webzines, met on-line radio DJ’s who love what we are doing and we continue to pile up streams and find new friends from every corner of the globe. 

It’s a new world order. But what we’ve found is that there are still hard rock fans out there, some great new bands making music and our “seasoned resume” has been embraced. 

We’ve released new videos, with more coming!... and found that rock and roll keeps us young at heart! It’s been a blast. 

2023 looks to be even more exciting. We are finishing up writing a batch of songs for a new EP…we’ll be headed into the studio in the next few months to start recording. We have some talented people with great experience who have reached out to us and are ready to add their touch to the process. 

This new record…(can you say record anymore?) Is going to be the bomb. (in a good way!) We think you’ll like the new songs and we can’t wait to share them with you. 

We’ll be keeping you updated as we go, and there is talk of bringing Axminster out on the road and playing some gigs again! 

We appreciate all of you who either remember us from our 80’s hey-days and stuck by us, came to see us when we reformed at the turn of the century, and all these new friends who we have met along the way. 

Let’s make 2023 a great year! Do something you’ve always wanted to do. Life’s short… and as a wise man once told me “You never see a brink’s truck following a hearse”

So how did we get the name Axminster? 

To be filed under "Does anybody really care"? 

When searching for a band name, which was taking forever...We actually found the words AXMINSTER on the label on the backside of an old carpet. 

We were soundproofing our rehearsal space and our bass player’s dad worked for a carpet distribution company and gave us a bunch of carpet pieces that we hung up on the walls to deaden the sound. 

The name sounded cool at the time,  hey we were teenagers!…...and a little “rugged” (sorry for the pun).

We didn't know it was a town in England but later found out that it was... For those of you old enough to remember...we "axed" the Molly out of the name shortly thereafter. 

Since we are among friends, there was also a piece of carpet on the floor next to the drums that often got used when someone needed it for a late night ride. Sort of like a “Magic Carpet” if you know what I mean…. But as we have said before, that was back when motorcycles were dangerous and sex was safe! 

“Give it Ride” will be the title of our next EP in honor of us laying down fresh tracks.

Back to Axminster…the town… 

Thanks to the Internet, you can see Axminster is a beautiful place with gorgeous rolling hills in the southern part of the UK about 35 miles south of London. 

Axminster is a market town and civil parish on the eastern border of the county of Devon in England, some 28 miles from the county town of Exeter. The town is built on a hill overlooking the River Axe which heads towards the English Channel at Axmouth. 

Coincidentally, there is some connection to locations around our hometown that we discovered! 

The English cities of Exeter, Plymouth and Brighton all border Axminster, with Bournemouth, Reading and Bristol close by too...So I guess we're not the only folks to borrow names from our friends across the pond! 

The mayor of Axminster invited us to come play their annual Yardy Party outdoor festival which is held in the summer…Couldn’t make it over this year…but it is certainly on the Axminster bucket list. 

More importantly...THE LAMB INN is also located there! So we know we have a place to stay if we ever go!

From Steve Sera- Lead Singer/Guitarist: "I get asked a lot what got me into music"? "So here goes"!

GET YOUR WINGS…. 

For some, getting your wings means proving your merit or your skill.  For others, the “Urban Dictionary” has a different definition of obtaining that accomplishment. 

For a kid from the suburbs of Boston, who was in junior high school at the time- I got my marching orders on how to “get my wings” on a cold December night in 1974 at the Music Hall in Boston when I saw Aerosmith for the very first time.  Get Your Wings, coincidentally, was the title of their second album right before the band started to break. 

Now don’t get me wrong, a lot of kids were turned on to Aerosmith from where I grew up. They were on the jukebox in the cafeteria, (remember those!) they were from Boston, and they were OUR band. An American version of the Rolling Stones… yet they were meaner, more overdriven, more bad ass…Aerosmith fans were a gang. Blue Army. 

If you got a chance to see Aerosmith “back in the day” you know what I’m talking about. There was NO BAND…at least according to their legion of disciples, that rocked as hard as Aerosmith. 

For me…when Aerosmith hit the stage that December night, it was truly a life altering experience. Yeah…I was already messing around with an old Harmony Rocket guitar and trying to figure out how to get THAT guitar sound we heard on Led Zeppelin II…but experiencing a real rock band, that up close, that intense, that loud… sent me down a road that I just had to travel. 

I don’t know if any of the other guys I was with at the show that night felt the same, but it was right then and there that I decided what I wanted to do. 

I had no idea how to do it, or what trip I was about to embark on, or how many great, strange, eclectic, crazy and talented people I would meet along the way- but I found music. The one constant, the solace, my real center. No matter what, my guitar, like a good dog that won’t behave, is always there, waiting for me to play it. Sure, there was The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, which I saw when I was 3…mom woke me up! And The Monkees TV show and all the great British bands on the radio- but Aerosmith was a local band on the rise. 

I’ve was fortunate to have had a “lightning strike moment” when I saw that Aerosmith show, cause’ I know there are lots of people who search their entire lives for something that really moves them – like playing music has done for me. 

Down the road, I got to meet the other guys who ended up in Axminster, who are lifelong friends, with the same passion and drive- addicted to the same rush. 

Our band Axminster never “made it” as far as getting signed to that big album deal, selling tons of records or landing that big tour, but when we look at our journey and all the twists, turns and pit stops we’ve had along the way, we feel grateful to still be able to make music. The roar of loud amplifiers, the sound of electric guitars and yes… that album Get Your Wings still raises the hair on our arms close to 50 years after its release. 

It’s not about all the cool bands we got to open for, or the number of CD’s we have (or haven’t) sold, or the airplay or cool reviews about the band.  Hell…it ain’t even about them “nostalgic” days of empty nightclubs or the lack of stage room the “headliner” would ask us to squeeze onto, or the no pay gigs or the 3AM back alley fights between drunk patrons and pissed off roadies. (that was the fun stuff!) 

It’s more about the being able to pick up a guitar and write songs with my band mates, and be part of a small group of people who want to be songwriters. 

More importantly, it’s really all about sharing our music. It’s a rush when we write and record a new song- …toss it out there and say… “hope you dig this”! …and then someone does! 

So, we keep writing, trying to raise the hair on someone’s arms, just like good rock still does… and Aerosmith did- and still does to me.

We'd love to hear what got you into music?

The details on this fractured fairy tale are a bit foggy. We had to check in with drummer Mike Lamm who attempted to “fill in the gaps” on the exact location of this foamy incident, but regardless of where it happened…this is one for the archives. 

Some of us thought this happened at the infamous Channel in Boston, but we can’t find an account of the date of the gig and Mike swears it happened at Mr. C’s Rock Palace up in Lowell Massachusetts sometime in the summer of 1983 or 1984.

Any who!…it involves the band Molly Hatchet. All the original members of the hard rockin’ “Hatchet” have since passed on so you’ll have to have a little faith in our recollection of this incident. 

We were opening up for Molly Hatchet on this hot summer night, and we were excited about the good size crowd that was expected. We got to the venue a little early to catch their soundcheck, hoping we’d get one too, and when we arrived at the club, the band was already there and enjoying the “pre-gig” festivities. 

Molly Hatchet had a reputation as a hard-drinking party band that loved to play, and on this night, they showed their party muscle. 

In their contract rider, they had a clause regarding “beer”. The club’s stage manager told us that they had something in the agreement that stated the beer must keep flowing! 

Beside the stage was a big trash barrel, filled with ice and beer cans. The band and crew had already dug deep into the supply before they even started tuning up. 

Molly Hatchet must have been working on some new tunes, because the soundcheck went on for a while! 

We hung out waiting to put our gear on stage, but it was looking like we weren’t getting a soundcheck. Meanwhile…Molly Hatchet had gone through that first barrel of beer and was busting thorough the 2nd one in record time. 

It was way past soundcheck time for us and the doors were about to open, but the band keep playing, jamming and drinking beer! They went through another full trash barrel when they finally stopped and we scrambled to get out stuff on the stage. 

The club manager was a little ticked off, cause he had to keep filling the barrel but he seemed to calm down when they finished their soundcheck, anticipating that the band would be leaving the club and coming back for their set later in the evening. 

Molly Hatchet didn’t leave. 

We set-up..ran to some closet that was supposed to be a dressing room to throw on our stage clothes and the doors opened and the place started filling up. Meanwhile… The barrel had been relocated to just outside the bands dressing room…and when we looked in it as we headed to the stage to play our set…it was empty! 

The club manager filled it up again…we played to a great crowd and had a solid set and were making our way back to the dressing room when we saw the club manager having a fit cause the band and crew had finished off another barrel. We couldn’t believe these guys could stand - never mind play! 

We toweled off, and threw on tee-shirts, …and the club manager said something about “fixing these guys real good” regarding the unbelievable consumption of beer. He had crawled into some dusty dark space near the stage and pulled out about 3 cases of “Narragansett Lager” beer that looked as old as the Native American waters it was named after.  Skunk Beer for sure… 

He loaded up the barrel, the guys in Molly Hatchet were having a good ole’ time…and taking their time getting on with the show. The crowd was restless. 

They finally made it to stage…and tore into a ripping set…Narragansett cans in tow. We didn’t stay for the entire set and we packed our van full of gear, but took one more peek at that barrel, now full of water- that had made its way back to the side of the stage again. It was almost empty.  Band didn’t seem to care what they were drinking! 

Don’t know if that barrel got filled again, and we wondered what the club manager stuck in there for the next round. That was hardest we’ve ever seen a band party, AND play at the same time, and it should get filed under, “never attempt this with guitars in hand”!

The Metallica “heist”. It was January 1984. We had made some noise with our single Teenage Livin’ which was a #1 song on WBCN’s local music watch. The band’s fan base was growing and we landed an opening slot for the band Metallica at The Channel, a good size club that held up to 2,000 people when it was packed. 

The night before the gig, we got a call from the club’s booking agent, and he asked us for a favor. Metallica’s equipment had been stolen and they needed to borrow our gear. Like Metallica, we also played with Marshall stack amps and Tama drums so he figured we’d help them out.  We agreed. The link to the article from Metal Injection (see the article here) states that AFTER the gig at The Channel, was when their gear had been stolen, but it was BEFORE the show… and that’s why we got the call. 

Our road crew had to show up early and they weren’t happy about it. They were setting up the stage for Metallica’s sound check when a truck with gear lent from the band Anthrax or this could have been before Anthrax lent them equipment - pulled up into the alley behind the stage to load in borrowed gear. 

No one had told Metallica’s road crew that we were lending them our gear… AND no one told us that Metallica didn’t need our stuff after all. 

Communication Breakdown. 

The road manager from Metallica started screaming at our road manager to get our shit off the stage! He was probably pissed off cause his bands gear got ripped off…on his watch. 

Opening acts never put their equipment on the stage until the headliner tells them to. Big no, no. 

Well the yelling didn’t go over too well with our crew. There was some screaming and yelling back, the situation came close to blows thrown between our crew and theirs… and after a few threats someone finally passed the information on to Metallica’s crew what we had done. 

Nobody apologized. We didn’t get a soundcheck either… 

On with the show. 

Metallica was OK…but the best band that day…and that includes Metallica… was another local band from Brockton called Steel Assassin. 

Great guys who played a tight, ripping set of new wave of British heavy metal… They had a great stage show to. 

It turned out to be a great gig for us…although we were more of a “hard rock” then a metal band, the all ages crowd were into it. We picked up some new fans- James Hatfield wrote Fade to Black in response to the bands gear being stolen.

Halcyon Days!

It was December 1984 and I had just joined Axminster in October of that same year. The band had already had a bunch of air-play and was gigging all the time and my first few shows with them were at The Paradise Rock Club with Alvin Lee and a WBCN Lunch Time show at a packed Celebrations Night Club on a Thursday afternoon. Free Hot Dogs and cheap beer! The gigs so far held promise for where we wanted to go as a band. 

In the short time together, we had a written a hand full of tunes and the band couldn’t wait to get back into the studio to record. We booked time at Normandy Sound Studios with Phil Greene at the controls and Hirsh Gardner producing. 

The basic tracks for Only A Stranger, Hands Wettin’ The Wheel and Hold Me Closer went down pretty fast, and Steve banged out the lead vocals right after. 

It was my turn to go into the studio and lay down my solos and fills. I was well prepared and was having dinner with my girlfriend just before I was about to drive down to Rhode Island that evening to cut my tracks. Steve and Mike Lamm were already at the studio cleaning up some vocals and I was going to meet them down there at little later. 

At the time, I was living with my girlfriend and her uncle. “Uncle Sam” had some mental health issues and my girlfriend and I watched out for him, kept an eye on his well being and made sure he took his psychosis meds. 

Right after dinner, my girlfriend handed me my vitamins and I gulped them down just before packing up my guitars. I guess I missed the memo - because a short time later, my girlfriend asked me what I had done with Uncle Sam’s meds? 

By accident…thinking they were MY vitamins…I had taken them. 

At first panic set in…What was I going do? And then… they started to hit me. I was in a fog…no way could I drive an hour away to Rhode Island, never mind record! 

I made my girlfriend drive me to the hospital. I told the ER folks what had happened and as the effects of the meds were now in full swing, I asked them if they could pump my stomach…. do SOMETHING!…I had a recording session to get to! 

They proceeded to ask me if I was suicidal. 

Then…they shipped me over to the Psych Ward to “talk” to someone. 

My girlfriend made the frantic call to the band to tell them I wouldn’t be making the session. Now…I had just joined these guys, and Steve and Mike were probably thinking they had just brought in a junkie guitarist to the band! 

I was out of it. 

The session was moved to the following day. 

I went home to “sleep it off” and the next day, I was thinking clearer, but still in a little fog. Steve came and picked me up, cause’ I still wasn’t comfortable driving and we headed down from Boston down to the studio. We made small talk on the way down, and I think I nodded off a few times on the drive. 

The amps were already set-up and mic’d when we got there. I tuned up and started on working on the licks to Only A Stranger first. 

We couldn’t get the right feedback, so Engineer Phil Greene had me climb up onto of the console so my guitar would feedback being so close to the monster-sized…and very loud playback speakers I was now standing 2 feet in front off. 

I think Steve had to stand behind me to make sure I didn’t fall off the console. I had about a 2-foot section to balance on. Feeling like I was on some distant auditory planet, and floating along…I ripped off the solo to Only A Stranger. 

The tracks came out pretty good! When it was released, the song got some solid airplay and the video aired on V-66, a local over the air station that was the Boston version of MTV back in the day. (You can hear the song by clicking the link here or watching the video we shot for it a few months later here.) 

That’s just another fractured fairy tale. A page out of the journal of “Why are we doing this”? 

Steve gave me the nickname “The Doctor” shortly there after.

GET ME THE IRON! 

Wanted to share a story that takes us back to the start of Axminster that you might like. Today, Axminster is giving a big “shout-out” to Normandy Sound in Warren, Rhode Island. It’s now called TRIAD, and you can still find the legendary Phil Greene there. 

Axminster got “baptized” at Normandy Sound when father Phil Greene and Producer Hirsh Gardner took us under their wing to record the song TEENAGE LIVIN' back in the summer of 1983. 

I remember asking Phil how long it would take to record our 2-song demo. Phil said “once we set-up, it only takes 3 minutes to play the song”. 

Little did we know… 

We booked 3 “lock-out sessions”, to cut our demo which basically is the grave yard shift from about 11PM until whenever the next session came in the following day. It was the most cost-effective way for us to record, since it was a “flat” charge instead of paying by the hour. 

We were GREEN to say the least, and both Phil and Hirsh never looked at the clock anyway and guided us through the process. Whatever it took…We ended up with a dynamite demo that sounded like a record and when we finished, it propelled us, getting great airplay and it was the jump start a bunch of 20-year old kids in a young band needed. 

BUT….as we were finishing up the mixing, we needed something cool in the section between the first chorus and the 2nd verse. Phil suggested a backwards cymbal. So… the tape op flipped over the 2-inch tape and drummer Mike Lamm smashed a cymbal…we couldn’t wait to hear the effect. Phil asked the tape op to flip the 2-inch tape over again, and mount it correctly. He asked the tape op if it was all set…TWICE. 

After getting the OK, Phil hit play on the remote control. And CRUNCH..the tape wasn’t mounted right, and the 2-inch tape that was moving at 30ips looked like the inside of my grandfather’s accordion. We gasped. 

All the work. Taped ruined! 

Phil…without missing a beat, and without yelling…asked the tape op to go upstairs to the apartment that was above the studio and bring him a clean towel and an iron. 

The tape op…who was DYING inside because he was new too, returned with the iron and towel. Phil, heated up the iron, put the section of crunched tape inside the folded the towel and on the piano bench, if my memory is correct… proceeded to IRON the 2-foot section of tape that was crunched. He then mounted the tape back onto the 2-inch machine, hit play…checked all the tracks in that section and it played back perfectly. 

I know THAT technique ain’t in the recording handbook! Session saved. 

Axminster and Hirsh Gardner had the pleasure of recording at Normandy many times after that, and Phil is a mentor, good friend and a hell of a producer and engineer.