ION INDIE MAGAZINE November 2015, Volume 18 | Page 37

Mark: I find it interesting that you consider Paul McCartney and those musicians out of reach when you’re
at the level you’re at…
Mike: Well, there’s different generations…those guys were the first generation of Rock: STONES, ZEPPELIN,
BEETLES, THE WHO, PINK FLOYD…they’re in another realm. My generation--me and Billy and Ritchie and
guys I play with--are kind of like in the second or even third generation of Rock. Yeah sure, we’ve still been
around now for 25 or 30 years doing it a long time ourselves, but the Paul McCartneys and Roger Waters of
the world--they’ve been doing it for fifty years each, so it’s a little bit of an upper echelon.
Mark: And you’ve got another generation coming up with your son.
Mike: Yeah, in NEXT TO NONE. They’re doing a whole bunch of dates with FATES WARNING up and down the
East Coast. I could not be prouder. My son’s just sixteen and he’s doing stuff far beyond what I was doing at
sixteen.
Mark: What’s the origin of the name “Winery Dogs”? Where did the name come from?
Mike: The name itself? It was Richie’s suggestion. We had a list of like 100 names and that was the hardest
thing when we formed this band--making the album, writing the music--that came easily. We did that without
a single argument or disagreement. The music came so naturally, but once we had to come up with a band
name we argued over that for months and months and had a list of hundreds of names and Richie just beat
us down with The Winery Dogs until me and Billy finally gave in.
Mark: What was your choice of a name?
Mike: Oh God, I’ve got a list of, a huge list in my phone. I wanted to call the band “Loose Cannon”. I have a
whole list, “Zenith” was another band name that we came up with. I have a whole list in my phone. But Richie
felt really strongly about The Winery Dogs. At the end of the day, me and Billy were like…all right, what’s in
a name? What’s an “Aerosmith” anyway?
Mark: It sounds kind of cool anyway coming from a New Yorker--Winery Dawgs… Like a Bostonian calling
you a “drummah”.
Mike: I’m a recovering alcoholic--I haven’t a drink in fifteen years…
Mark: Congrats!
Mike: …so it’s weird for me to be in a band called “The Winery Dogs”. But it is what it is. Richie liked the
name, he thought it felt like the seventies, you know, like “The Stones”. I don’t know, something about it he
liked. So we went with it.
Mark: I know you’ve been asked this question in a couple of different ways, but you have three masters of
your crafts—you, Billy and Richie. You guys are all at such a high level. Is it hard, or was it hard to play
together? Are you walking on each other or does it benefit you to be at that level and work off of each other?
Mike: I’m currently in six different bands right now, the 46 bands thing was a joke, but the six bands is the
real answer. In every one of them, you got to find your footing, you’ve got to find how the chemistry works.
And each one of the different bands I’m in, the hat I wear is different. Some of them, I’m a more of a leader,
some of them, I’m more of a collaborator, some of them-- like Twisted Sister--I’m just a hired gun. You’ve
gotta kind of find your place with each one of them. And with The Winery Dogs, all three of us are very