This time I had a chance to talk with Frank Reina, drummer known for us as a member of Big Blue Missile. He also did a great job on a few Happy In Galoshes tracks and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. The following article is what he had to say about Big Blue Missile's story and his long time relationship with Scott Weiland.
--Frank Reina--
With Big Blue Missile we recorded the following songs full version and unplugged:
- Cry Baby
- Moth
- Radio Superman
- Cartoon Hammer
- Orange
- Bi Polar King
- Waxin Hallow
- Manic Soultripper
- Zodiac Sign
- Ashes To Ashes (with Scott Weiland)
- Yellow Pills (with Scott Weiland)
- Time Of The Season (with Scott Weiland)
Cry Baby, Moth, Cartoon Hammer, Orange and Zodiac Sign were really songs written when we were called "Miss Galaxie".
That band consisted of me, James Heimbauch, Phil Gough, Cosmo Jones and Brad Cummings. James and I were the core of Miss Galaxie. We spent a lot of time in my home studio writing, arranging and producing these songs. Later added Phil, Brad and Cosmo. The tunes we recorded at my home studio were great demos, but we re recorded everything at Phil's studio.
James had been a longtime friends of Scott's. I actually knew Scott from Huntington Beach back when he was playing with Soi Disant. I played with them a few times. Those guys used to come watch my Top 40 band back in the day, pretty funny now that I think about it. Shawn Tubbs played bass in my Top40 band. I think he was 18 so we had to lie about his age so he could play with us. Both Shawn and his brother Lonnie played in Soi Disant with Scott. They did the "MTV Unplugged" with STP.
Note from Tyrant: Pretty interesting. Scott brought his former bandmates from Soi Disant to help out STP on "MTV Unplugged" and Shawn Tubbs is actually the one who taught Robert Deleo to play bass (according to Robert himself)Shawn has gone on to do great things. James and I were in a band called Junk Public in 1990 ish. We shared a rehearsal flat with Mighty Joe Young back before STP blew up. I think Eric Kretz owns that building now. We used to do gigs together at Al's Bar downtown LA sometimes. Anyway, James says he had a lot to do with the song "Wicked Garden" but never got any credit for it. I guess Scott and James had a blow out after that, and lost contact when STP got famous.
In 1996 ish James, Scott and I re connected. Scott sat in with us on a club gig in Hollywood and sang Moth which was a song James wrote a long time back that Scott remembered. It sounded very similar to Barbarella..... "Isn't Dat Vierd?" After that Scott listened to the Miss Galaxie demo and decided to take us on. We eventually changed the name to Big Blue Missile. We were going to be Scott's flagship band on his new label "Lavish".
Scott was really behind us. He mentioned us every chance he had. We ended up in SPIN Magazine and stuff like that. Scott practically gave us the keys to his studio. We came in whenever we wanted. We recorded a bunch of stuff while we were there. It was such a great time in my life. We recorded Ashes to Ashes and Time of the Season for the film Austin Powers The Spy Who Shagged Me. They chose Time of the Season because the licensing for Ashes to Ashes was too expensive. Everything was going great! Unfortunately during the process we had to make some personal changes. Phil and Brad left or got canned (worst decision ever) and Scott's Engineer/Producer Doug Grean (Great choice!) came on board as guitarist and engineer/producer and so did bassist Chris Wyse.
We recorded and rehearsed a lot! Our first big gig was when we did the Sundance Film Festival and performed with Scott. It was his first time back on stage in years. It was awesome. We did all of our BBM songs and I think we did Big Black Monster. I have some photos if you are interested.
Anyway, after that things kind of went down hill. Too long of a story. The band moved out of the studio, sued Scott for more points on Time of the Season and pretty much broke up after that. I didn't want any part of that so I hung around and stayed in Scott's camp. I did a handful of recordings/demos that were supposed to be for his solo record. We did "Big Black Monster", "Sentimental Halos", "Full Blown John", a remake of Berlin's "Sex" and various other stuff. Right about that time he joined Velvet Revolver and that was the last time I saw or heard from Scott for a while. It really sucked because I was hoping to finish the solo record and tour with him if it got that far. He did call me to do the tonight show over Christmas. You can see that video at frankreina.com. Working with Scott was probably one of my greatest experiences. I would love to work with him again. Who knows, maybe he will call me.
Now, Frank plays in a great band called Brightlive. Check them out here: http://brightlive.bandcamp.com/One of the band members Andrew Prickett co-produced both One Republic albums and joined the band for their Euro Tour 2010.Here are some exclusive photos from the Sundance Festival kindly provided by Frank:
Cosmo Jones, Frank Reina, Scott Weiland, Still James, Doug Grean.
The note from Cosmo Jones:Scott "Freedom" Allen was there (barely behind me in one pic) and he played keys and also controlled the loops. We had some arps, percussion and sfx on a click track.
Big Blue Missile memorabilia:
Jay Leno show:
Frank @ Lavish:
Frank and Scott:
You can stream Big Blue Missile's Cry Baby, Cartoon Hammer, Waxin Hallow, Zodiac Sign, Yellow Pills (with Scott) and Time Of The Season (with Scott) here:
http://www.broadjam.com/player/player.php?artistID=9959--Scott Weiland demos--
You can listen to the 4 Scott Weiland demos (2 versions of Big Black Monster and 2 versions of Full Blown John) here:
http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_5547051Frank Reina uploaded them after my request. Please, keep them off YouTube and other public file-sharing platforms. Hope you have enough respect and understanding. Thanks.
Thanks for everything, Frank.
