Bands make successful records, break up, then reconcile — you know the cliched tale. But it was a little different for Patty Smyth and Scandal, who reunited on television during an episode of a VH1 reality show in 2004. Now, almost a decade later, members are still touring and making music. Before they swing into Toledo to play at the Hollywood Casino, TCP caught up with Patty to talk about new material, turning down an offer to front Van Halen and being confused with Patty Smith.
After Scandal broke up in the ‘80s, you had a successful solo career. But you guys reunited in 2004; what has clicked this time, keeping Scandal together?
I think it was just really fun when we did the show [Bands Reunited on VH1]. We didn’t all stay together. Thommy Price was in a different band, Zack Smith lived in California and Benjy [King], [who] has since passed away and Keith [Mack] was in New York, so the three of us started to play together and kept doing it. We got together a great rhythm section and just really had fun. The band kind of imploded during the Warrior record; there was a lot of things that led to that. There was never any bad blood. I don’t think the reunion would’ve happened if it wasn’t for that show. They bushwhacked me; I didn’t know [they were tricking me into being on a TV show]. I’m happy that they did that.
Was it weird to be surrounded by cameras during an unexpected reunion?
Not really. It was almost like no time had passed. I was really good friends with Thommy Price. It’s like when someone is your brother or something; you pick up right where you left off. The part that really choked me up was thoughts of Benjy, who had then recently passed away in a weird, freak accident, but the producer basically orchestrated him being pushed out of the band [back in the 90s]. He was producing all the time. I never really thought it was something that was hurtful, that I really never spoke to him again. I sort of felt ashamed and badly that I never really spoke to him. The rest of it was pretty ok — pretty relaxed.
In 2009, Scandal debuted a new song (“Hard For You To Love Me”) for the first time in 24 years. Was it strange to write a song together after two decades or did it come naturally?
It wasn’t really that weird; it was just a good song for us, I felt. It was a song I was working on and they liked it. So it just kind of happened that way.
Is there new material now?
There's a lot, but we really just have to get to it and record it. Keith's down in Delaware. I'm going to go down to Nashville, probably the second week of February. There are definitely a lot of songs that have to be recorded. Actually, I was too late on getting out my Christmas album this year, but it's definitely coming next year. We've gotta finish that, then get onto to the regular record.
You were playing gigs in NYC in your teens. What are some of your fondest memories of breaking into the scene?
Well, my mother ran a bunch of night clubs and coffee houses in Greenwich Village, so I kind of grew up in that scene and watched a lot of really great performers and heard great stories. There were a couple of girls who had an a cappella group and they were the ones who let me get on stage and sing with them at Folk City, which was a pretty legendary place, when I was 14 or 15. So, in the middle of their set, they let me get on stage and sing and play guitar — very poorly, I’ll add. We played a Cat Stevens song, they sang backup vocals, and it was a song called “Sad Lisa” that didn’t have backing vocals. That always sticks in my head because it was a ballsy thing for all three of us to do.
So, after David Lee Roth left, Eddie asked you to join Van Halen. What’s the story behind that?
In retrospect, don’t think I didn’t agonize about my decision at certain times in the ‘90s. I honestly really wish I had done a record with them. At that point, I was pregnant; he and Valerie had come out on the road with me and we had become good friends, and he asked me. Later, he came back and said, ‘You have to let me know.’ Valerie was on David Letterman, so we were all out to dinner with the David Letterman band and I said, ‘No, I don’t think I’m going to do it.’ Everyone just couldn’t believe it, ‘cause I said no. There was kind of a collective gasp. It was the timing of it. They were pretty wild. Him and his brother fought a lot. I was a snobby New Yorker; I didn’t want to move to LA. I really didn’t think it through. [Eddie] basically didn’t want me screaming it from the roof tops. Nor did I care. It wasn’t like I had to run around and tell everyone. That’s why it wasn’t really talked about. Sammy Hagar was second choice. But he did a great job, so it really didn’t matter.
Being from the same city, have you ever been confused with Patty Smith (folk singer/poet/author)?
Constantly. I get her mail, invites, congratulations for books I didn’t write. Nothing drives my husband more crazy than that.
Which mixup was the most awkward?
In ‘92 or ‘93, I was in Germany and I was doing all this press in Munich. This guy comes in and starts asking me all these questions and he has these pictures. And I realize, ten minutes in, which is a pretty long time, [that] he thinks I’m Patty Smith and all the questions are for her. And he can’t reconcile how the photographs in his hand don’t quite equal the chick that is sitting in front of him. Plus there was a language barrier, so it just got so frickin’ confusing and then [it clicked] and he was mortified. That was pretty brutal.
Patty Smyth and Scandal play at Hollywood Casino, 777 Hollywood Blvd., at 8pm on Friday, February 8. The show is free. For more info, visit www.hollywoodcasinotoledo.com.
