Joe Mele – An Xperience Interview

Joe Mele – An Xperience Interview – by Rob Smittix.

Photography by: Stephanie J. Bartik

JM: Okay so this is how the Troy Music Mafia began. Art Hilton asked me to open Hilton Music on 3rd Street in Troy in 1968. I was running the store, and all of a sudden all of these younger musicians started gathering. There were five music stores in Troy: Miller’s, George’s on King Street, Romeo’s, the 2nd Drome Sound (the first one was at the Aerodrome), and Hilton’s.

Everybody was hanging around when I first got to meet Dave Costa, Gary Tash, Eddie Powers, Gary Sagendorf, Joe Montarello, Bobby Etoll, Chris Garabedian, Keith Stenhouse, Craig Ruhtz, Dan O’Brien, Ed Powers, Rick Rourke, Peter Iselin, and Adrian Otero. This is the Troy Music Mafia. All of these guys came in, hung around, became friends, and got bands going, Mystic Haze, Coalition, Sweet Silence, Back Bay Brew. Then all of these guys started interweaving different bands. Nobody lost track of each other. Dave Costa named it the Troy Music Mafia. So that’s what started it.

RRX: I love the name, it really reels you in!

JM: I wasn’t hip to it at first but now I’m just used to it, you know? So, the store was happening and everybody is becoming really good friends. Everybody is joining bands. It kept going and going and within a year’s time, kids wanted lessons.

RRX: Right.

JM: We figure we should open up a music school and we called it Troy Music Academy. Years later when Kenny and Lori of Super 400 opened their music school, they kept that name.

RRX: Yes, that’s right.

JM: So, when we started Troy Music Academy at the time, Nick Brignola was teaching. Mark Galeo, Gene Garune … Nick Brignola was upstairs teaching and he was on the cover of Downbeat magazine as he got nominated for best player. You’ve got these unbelievable teachers upstairs and we were downstairs being goofy guys on amps playing Beatles songs. That’s how it started, with the music store.

RRX: Of course.

JM: The first Troy Music Mafia lunch was five months ago. Chris Garabedian is the master of messaging people. I hate the interwebs. I had a flip phone until about four months ago. My wife made me get this new phone. I tried to smash it a couple of times, it wouldn’t smash. I hate it.

RRX: That’s a quality product though.

JM: So Chrissy, thank God … he’s the most beautiful person. Chrissy is a big reason this is happening. He messages, texts, and emails people. I don’t do any of that stuff. He started reaching out to people and the first lunch was basically the Emerald City guys. There were eight of us.

My wife Jenn put it on Facebook and people were commenting, “It’s great to see you getting together, mind if I come?” And I said, “Yeah, that’s cool.” Then the second lunch we had around 12 people. The third one we had 18 people, and the last one a couple of weeks ago we had 28 people.

RRX: It’s growing for sure.

JM: Yeah, it’s a beautiful thing. It’s the same as how I feel about my son’s memorial concert; we’re just doing something positive. I sit there and look at all of our friends. They come in, it’s all hugs, “Good to see you,” “I haven’t seen you in a while.” I sit there and go, “This is great!”

Matt Smith is in Austin, Bobby Etoll is in LA, Danny O’Brien is in Florida. They’re all seeing this and flipping out. They say “I’ve been out here for 40 years and I have friends and acquaintances but it’s nothing like home.” All of these people grew up together. Not just friends, but grew up as musicians, which is a little deeper than just being friends. You grow up as a musician and you experience so much more than just being a friend.

RRX: This I can relate to, being in a band is like family.

JM: Exactly!

For our next lunch, Craig Ruhtz is coming in from California and Matt Smith is coming in from Austin a day early because we’re recording that week.

RRX: That’s awesome, where is this next one taking place?

JM: At The Ale House again. At the last one I stood up and said, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat!”

RRX: Like across the street?

JM: I’ve got some ideas. When this thing grows, like I do with my son’s memorial concerts, the wheels start spinning. It’s kind of overwhelming. I think this time there’s going to be another 10 people which would be 38 to 40.

Chrissy is really the catalyst for nailing people down. That’s how great Chrissy is … last time he said “I’ve got a surprise for you,” and Art Hilton walked in. I haven’t seen Art in 40 years. Art came in and everybody freaked out and applauded, laughed, and hugged. So I sat with him and he said, “Oh this is really cool” and everybody came over saying things like “I remember I bought my first guitar,” or “Bought my drums and you gave me a really good deal, you let me pay $10 a month on it!” That’s the stuff we were doing back then.

I tried getting through to him with, “Art, this is really because of what we did by opening up the store. This is really how everybody met, became friends and here it is 50 years later, and we’re all together because of the store!”

RRX: That’s true, that’s where it all came together.

(Joe takes out his laptop and pulls up a group photo that was taken several years ago at The Dustin Mele Memorial Concert.)

JM: These are all of the guys. This is the Troy Music Mafia. There’s Jack Daley, he came up from Jersey.

Another major reason why we started this thing is to honor the ones we’ve lost:

Frank Daley, Dave Costa, Dave Quinones, Gary Brooks, Chipper Austin, Nick Brignola, Josh Bloomfield, Tom Flynn.

That is why we do this. When we get together at lunch, everyone sits down. Chrissy and I stand up and Chrissy says a prayer and honors the ones we’ve lost. Then I say to the crowd, “Speak up about anybody in your life,” and you’ll hear people include others like Charlie Smith and other musicians and friends. That’s the core of this. Not to just get together for the lovefest, but to honor the ones that we lost. These losses are happening around us really fast.

RRX: Yeah you don’t know, it could be totally unexpected. So when is the next Troy Music Mafia Lunch?

JM: October 2nd, it’s always on a Wednesday. You gotta come down.

RRX: I’m totally gonna come.

JM: Artie is invited too. He told me he’s so honored to be included to hang around all of those old cool guys or something like that.

(both Laugh)

JM: You see there’s certain people that stick. Artie sticks. He’s been supporting music locally forever. So he needs to be there. He’s a Troy guy, this is as much him, even though he wasn’t around back then.

Like Tess Collins, she’s from Troy. She used to sneak out her window to come see us guys play when she was a kid. So she’s got that connection too.

RRX: Tess is great, I love her. I’ll be at the next one for sure.

JM: Also, I want to thank Brian Gilchrist, Joe Daley, and the rest of the staff at the Ale House for putting up with the Mafia each month!

More from Rob Smittix…