Blackcat Elliot – An Xperience Interview

Blackcat Elliot – An Xperience Interview- by Rob Smittix.

This interview took place on the airwaves of RadioRadioX.com.

RRX: RadioRadioX: it’s Rob Smittix Worldwide, broadcasting to every single continent on the globe, except for Antarctica. We have some very special guests in the studio right now, the band Blackcat Elliot. If you guys can go around and introduce yourselves, so I don’t have to.

MB: Hi, I’m Marky Balboa and I kind of play drums.

FE: I’m Fast Eddie, I play bass.

Gus: Hey guys and gals, I’m Gus. I’m the singer and guitar player of Blackcat Elliot.

MB: Gus has the most mental problems.

RRX: Clearly, I think one of Gus’s biggest mental problems is that he’s too nice.

Gus: A lot of people say that. That’s cool, I’ll take it, that’s in front of the curtain. Behind the curtain, you know? You don’t want to know that guy.

MB: It all depends on who you ask.

(All Laugh)

RRX: Honest to God, you’re like one of the nicest guys I ever met.

Gus: I kind of get along with everybody, I try to. I don’t care what religion you follow, what political party you are, or what music you like. If you’re a genuinely a good person, I will like you and you will like me. That’s the way I am. Especially at gigs; if things go a little sour, I’m not a fighter by any means. I always get my drummer Marky, who’s an MMA specialist, so to speak, to handle all of my battles. But … thank you for the kind words.

MB: I’m too old for that sh** now! Can we swear?

RRX: No, actually! We’re penalized now, you owe us $300. We’ll let that one slide. So, there’s a reason that you guys are here today. That’s this wonderful vinyl that I have here. The first Blackcat Elliot vinyl in existence. The brand-new album called “When the Smoke Clears.” I love this album, I’ve heard quite a bit of it already!

Gus: Thank you very much, man. It was fun to make but Marky, go ahead, tell the people.

MB: A lot of it got written around the Covid era, when we were locked up and going crazy. Gus and I would go back and forth. He’d send me something and I’d send it back. A lot of it came that way, about half of the songs. The other half just came from us being in a band and jamming out.

RRX: These mics have really good compression, but if it does bleed through over the radio, the Lawn Sausages are literally in the next room over, rehearsing for their last show ever.

Gus: It’s kind of a sad thing, but at the same time, it’s kind of a cool thing. I’ll definitely be there for that show. Actually, one of our first gigs as Blackcat Elliot back in 2001 or 2002 … we were asked to play with the Lawn Sausages. At the time, the Fleshtones were part of another band called the Master Plan. It was one of our first gigs in Troy; we warmed up for the Sausages and Master Plan.

RRX: That’s a great start!

Gus: That’s when we hooked up with Artie, and the rest is history. It’s like it came 360; we started with the Lawn Sausages and now we’re here doing the interview while they’re making noise.

RRX: We’re going to talk more, but we are debuting the album in its entirety tonight. The first song is “Let’s Get Infected,” which really sets the mood for the album. Let’s get into it right now!

(Off air, Gus tells me that I can play the songs in whatever order I choose, or to play the ones I like. I’m just playing them in the order from the album. He’s such a sweet man.)

RRX: Gus is in here trying to tell me how to do my job. It’s wonderful.

Gus: I thought you said I was nice!

(All Laugh)

Gus: Not when it comes to my art!

FE: See … get to know him a little bit.

RRX: Gus comes in the studio, knocks over my beer. It’s 0.0 non-alcoholic Stella.

MB: Took your headphones, called you bad names. He’s really not that nice.

RRX: I’m starting to see it now. I was trying to figure out earlier how long you guys have been around.

Gus: About 23 years now, this is our fourth album. The journey has been crazy. We’ve been through a couple bass players, and Fast Eddie has been in the band since …

FE: 2008. It’ll be 16 years for me coming up in October.

MB: Eddie’s our 3rd bassist and has been around the longest.

Gus: The new album that’s being released on August 10 is just dynamite. It feels like we’ve matured. Previous albums were a lot of personal stuff that we were going through. This is too, but it’s more outside of that.

MB: A lot of what’s going on in the world is on this album in different ways. Secret messages, really. You’ve got to play it backwards.

Gus: One of the songs on the album, “Take it or Leave it,” I wrote a couple of days after my dad passed away. We had Doug Reynolds play piano on it. That came out pretty cool, and I hope that you guys enjoy it. But that’s one of the personal songs on there.

RRX: I’m excited about this album because this kind of music is still relevant and you’re still doing it.

FE: We’re all good friends. It’s always been family first, that’s part of why we’re still doing it.

Gus: We’ve made it through so many hurdles. It’s a total family, I don’t even consider it a band anymore. It looks like we’re just going to keep going. You get so tight with each other, jamming every week and working on songs. It’s pretty much like our children … those 10 songs for the past three or four years are like kids that we’ve raised.

RRX: You heard it here first! Blackcat Elliot, “When the Smoke Clears,” official release date August 10.

MB: Saturday, August 10, at SingleCut North, 6 Fairchild Square in Clifton Park, it’s our album release party and it’s free! Who else does that? Who gives you free? We do!

Gus: It’s super early at 5 p.m., for all of the people that are worried about time. You guys can go out after, actually.

MB: For all of you 35 to 55-year-olds, that’s perfect for you. For you 23 to 30-year-olds, you can go out and drink more afterwards. It’s a win-win for both age groups. Two hours of our nonsense.

Gus: We’ve got a good friend of ours that we’ve been friends with for years, Dave Graham. He’ll be performing a set to help us out and celebrate our new album. We’ll have our new album there for sale.

MB: We’ve got a whole bunch of sizes of new shirts. People have been asking and we ran out for a while.

Gus: Definitely come by! Everybody is busy with life and stuff. But our show, as soon as we put the guitars on and Marky gets behind the drum set, our main goal at every show since we started is for everybody to forget about their worries and reality, forget about what’s going on in the world. I know it’s hard to do, but rock n roll!

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