“The Devil’s just blowing smoke. If you listen to that, there’s just a bunch of noise. There’s no melody to it, there’s no nothing.” »read more
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Iris was a member of The Jaggerz, who were known for their hit "The Rapper." After a stint in Wild Cherry, he formed his own band with keyboard player Mark Avsec, who along with Iris writes most of their songs. Says Iris: "That song was a jam. The group went into the studio and Marty Lee, our guitar player, came up with that riff. And we just kind of built around that riff, and put the instrumentals down, and that's all we had. We just had what we thought was a good track: guitar, bass, drums, and then Mark and I were in the studio and we listened to the song back, and wrote the lyrics around the track, which is basically what we do on most of the stuff that we're writing nowadays. We just go with a nice rhythm track of guitar, bass, and drums, keyboards, whatever; come up with what we think is a nice piece of music, and then Mark will, at that point, take the tune home and write a lyric for it and together we'll work on the harmonies and background vocals and the melodies and things like that. But for 'Love Is Like A Rock,' he and I sat in the studio listening to that back, the rhythm track. I think it was Mark's idea to come up with "Love is like a rock," and then we just together wrote lines that rhymed." (Thanks to Donnie for speaking with us about this song. In 2006, he released Ellwood City, which is available on donnieiris.com. His full interview is available in the Songfacts Songwriter Interviews.)
Comments:
Saw Donnie & The Cruisers at the Byham Theater (formally the Fulton Theater)on 12/29/06, in the 'burgh. What a night! Joe Grushecky (of the House Rockers) Acoustical warmed up the crowd with great guitar licks and beautiful melodies and got everyone in the groove for a big evening. Donnie and Mark and the boys came out with three drummers and blew everyone away for the next two, two and a half hours. It was awesome. If you've never seen Donnie live, go now. He's one of the best entertainers you'll see on the small circuit, believe me. He has the greatest scream in rock too ('Ah, Leah') Can't wait to see him again soon.
- Joe, Portage, PA