The Rods, Beyond Fallen, Sat. July 10, 6 p.m., Eleanor Rigby’s (603 Route 6, Jermyn). Tickets: $12. Info: www.therods.com
by Michael LelloWeekender Editor
Thirty years ago, back when heavy metal was king, The Rods lit up stages worldwide. The band’s peak coincided with the breakthrough of a heavy brand of music known as the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, and The Rods were smack in the thick of it, opening on tours like Ozzy Osbourne’s “Blizzard of Ozz,” Judas Priest’s “Screaming for Vengeance” and Iron Maiden’s “The Beast on the Road” — all, quite possibly, the high points of those respective artists’ careers.
Then, as quickly as they arrived on the scene, The Rods disappeared.
“It wasn’t acrimonious at all; we just kind of wound up doing other things, started families,” Rods drummer Carl Canedy says recently over a meal at Arcaro & Genell in Old Forge.
Now The Rods — David “Rock” Feinstein, Canedy and Garry Bordonaro — are back. The Cortland, N.Y..-based trio is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a tour — including a rare Northeastern Pa. date Saturday at Eleanor Rigby’s in Jermyn — and gearing up to release its first album since 1986’s “Heavier Than Thou.”
Canedy, who has been living in the Carbondale area for 22 years, shared some un-mastered tracks from the upcoming record “Vengeance” with the Weekender, including the Canedy-written and Ronnie James Dio-sung “The Code,” during a visit to SI Studios in Old Forge. Dio, who passed away in May, was a cousin and former Elf bandmate of Feinstein, who was a pallbearer at Dio’s funeral. Canedy, who also had known Dio for decades, recalls a time in the 1960s when he would rehearse with his band in the garage while Elf practiced in the house. The Rods’ local show will fall on what would have been Dio’s 68th birthday.
There is a lot to reminisce about for The Rods and their fans. But Canedy says when the band decided to reunite, one condition was that there would be new material. To that end, he says The Rods will play eight new songs at Eleanor Rigby’s — some from “Vengeance,” some from Feinstein’s upcoming solo album, “Bitten By The Beast,” as well as tunes requested by fans via the band’s Web site. The ability to play what, how, when and where they want, he says, is a newfound freedom that did not exist when The Rods were in the major-label recording business.
“Bands like Metallica, Motorhead, they didn’t have hits, but we were getting pressure to have some sort of hit,” Canedy remembers. “Well, without a power ballad in there, good luck. It was very hard. So we don’t get that pressure anymore. We do it ourselves. Right now, I know when I write a song, like ‘The Code,’ it just unfolded. I don’t try to shape them, like we need a fast or a slow or we need a mid-tempo, or I need a song about this or that. The songs come, and whatever they are, they are.”
Canedy says that when the band was tracking its sophomore album in England, Elektra records let it be known that if The Rods didn’t record a certain two songs, “you’ll never work in this business again.” The band refused, because “we didn’t write them, they weren’t good songs, in our opinion,” he says.
“So you’re in the middle of recording an album, in a foreign country, and you’re getting this pressure from the States,” he says. “We don’t have that anymore. So it’s nice. It’s freedom, ya know?” How many ever copies of “Vengeance” sell, he says, “it’s successful to us because of the freedom.”
With Feinstein pursuing his solo career as well as running a restaurant, Canedy producing acts like Miami band Blunken, whom he recorded at Sound Investments, and Bordonaro teaching at Cornell University, The Rods had fallen by the wayside. But that changed not too long ago.
“About five years ago, we had a reunion gig, and we said, ‘You know what, this went so well it’s like we never stopped playing together. Let’s just continue on.’ So we started recording material,” says the drummer.
The band completed the album and connected with a label but ended up in litigation, which put the brakes on the process temporarily. The Rods went back and re-worked the material, and there’s two more songs they’ll add — one written by Feinstein, the other written by Canedy — to the final product. “Vengeance” will be released some time after Feinstein’s solo record comes out in late September, Canedy says.
The Rods were emboldened by the reception they’ve gotten after such a long absence.
“We were kind of told by our management that nobody cared about us,” says Canedy. “We were basically ‘the shittiest band on the planet and nobody gave a f--k about us,’ I think was the quote. So we kind of thought, well, OK.”
During the lengthy hiatus, the Internet came to prominence, and Canedy says fans from Poland, Brazil and other far-away countries began e-mailing him. “So we started realizing there were fans that really cared about the band after all these years. So when we actually started doing dates, we were kind of aware that there were still a lot of people.”
He also feels The Rods are winning over some new fans, not just the old-schoolers. At Rocktower, a German metal festival that The Rods played at in April, “there were a lot of young people,” says Canedy. “I think what happened is half of the crowd didn’t know who we were, but shortly after a few songs they started warming up to us. I think seeing us live, they see that we have the energy, that we have the passion, and we start making new fans, even though some of them probably weren’t even born when the first album came out.”
The Rods’ members have enough going on in their worlds to keep them busy, and to make them money. Canedy, who produced Anthrax’s first three albums and brought singer Joey Belladonna into that band’s classic lineup, continues to work with other artists. Because of the members’ other pursuits, the expectations for “Vengeance” are realistic, and the bar has been set at a comfortable level.
“None of us think we’re going to be rock stars in the sense of the big-hair ’80s rock-star days, but I think we really love playing together,” Canedy says. “I think, as David pointed out to me the other day, it’s really about the music and really just having fun with it and enjoying it and being as creative as we can be. And that’s what it is. Our crew is so cool and the band is such a laid-back thing. It’s such a mellow, laidback atmosphere.”
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