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14 июл 2025
Watch: RIKKI ROCKETT's THE ROCKETT MAFIA Performs In Pickerington, Ohio
During a recent appearance on the Iron City Rocks podcast, Rockett spoke about THE ROCKETT MAFIA, which released its first single in February, a cover of "I Think I Love You", a 1970 song by Tony Romeo, written as the debut single for fictional musical TV family "The Partridge Family". Asked if he and the other members of THE ROCKETT MAFIA have talked about writing and recording original music, Rockett said: "Yes, we have. In fact, Mick and I played yesterday and we've been talking about stuff. And we got a couple of things under our hat now. We're just trying to do it one step at a time and put all the pieces together. So, if we do something, we can actually make a really decent effort out of it and not — pardon the French, but half-ass it. I don't wanna do that."
On the topic of which POISON songs THE ROCKETT MAFIA will perform during its live shows, Rikki said: "What I'm gonna do, and I was gonna do it today, actually, and maybe I still will, I was gonna take a poll on some social media platforms and literally ask fans, 'What songs do you wanna hear?' and choose 'em that way. I wanna give the people what they want, literally, because I love all our songs. I love our body of work. I like some songs better than other ones, of course, but there's nothing I hate. So if the fans really wanna hear something, I've got no problem playing it."
As for what other covers THE ROCKETT MAFIA is planning to play at its upcoming gigs, Rikki said: "We do a FACES song. We do a Billy Joel song. We do an Elton John song. We've taken some of this stuff and just kind of reimagined it in a hard rock format. And that's the idea of it, rather than take something that was already a rock song and compete with it. I don't wanna redo a BLACK SABBATH song. I'm not gonna do a better job than Bill Ward; I'm just not. To me, that's the pinnacle of BLACK SABBATH. And FACES arguably… But back then, I feel like some of those recordings were rushed… [FACES'] 'Stay With Me', by way of example, I've heard so many versions of that — funky versions and fast versions and slower versions — and it's okay to do our own version. I don't wanna do 'War Pigs' my way."
Asked if he and the other members of THE ROCKETT MAFIA plan on mixing up the setlist night after night, Rikki said: "Yes, we will. It depends. If we're doing like, let's say, a corporate gig where people want a huge variety of stuff, we'll do a bigger variety of stuff. I think at certain rock shows, like Summerfest, by way of example, people are gonna want more of the POISON stuff, they're gonna want more of the straight-ahead rock and roll, so we'll probably do that. But, really, the whole set rocks. We have no ballads at this point — not one. It never slows down. And I was thinking, 'Man, is that a bad idea?' And then so many people came up to me after the show and went, 'Oh, no. It was fun. I love that you guys never stopped.' There was only a couple times where Brandon talked. It was almost like a punk band, like the RAMONES. 1, 2, 3, 4 — bam — right into the next thing."
Last month, Sweda told the Nothing Shocking podcast about his involvement with THE ROCKETT MAFIA: "It was really interesting how it came about. My friend Bryan [Kimes], who is playing with me in THE HOT SUMMERS, ran into Rikki, and Rikki was looking for some guys to flesh out this idea that he had for this band. And my friend recommended me for the guitar spot, and Rikki and I got together and hit it off pretty well and had a great time playing. And it's been progressing ever since. We've got some gigs in early July in the Midwest and around the Pennsylvania area, and we hope we'll have many more to come."
Regarding the other musicians who are involved in the peoject, Mick said: "Well, Brandon Gibbs, the singer, I think he's pretty well known for touring a little bit with Joel Hoekstra. I think they have an acoustic thing that they do. I guess it sometimes goes electric. So he and Rikki have been friends for a long time, and he's a very talented cat, a great guitar player. And at this point, we haven't totally fleshed out the bass part. We're going through some guys right now. And hopefully we'll settle on someone on a permanent basis."
Asked if there is "a certain era" he and his THE ROCKETT MAFIA bandmates are "trying to stick to" when it comes to choosing which songs to cover, Mick said: "Yeah, we definitely wanted to do the more obscure stuff, and we tried a couple of things out. There's a song called 'Baby Blue' that I've always loved since I was a kid, by BADFINGER. And we love playing that song. However, you have to sort of gauge how things go over. Not everybody is familiar with material like that. So even though we're trying things… For example, we put together a track called 'I Think I Love You' [a 1970 song by Tony Romeo, written as the debut single for fictional musical TV family 'The Partridge Family'], which was actually the first single I ever had as a kid by 'The Partridge Family'. And it's kind of a challenging track to cover, at least from the outset, but I think we had a lot of fun with it. And it's out there for people to listen to now.
"But the song list is kind of evolving," Mick explained. "We start out with what's in our hearts, between Rikki and I, which is the '70s for that matter. So, it's kind of branching out from there. And we're just making sure that the tunes are fun and energetic and entertaining."
On the topic of whether THE ROCKETT MAFIA is "pretty genre specific" to the "1970s classic rock era" or if they are "kind of wide open as far as experimenting with different genres of music," Sweda said: "It's the latter. In fact, one of the things that Rikki and I talked about doing was taking songs that you would never expect to hear and kind of revamping them in a way that allows us to interject our personalities into them. So, although we haven't really got to the stage of finding too many songs to do that with, 'cause it is a challenge — it's a lot easier to just pick up a song and play it as it's written. So for us to find something unique and exciting and turn it into our own, it takes a little bit more time, but that is ultimately the goal."
THE ROCKETT MAFIA, with Bryan Kimes on bass and backing vocals, played its first official show on February 21 at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, California.
Regarding how THE ROCKETT MAFIA came together, Rikki stated during a February 19 appearance on SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk": "I always had Brandon Gibbs in the back of my mind for any project that I do, which hasn't been many. I mean, I did DEVIL CITY ANGELS [with him]. When I played The Distinguished Gentleman's Ride [motorcycle charity event], which I am one of the city co-hosts for — that's a worldwide ride that takes place in 300-some cities across the world — they didn't have entertainment. And I said, 'It's time to have entertainment at this thing.' And they said, 'Well, any suggestions? Can you play?' And I went, 'Well, I don't have a band.' [Laughs] 'So I'll have to put one together.' I had done a couple of shows with CHEVY METAL — me and Kenny Aronoff had done a couple shows with them — so I reached out to those guys, and I just basically had them come and play the show… So after that, I just said, 'I need my own band.' First person I met was Bryan who was working at a salon that I was in, and we started talking. And this guy is from Maryland, and we have the same circle of friends, but didn't know each other. He's played all that tri-state area back there, the same places we played, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, all that. And so we got along great. And I said, 'Let's get together. I've gotta find a guitar player.' And he mentioned Mick Sweda. and I was like, 'Is he busy? Is he doing something? I mean, that guy's a monster. Is this something that would interest him?' And the first thing Mick said when I called him up, he said, 'Look, if you're just gonna have me for one or two gigs and then get rid of me, I'm not interested.' I said, 'Well, Mick, I don't know. I've never played with you, but I think we should at least get together and play.' And we did. And we were playing AEROSMITH songs, VAN HALEN, everything, and we're just sitting there going, 'Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We're cut from the same cloth.' And I was amazed at how good of a player this guy is. And then, of course, I brought Brandon into the thing. And I said the whole idea is something that Taylor Hawkins [late FOO FIGHTERS drummer] told me that I should have been doing a long time ago. And I always got super serious with a band, like, 'I've gotta, right away, write a record and do all-original material.' And he's, like, 'No, just go play for a while. Get used to everybody. Make sure you wanna have a good time. POISON's your baby, just like FOO FIGHTERS are mine.' So I took his advice, God rest his soul, and several years later, I'm actually doing this thing. It's been so much fun, just in the rehearsal phase."
As for what fans can expect to hear at THE ROCKETT MAFIA's live shows, Rikki said: "They're getting our original versions of cover songs for right now. Meaning we're taking songs that most rock bands typically don't do — some of 'em we do, but a lot of 'em most hard rock bands don't do — and we're reimagining them. And you'll see [when you hear 'I Think I Love You'] what I mean by that. And it's something that Mick dubbed, I think he called it 'satanic pop.' [Laughs] You'll see what I mean. So we're reimagining some of these songs that had great choruses and really catchy hooks, but were never meant to be necessarily hard rock songs. They were just crafted so well. And we're doing some regular FACES stuff and things like that as well. But we have decided now, and we started to fool around with our own stuff. So that is definitely forthcoming. But for this first little run, you're gonna be hearing a bunch of stuff that you went, 'Oh my God! That's that song. I know that song. I know that song.' That's what we're going for. And we keep adding [new songs] every day. I swear to God, we keep changing the set. We're, like, 'Hey, have you ever thought about doing this song?' 'Yeah, but how would we do that, do it THE ROCKETT MAFIA way?' So we're having a blast with it. It's just been really, really fun."
On the topic of how "I Think I Love You" was chosen to be one of the songs for THE ROCKETT MAFIA to cover, Rikki said: "I think I [suggested that one]. I always thought it was a great song. I had a crush on [actress] Susan Dey growing up, so, of course. But I always thought it was such a well-written song. It was written by Tony Romeo, who I don't know, but he's written other things. He passed away now. And I think David Cassidy was trying so hard at that time to make people realize that he was a really good player and he was a really good writer, and he couldn't extend past that idea of 'The Partridge Family' publicly. And I met him many years ago at an award show — he was super cool — and I told him how much I appreciated all the stuff that he really did reach out and do that he did in a more serious way. And I feel bad for him because he was never taken seriously. I think it made him an alcoholic maybe; I don't know. But I just thought it was a cool song. It was, like, 'This song needs a second spin.' The chord structures, everything is very hard rock, but the way they did it, it wasn't. So you'll see how we did it."
Rockett and Gibbs played their first show as THE ROCKETT MAFIA in May 2024 at the end of the aforementioned The Distinguished Gentleman's Ride motorcycle charity event in Santa Monica, California. They were joined at the gig by guitarist Brent Woods (SEBASTIAN BACH, CHEVY METAL) and bassist Wiley Hodgden.
Rockett and Gibbs previously played together in a band called DEVIL CITY ANGELS, also featuring guitarist Tracii Guns (L.A. GUNS) and bassist Eric Brittingham (CINDERELLA). The band released its self-titled debut album in September 2015. Following the recording of "Devil City Angels", Brittingham decided not to continue with the project and his spot was taken by Rudy Sarzo (QUIET RIOT, OZZY OSBOURNE, WHITESNAKE). Around a year later, Rockett, Gibbs and Brittingham joined forces with guitarist Joel Kosche (ex-COLLECTIVE SOUL) to form the LORDS OF DEVIL CITY. Within a few months, Rockett, Gibbs and Brittingham relaunched DEVIL CITY ANGELS, only for Eric to exit the project in the summer of 2017 and be replaced by Topher Nelson. In July 2020, DEVIL CITY ANGELS released a new single, "Testify".
In early 2019, Gibbs and Rockett were embroiled in a public war of words after Gibbs indicated he was no longer involved with DEVIL CITY ANGELS due to the fact that the band was "inactive." Rikki responded that DEVIL CITY ANGELS "went inactive" because he was diagnosed with cancer and suggested possibly moving on without Brandon. This prompted Gibbs to fire back that he had "never seen someone complain about money, perception and 1st class tickets" as much as Rockett allegedly did, "to the point where it gets in the way of doing anything." The two have since resolved their differences.
Back in 2015, Rockett told Sleaze Roxx about Gibbs: "The thing about Brandon is that he's a young guy but he sounds like he's from the '70s. That's what is so appealing for guys like us. That's the reason that I really wanted Brandon involved with us. Brandon doesn't have any baggage, which is good and he has a lot of experience. He's got a great pedigree."
In 2015, Rockett and Gibbs joined forces with Rikki's POISON bandmates Bobby Dall (bass) and C.C. DeVille (guitar) to play several shows as THE SPECIAL GUESTS in what was widely perceived as a not-so-subtle message to POISON singer Bret Michaels that they weren't willing to remain completely inactive while he pursued a solo career.
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