The Rods return

The Rods, performance/CD signing Wed., May 25, 7 p.m., Gallery of Sound (186 Mundy St., Wilkes-Barre), performance at Brews Brothers (1705 River St., Pittston), Fri., June 3; Addicted to Pain opens.

by Nikki M. Mascali
Weekender Editor

Sometimes in life, you can stray off the path for a while, never to find the same way again. In the case of The Rods, a heavy-metal band from Cortland, N.Y. that spent the ’80s opening for bands like Iron Maiden, Twisted Sister and Judas Priest — and even had a then-unknown band named Metallica open for its own headlining tour — the second time around just might be better than the first.

Releasing its last CD, “Heavier Than Thou,” in 1986, The Rods — David “Rock” Feinstein, Garry Bordonaro and Carl Canedy — reunited a few years back. From that reunion came “Vengeance,” which dropped Tuesday, May 24.

“(The album’s) been in the works a couple of years,” said Canedy, who called in from his home in Carbondale, where he moved 20-plus years ago; his wife is an area native.

With Canedy’s ties to NEPA, The Rods will celebrate “Vengeance” with two local events. The first will be a signing and performance Wednesday, May 25 at Joe Nardone’s Gallery of Sound in Wilkes-Barre; the second will be a show at Brews Brothers in Pittston Friday, June 3.

“Vengeance’s” first single, “The Code,” is a bittersweet track. It features guest vocals by Feinstein’s cousin, the late Ronnie James Dio, who Feinstein had been in Elf with. “The Code” was one of Dio’s last recordings before he died of stomach cancer last May.

“Seeing him in person in the studio was amazing,” Canedy said. “I produce a lot of great singers, but he was flawless. It was a really great time, and it was sad when he passed. For us, it’s a bittersweet thing, but it’s now part of the legacy. And when we went back in the studio to mix and listened to that voice, we all sat there in silence.”

The Rods may have been out of the limelight for more than two decades, but Canedy didn’t stray far from the music industry — as a producer, the drummer worked with bands like Anthrax, Overkill and Exciter.

“It really is different,” Canedy said of producing his own band versus working with others. “With The Rods, David and I are the principal songwriters, and we’ve worked together on a lot of things, so things are unspoken with us. With a younger band, there are a lot of plateaus you have to get them to … it’s also just that we’re old,” he added with a laugh.

So with such a connection, why did it take The Rods more than 20 years to reunite?

“We had talked about it periodically, but we all kind of moved on for a while, though there was never any animosity,” Canedy explained.

The members put the band on hold to raise families and have outside careers — Feinstein opened a restaurant before forming the band Feinstein in 2004, Bordonaro is an engineer.

“It wasn’t until the children moved on that we said we should be playing now,” Canedy shared. “It was like we never left. I didn’t want to be the lounge version of The Rods. Too many times bands get back together with new members trying to do what they did in the past, so we said, ‘Let’s just move on to a new project,’ but we still had that same energy, and we’re having a blast.”

Having a blast is something Canedy has been having since he first sat behind the drum kit, inspired by drummers like Carmine Appice, Ringo Starr and Tony Williams.

“I didn’t play double bass, but I went out and bought another bass drum because I saw Blue Cheer on ‘American Bandstand,’” Canedy recalled. “You weren’t used to seeing bands like that on the show, and they broke into ‘Summertime Blues,’ and I thought, that looks pretty cool, and that was it for me.”

Eventually, Canedy’s and Feinstein’s paths crossed as “musicians playing the same kind of music,” and the two joined forces, despite the changing climate of music in the late ’70s/early ’80s.

“At the time we started The Rods, it was disco everywhere,” Canedy said. “We would play a club, and people would literally run for the door. I walked out after a show, and one the guys leaning up against the wall outside said, ‘That was horrible.’

“For a second I had to stop and think, ‘Do I really want to do this with my life?’ But I thought, ‘I’m having fun, I love this!’”