Hi, first of all would you like to introduce The Blessings to the SLAM! readers?
Certainly....we’re very glad to be featured in Slam! Hello from the most hated country in the world, U.S.A.

What about Slimmer Twins and Ronnie Younkins?
Ronnie and I still write together and occasionally I sit in with his new band The Blues Vultures. They have a great new album out called “Cheap Guitars and Honkytonk Bars” in which I played harmonica on and co-wrote a couple of the tunes on. I even did some lead vocals on one track and backing vocals on a couple others. Ronnie is an amazing musician and a great song writer. I can’t say enough good things about him. We’re like brothers.

How did you get Mike Gavigan (guitar/vocals), Frank Scimeca (bass/vocals) and Robert Iezzi (drums) into your band?
Frank and Robert were actually recommended to me and Ronnie back in the Slimmer Twins days by John Corabi. They used to play in a few bands with John before The Scream ad the Motley Crue thing. Rob and Frank have been playing in bands together since they were 12 years old. They’re actually cousins. Mike I saw playing in some band I immediately wanted to steal him for my band. We hit it off immediately. We seem to share the same vision for the direction of the Blessings.

"Bare Bones" is your first album, co-produced by Bam and Share Ross from Bubble and Mike Hansen, what can you tell us about that?
Working with Bam and Share is always a pleasure. They really treated us like family and continue to do so. They are so talented and they really had a grasp on the sound we were going for. Mike Hansen also is quite a talent. He is a whiz in the studio and has a great ear. He’s worked with a lot of the greats, even one of my heroes Jerry Lee Lewis.

Bam has also dealt with the artwork and the CD pix if I’m not wrong…
Bam and Share both seem to have no limitations. They both have a very artistic eye and both have their own areas of expertise and work as one well oiled machine. Bam is a great photographer , cinematographer , graphic artist and they both build websites and have their own podcast they do every week (rocknrolltv.net).

Why did you choose to publish the cover of "Gone Movin' On" by Paul Revere and the Raiders?
They have so many great songs and Mark Lindsay’s vocal range is similar to mine. It was toss up between “Gone Movin’ On” and “The Great Airline Strike”.

Teddy “Zig Zag” Andreadis and Dizzy Reed have also collaborated on the album, where did this collaboration came from?
They didn’t really collaborate on the album but they did play on it. Dizzy used to play with us live, so naturally we needed him recreate what he does live in the studio. Later he became busy with his solo project so I called to Teddy to do live shows with us and to finish the album with us. Teddy also played the keys on the Slimmer Twins album. Now Teddy is a very important part of our performances and he’s been writing new material with us.

As we’re in topic, there are many rumours about the comeback of Axl Rose with Guns N' Roses, what do you think of this soap-opera?
To me Guns N’ Roses was over when Izzy and Steven Adler left. No offence to Teddy, Dizzy or Gilby. It just wasn’t the same band. It became to much of a big production and a lot less like the dirty rock n roll band that we all fell in love with. Once Axl started wearing his little white shorts and boxing gloves it was all down hill from there. Then the whole Bucket Head thing was just idiotic.

Your sound seems to be very influenced by bands like Rolling Stones, Faces, etc... do you think there is still a place for a r’n’r band like yours in 2006?
It sure seems like it. People seem to be starving for it. I think everyone has grown tired of the dull grey music that has been plaguing the airwaves for the last 10 or 15 years.

There seems to be kind of a rock’n’roll revival lately. How is the L.A. scene?
I remember many very good bands such as Killers And Kings and Dog Days... Well The rock n roll scene is definitely on an upswing. But it still has a little way to go.

Thanks to internet many new forms of communication are born, what do you think of websites like MySpace??
Myspace is the greatest thing that ever happened for musicians. That site has helped the Blessings immensely. It puts the power in the hands of the musician and eliminates the need for huge record companies. Thanks Tom.

I like the humour that websites as Metal Sludge have... what are the websites you usually surf in when you turn your computer on?
Definitely NOT the same ones that Pete Townsend is surfing. Mainly Myspace , Cdbay.com , that’s about it really.

What are your interests, beyond music.
I like art a lot .The impressionists mainly. I like to paint. It’s very therapeutic Without music I’d be lost though. It keeps me sane.

What’s the first song you have written? How did you start playing?
I don’t remember the first song, but I’m sure it was crap. As far as how I started playing, I always fantasized about being on stage from as far back as i can remember. I figured why not make it happen. My first band was when I was fifteen. We played one show at a youth function for a church.

It was horrible. We didn’t have a bass player and we sounded like we were all playing a different song. They were all these people from my parents church there and they hated us.They cut the power on us after 2 songs. They were all covering their ears in horror. I hope the videotape of that one never surfaces. I probably sounded like William Hung.

Future plans?
Our future plans are to tour and support “Bare Bones”.
We’re continuing to write new material and we want to put out another album next year.