Episode 074 - Steven Gonza - The Interview

This week on the Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast, I’m joined by Steven Gonza—singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter for Connecticut hard rock band Ink—to discuss Broken Wings, a 22-song solo album made up of material that never fit his band’s sound.

These songs come from a very different place—more intimate, more melodic, and often written with a woman’s voice and piano in mind. We talk about Steve’s songwriting process, the difference between writing for Ink and writing for himself, and how this long-shelved material finally became a finished album.

It’s a thoughtful conversation about creativity, instinct, and the songs that wait years to find their proper form.

Check out the Broken Wings album on YouTube.

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Transcript

Alex Gadd 0:20

Welcome to the Rock and Roll Show podcast. I'm here to share the magic of making and enjoying live music together with strangers and with friends, and to get to know my guests a little bit better through their experiences, creating the music that we love to see and hear. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and I do this because I love talking about music with people, finding out what influences people bring to their music and how making music has affected them allows us to get to know and understand one another better. And also, hey, it's just fun talking about music anytime. My guest this week is Steven Gonza. You might know him better as Solar Steve from the mighty Connecticut hard rock band Ink. He's here today to talk about his latest project, a solo album of songs he's written over the years that didn't quite work for the band, so he's releasing them under his own name. There's a lot to cover, so let's get into it. Steve, welcome to the show.

Steve Gonza 1:09

Alex, what's going on, man? It's a pleasure to be here again.

Alex Gadd 1:12

Great to see you again. Thank you. Yeah. As you note, you were with your brother on the show almost two years ago when we were talking about the band, and we will get into Ink later on. But I really want to talk to you tonight about your songwriting and these songs that you've released on the album's called Broken Wings. It's on YouTube right now and we'll talk all about that. But I'd like to start at the beginning. We've known each other since we were eight and, uh, going back a long time, so almost 50

Steve Gonza 1:41

know what? That's the reason why I took this podcast because man, we go way back and I really enjoyed our first one. I liked the way you run things, so you know, I got my special shirt on today for you.

Alex Gadd 1:52

I appreciate that. It looks good on you. You make it look good.

Steve Gonza 1:56

Thank you so much for sending that to me, that

Alex Gadd 1:58

Yes sir. Yes sir. So I want to go back to the beginning. When did you start writing songs?'cause you are the primary songwriter for Ink but you write other kinds of songs as well. When did you start writing songs?

Steve Gonza 2:10

Yeah, so great question. I think I started writing songs as soon as I started taking my first guitar lesson. Um, and

Alex Gadd 2:22

that was in high school, right?

Steve Gonza 2:24

Yeah, so I, I would say, uh, god, boy, that's going way back about 16, 17 years old. Taking a step back. Um, I wanted to learn guitar because. My brother Sal, was always in the high school band. He would play with several, uh, players in my parents' basement and I would just sit on the stairs and, and watch'em. And, and you, they played everything from, Zeppelin to, to, Ozzy, to Black Sabbath, to Kiss, you know, and I would just sit on the stairs and, my brother and I are very close and, he turned to me one time after one of his rehearsals and he said, man, you're always at every rehearsal sitting on the stairs. Why don't you like take up an instrument and I'll get you in the band? And you know that that's all he had to say.'cause I was the younger brother, you know, and I was hanging around with some really good players. Every single player that came into his basement was like this amazing Eddie Van Halen type, just constant, really good players. And, so look, my brother said take up the guitar. And so of course once my brother said that, I just went and, uh, signed up for guitar lessons right in Stamford

Alex Gadd 3:34

Yeah. With Gene Pino.

Steve Gonza 3:36

exactly and I'll never forget, I walked in and I said, listen, I don't wanna be the next Eddie Van Halen. I wanna know how to play some basic chords. So my goal is to get into my brother's band. He gave me the opportunity. Right. And that's exactly what he did. You know, he listened to me. He didn't get into the reading of music and stuff, which he wasn't too happy about. But you know what? I picked up pretty fast some of the basic chords, and my brother allowed me just to play some rhythm acoustic in the background of songs. I mean, we also, you know, played some lighter songs. We played John Cougar Mellencamp, you know, a lot of, lot of that stuff. Um, and look, this is how I see it, Alex, when you get back to the question is I feel that every good band. Every decent band, if you want to say, has a songwriter or a couple. I mean, the Beatles had four of them, you know? But you know what? I, I think it's just in you and it has to come out. Right. And that's the truth. So when you say, you know, when did I start? Um, I think the guitar connected with me because, I'd learn some basic chords. And when I played these basic chord progressions, I just felt melodies. And to me, you know, a lot of people are like, Hey, I got a lot of poems, man. I wrote a song. That's not a song. To me, in my opinion, right, a song is a chord progression with a melody and lyrics and, and, and that's a song, right? So it just came out. I mean, and my brother had all these band members over again to rehearse. They came home from college, whatever at the time. And'cause they were older than me, and I remember going in the basement and setting up early. Before they got over. And then when they were coming in through my parents' garage and stuff, I had everything all set up and I had an electric at the time, and I plugged in and while they were setting up, I played a riff, like a chord progression riff, and everybody just stopped and looked and they were like, what is that? They liked it, right? And I was like, oh, this was like just like a little riff song that I read. I got some lyrics to it and everything. And an amazing thing about it, they all couldn't wait to set up and they started playing my song. And we ended up, uh, we ended up recording it in the studio and stuff like, so I think that, you know, getting back to your question, I think that's what really started it because I, I felt like, wow, these guys that I looked up to, you know, like Eric Simeon was one of the guys that helped me, play guitar when I was younger. But I looked up to these guys because I, they allowed me to. Give them my music, my material. They accepted it. That's the word I'm looking for. And my brother, of course, my brother accepted it. And then all of a sudden, those guys went off to college and my brother looked at me, he goes, do you have more of these songs? And Alex, be honest with this, it never stopped. I mean, I, I just constantly started writing. I would record on, at the time we didn't have cell phones, but I had a small recorder I'd record, I'd give it to my brother. And the crazy thing about it is, even today, that's the exact same song process that we do, is I'll write a riff. I always write the riff and I, I hum a melody. It comes out on a phone or a recorder. Of course, maybe I might add a drum machine or, or something to, to make it sound a little heavier or whatever, depending on where it goes. Uh, and then I give it to my brother. I give it to my brother. If he likes it, he puts his drum parts. And then as far as ink concerned, Richie will come in and, and put his, his, bass lines in it, and then it becomes something. But, you know, they could also say. We don't like it. And that's fine too.'cause I, like I said, I have so many songs that I've written. It's okay when they say they don't like it. And that gets to the, that gets to the whole other part of the conversation is some of these songs that never made the grade are on this 22 track album that, that you've heard. I mean, I'm a songwriter. It's like I don't really try to write hard. I write whatever comes outta my body. And sometimes they come out very light, and I like them, but I archive them.

Alex Gadd 7:32

Yeah.'cause they're not,'cause they're not Ink songs.

Steve Gonza 7:36

they're not, I mean, they don't fit the genre. I mean, if, if anybody listens to ink it, it is what it is. It's, it's. Three guys Hard rock riff, you know, Zeppelin meets Godsmack type, and it's all original. It's, it's very raw. There's really no background singers. There's just me on a mic and it's raw sweat, you know, and that's Ink. But like I said, I, I also consider myself a songwriter before I was ever the front man of Ink. I've, I love the songwriting hobby better than any other hobby that I do with, with music. I mean, if anybody ever said to me, what do you like best about Ink? I love the fact that they're accepting my songs, at least some of them, right? But like I said, the genre, there's a couple I could mention that we played live a couple times, and after a while we're like, yeah, everybody, everybody in the crowd seems to go, go to the bathroom, go get a drink. When we play that song, it's too light. And the truth is, I don't have like a, uh, an Adele voice where I could hit these high keys. So I think some of these love type softer songs are better suited for a female, and that's how I feel. And I think that's the segue into the whole songwriting thing, is this album was really to showcase some of the songs that I wanted to take to a different level.

Alex Gadd 8:52

Yeah. Cool. Hold there'cause I'm gonna come back to that. There are a couple of questions. First of all, you just told us a story about the first song you wrote. What was that song?'cause you did record it with Ink

Steve Gonza 9:02

Man, that's so funny. I, I, the other night I said to myself, you know what I, I, I better remember the name of that song and I do, it was called shed of Tear, and it wasn't too hard. It was more of a, a chord progression with an acoustic in the back. I, I probably should find the recording. Uh, but it was shed a tear. It was, I'm gonna name the guys. It was Mark Simeon on guitar. It was, uh, Eric Levine on bass. It was Sal on Drums. And my cousin Vic was, uh, the singer at the time. That song, was recorded in Stamford. And, uh, yeah. What, what a, what a, a great time we had. It was just went in there, just belted out one song and it was the first time I, I was ever in a studio, first song I've ever written. And I think that that really launched the fact that I wanted to do more of it.'cause we got an exposure to a professional studio it was not Kara house, it was actually a SA, a studio. I'm going to say his name is Earl Valentine. He was just a small producer. Um, that had his own album out and stuff like that. I don't remember how I met him, but, we connected and I said, Hey, you know, I'm in this band. We have one original song that we wanna try out in the studio. Um, and like I said, it was such an honor because, I've always hung around with, you know, I was always a couple years younger, right? So if I was a freshman in high school, these guys were junior seniors, right? So it was just an honor that they accepted like my original music. And even to this day, like I said, I don't mind when Sal or Richie and Ink say, yeah Steve, I'm not feeling it. It's fine because oh my God, all the songs and albums that we've done with Ink, they gave thumbs up to all of those. And it was like a great outlet for me to continue to do that. And it's still exciting for me to believe it or not. Ink probably releases a, a news original hard rock song once a year. And now for someone like me, it's like, it's like buying a motorcycle and only riding it once a year. You know, I wanna do more. And that's okay. I mean, everybody has families. We, we gig out with Ink, maybe we're lucky four times a year. Showcases. And that's cool because, you know, loading, loading the stuff in and out, it gets a lot at our age. But the songwriting, you know, it's like, it's almost.

Alex Gadd 11:21

every day.

Steve Gonza 11:22

It's almost like telling a fisherman that he could only fish like a couple days a year. I wanna fish a lot. And, and they know that. Um, so I think that's, that's gonna be the segue to this next conversation is why I even did something like this, you know?

Alex Gadd 11:35

have a couple more questions.

Steve Gonza 11:36

Sure.

Alex Gadd 11:38

Famous question. Every songwriter gets it. It's always a different answer. You kind of described your process, but are you a, a music first, A lyrics first? Is it different every time? Is it the same every time? How do you write a song in terms of sitting down? And I've got an idea. Is it lyrics first or is it music first?

Steve Gonza 11:59

man, what a great question. I had a person ping me the other day and she said, I wrote this great song and it's on paper, but I want you to write the music to it. Right. That just doesn't work for me. It just doesn't. I mean, first off, I mean, like I said, no disrespect to anybody, but to me, I describe a song as it's music with lyrics and a melody to me that you put those together. It's a song. If you write a poem to me, that's not a song, that's a poem, right? So to answer your question. I have handicaps too. I mean, some people have handicaps that they can't even write a song, and that's fine. Right. I think I can write a song. I mean, I think I've been pretty successful with, with Ink as Hard Rock, but as far as, these other songs that I write, I think every single one of the songs that I written are always, it's the same time simultaneously. I've never written a song like just a melody in my head. I gotta have my guitar in my hand. the guitar is, is, is the magic. And I think I, I said that when, when you initially said to me, how did you start a songwriter? How'd you know you were a songwriter? It came out because I played the guitar. I think the instrument brings it outta you, you know? Um, so my process. I grab my guitar, I put headphones on usually, and I have a, uh, a, a digital recorder and I'll plug into that, get a nice reverb on my voice, and I will just, usually when I change strings on my guitar, something magical comes out of a riff, but the riff usually comes first. Now, since if I'm writing for Ink, right, I have to know how to play and sing it at the same time, and I have to tap dance too with my pedals, right? So. So the process for Ink, if we're gonna talk about ink, it's, I write the riff and then I just belt out a melody that I think fits. And the funniest

Alex Gadd 13:49

does it have words or does it just noises

Steve Gonza 13:51

question. It doesn't usually, sometimes it just comes out as nonsense. but sometimes, most of the time it is a phrase of lyrics. And then my problem is I record it like that, and then I go back and try to make sense of it. I'll put lyrics to make sense. And you know what, you know, I grew up on Billy Idol. I still don't know what the Fri he says half the time. So I get away with sometimes when it makes nonsense too. But the truth is I always so hear my processes simultaneously. Guitar riff. Try to come up with a verse and then a catchy chorus. Usually the verse come out first, then a catchy chorus, and then I'll write the lyrics to make sure it makes sense. And like I said, phrasing iss very important. If you're ending a verse or even a chorus, what, um, you know, deliver to me or in inside you, or whatever it is. The phrasing and the syllables are. Important thing for me. So my handicap is, unfortunately I could, I said no to that person that asked me. I said, I've never taken a poem. And I, and just try to make music to that, that's impossible for me. And I told him that, but know what I did tell her? I said, look, if you want, I could read your poem and get inspired by it, and then I'm gonna write a song about it. But it's not gonna be your lyrics. She wrote the poem about, her, her boyfriend leaving her right. You know, I mean that's, that's a theme. Matter of fact, a lot of the, almost every song on my album's about a relationship, whether or not it's something you told me or my brother, or a cousin or a friend, or just someone that passed, you know, that's inspiring. But I guess to answer your question, there's really only one process that I have that's simultaneously playing. And singing. And like I said, my handicap is, I'm really not good at the cover thing. Like when people learn cover songs, I consider that like my handicap. It's like, I don't know how some of these guys do it. You know, some of my friends, I'll mention one of my favorite, um, uh, tribute bands, which is the UF Unforgettable Fire. When I saw those guys play. My jaw dropped, and I'm like, yeah, I'll never be doing that, you know? But look, and you know what? If you talk to those guys, they'll toot my horn and say, man, that guy could write a song. You know? So I have handicaps too. I think the only process I have is simultaneously, and here's one catch for you, is that, you know, after it comes out, it's either gonna be good or bad because I don't think there's another melody for the song. that crazy? Like sometimes. Well, Alex.

Alex Gadd 16:21

the only one that'll

Steve Gonza 16:22

Well, yeah. What'll happen is, and this is, maybe this is a handicap too. I'll write something and I think it sounds really cool, and then all of a sudden I get exhausted. I'm like, all right, I'm done. I leave it on the recorder. I come back two days and I listen to it. I was like, that, that sounds like shit. You know? And I don't like it. And then I can't change it. I mean, the melody stuck in my head. I, I know what I do. I archive it. And then maybe I'll come back to it and you know, believe it or not, those are some of the songs that I came back to. I'll show you what I did, but yeah. But I always like to, uh, you know, usually when it comes out fresh, hopefully I could keep it and then I decide if it's something I think that's gonna fit ink or maybe go on to one of my solo projects.

Alex Gadd 17:05

Cool. So you have the new record. It's called Broken Wings. That's the title of the collection. Broken Wings is one of the songs. I believe it's song number seven on the collection. I heard about 16 of the songs. I think they're all women singing and they're all piano songs,

Steve Gonza 17:27

Yeah, so let's talk about that a little bit.

Alex Gadd 17:29

A, it's amazing. It's totally different for you. I have so many questions. The first question is, how do you write all these gorgeous piano based songs with strings when all you do is play guitar, so you're transferring the song from guitar acoustic and your voice to a woman's voice and piano, and you're doing the arranging yourself. Correct.

Steve Gonza 17:56

Absolutely. I could tell you that I have, I have two outlets. Alright. There's the Ink three piece band, which is the Hard Rock that are gonna play live and show you everything we got. And it's just raw rock and roll. And then you have. Recent album that just came out, which is completely done in Suno Studios. Okay. And I'll talk to you a little bit about Suno Studios, which is amazing. It's almost like I took these raw songs that I wrote arranged, did all the melodies, did all the singing, did all the acoustic playing, and pretty much almost like I sent it out to Adele, lady Gaga. In all of these amazing musicians and came back with a polished song, and that's what Suno Studio does. I could load songs in there, I could split them and slice them. I could take vocals out, take Mike vocals out, put a woman's voice in, and it's absolutely amazing. I mean, it blew me away what it can do. It's funny thing about his, I said to myself, you know what, maybe I'll wait a couple years and I'll release my raw ones, because there are people that know the songs on this album. Like the Marin song or even the song the song promised you, there's another one promised you, uh, matter of fact, oh my God, there. And Promise you was done by Ink By the way, when we first started. Uh, but there's a song on there that was before Ink, which the band was called Pfluger. And one of the songs was, you and me. It's I think the second to the last track. And again, those songs. I could send you those recordings and you'll be like, wow. You know how much they change. So like I said, I could take an acoustic guitar that I played, I throw it into Suno and I could say, make it a piano and it'll do my arrangements and it will completely transpose it into a piano. I mean, I could put in a Spanish guitar and it turns it into a Spanish guitar. It, it's, it's just mind blowing. I mean, it literally is like, um, you know, I played Prince for a Day where Prince sent a song to Sinead O'Connor to sing, right? Well, guess what? I don't have Adele's number, lady Gaga's number Amy Lee from Evanescence. And you know what I mean? Alex, just taking one more step back is if you went to my YouTube channel, you will find songs, I would say a handful of them that prior to me getting introduced to Suno Studios, which you can do this magic, uh, with my songs, I did like hire some female singers. But I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you, Alex. It took six months, you know, it was like, first I gotta like send them the song. They gotta like the song, right? Some that didn't even wanna be involved, want to be paid, you know? Alright. And, and that's fine. You know, I've, I've paid for singers to do songs for me before because I'm not Adele. But then they would come over. They didn't like how it sounded. I'd have to rerecord it. They're afraid of the camera. They don't wanna be videoed. I love to do a video of some of these songs. It just got a lot. It was a lot of time. I was doing all of it. I was recording it all. And honestly, the recordings I think, were okay because of my studio, not because of their voice, because of the studio. And then after that I'd have to, you know, shoot a video. The, the, the lady or girl would have to come to my house. It's a lot of time. So this Suno studio really just enhanced my ability to not have to hire anybody, don't have to worry about anybody learning my song. I mean, it just amazing. It follows, it tracks your, your melody. It tracks your Your phrasing. Yeah, it's, uh, absolutely amazing. Matter of fact, um, you'll, if you listen, if I send you the lyrics, sometimes it, it does not pick up on the exact lyrics, but you could go into Suno and type in your lyrics again and it'll, it'll do it over

Alex Gadd 21:59

Yeah, just preparing for this interview. I went and wrote a song in Suno yesterday in like four minutes. It's an insanely stupid song. Like I wasn't going for a song like you were. I was just trying to do it, so I'd be familiar with it. it. was crazy how easy it

Steve Gonza 22:17

I mean, look, this is how I see it. And like, you know, I'll, I'll say it over and over again. There are gonna be people that are against Suno Studios, right? And that's fine. Guess what? Ink is playing Friday, May 1st you wanna see three humans sweat in raw. And there's, there's everything that you could, it's all real. Here it is. But if you wanna hear some of my songs where their, their piano played and sung by a Professional Lady Gaga type, which I love by the way. Uh, I'm a huge Lady Gaga fan. You know, I'm a big Adele fan. I mean, I, I fell in love with Adele the first time I heard her voice, but guess what? Unfortunately I don't have her phone number, you know, and that's how I want my song to sound, you know? And here's the funny thing, there's some people that, like I said, have heard. Some of the songs that are on the album with the Adele type of girl, I just call it the Adele type of girl. It's not Adele, but it's Adele type.'cause they, they, they do sing amazing. Um, whoever that model is, that model voice. But some people said to me, I like your version better. Fine. You pick what you want. I mean, first off, I'm not selling it in my songs. I, I've never made a dollar on anything I've ever written. It's a hobby. Right. And, you know, here's, here's my analogy. And I, I mentioned fishing before, but some people like to fish, but guess what? They have new technology today where they could have these sonar systems or apps that could figure out where the fish are, what the temperature of the water is, where now there are people that'll say, well, that's cheating. Well, not really. You could go with your friends and sit on a boat and just drink beer and don't catch any fish all day If you want, that's fine. You could do that. That's the raw way of doing it. Or you could. Get some technology to help your hobby and have more fun and catch a bucket full of fish. That's how I see it. I like doing this. I don't wanna waste these songs. And I felt it was great to use the technology that's out there. And I found out that Paul McCartney's actually using it now too. Isn't that funny? But I think he uses it in a different way. I mean, like for example, what he'll do is he'll throw his songs in here to figure out a different part and then he'll learn the part.

Alex Gadd 24:27

yeah,

Steve Gonza 24:28

I mean, that's, that's a

Alex Gadd 24:29

well that's cause he can play every instrument. That's a

Steve Gonza 24:32

I mean, look, If I could, you know, I tried piano and it just didn't work for me. I think piano is just so, uh, so elegant, romantic. I did have a piano player, do a couple of my songs, which worked out very good. It's a, it's a very long process, you know, and like I said, that 22 song album, dude, I did that in a weekend.

Alex Gadd 24:53

Wow.

Steve Gonza 24:53

It was ridiculous. Really was, I mean, I had to tweak things I've always wanted to get, um, pro tools, but if you work with Suno Studios, it's very simple. You could, you could take stems, you could, uh, extract. I'm, I'm using this new thing that I record my voice. And then it could model and help my voice out, which is really cool. I like that as well. I mean, let's, let's be honest, you know, for how many years? 30, 30 plus years, they've had drum machines, right? Everybody got mad when drum machines came out, but all the DJs were using them. And then autotune. Let's talk about autotune.

Alex Gadd 25:28

I don't think you need to apologize at all, in my opinion, because you do authentic, real human made stuff regularly, but you have these other songs that you can't possibly. Get to the way you want to hear them. So you use a tool to get them to hear, to

Steve Gonza 25:48

Yeah. And it's my choice,

Alex Gadd 25:50

and

Steve Gonza 25:50

it's my choice to do it. And you know what?

Alex Gadd 25:52

you're, and you're, not lying to anyone and

Steve Gonza 25:54

no, no, I mean.

Alex Gadd 25:56

cousin, this is my niece. You know, you're not

Steve Gonza 25:58

Alex, you know what I, I'm gonna say this. I, I, I swore, I wouldn't say it, but the people that are gonna get upset about it can't write a song to begin with. You know, they're all my songs and this is way, the way I wanted them to sound. Um, it's just another outlet for me. I, the, the truth is there's 22 songs on there and if anybody wanted to grab headphones and listen to an hour, I'm almost guarantee that you're gonna connect to a couple of those melodies.'cause I think they're pretty catchy and I don't think they'd be as catchy. Me singing it. I mean, some people disagree. They like the my raw voice on it, but I'm getting older too. I don't think I sound as good. Um, and look, anybody wants to hear the raw stuff. Let me know.

Alex Gadd 26:44

That's beautiful. All right. I have a couple other

Steve Gonza 26:46

Yeah,

Alex Gadd 26:47

did you pick Broken Wings as the title track? You have 22 pretty incredible songs.

Steve Gonza 26:52

that's so funny. if you listen to, to the album, it, it, it is a very, it's, it's more of a sad, it, it's, it's definitely a, a romantic type, breakup. I mean, let's face it. I'll say it. You know, I, I, I was. I was, uh, and I know you have been too matter, we could connect on this, but I, I went through a, a very hard divorce years ago. Um, we're talking 20 odd years ago. So I've always said to myself, man, I got enough songs out of that to last me a lifetime. Alright? So there is a lot of songs on there that, um, are about heartbreak.'cause I've been through it and I don't know what it's like. Uh, but you know what? You really think about a lot of rock and roll songs, even Ink, hard rock songs. I mean, everybody connects to a heart heartbreak. So I think Broken Wings came from that. Um, I will say, and I'll repeat that, not all songs are just about my relationships, all right? They're about. Other people, I don't wanna get into too much detail, but there's at least four songs on there about people that have passed away. And, um, you know, those are things that inspire you. You know, they always say that, something that hits you hard. My divorce hit me very hard. Um, I've been through other relationships too where it just, um, it could really, um, turn you inside and I think that's how things have to come out and they just come out like that. But, you know, I've had somebody approach me saying, man, what is this about? It's something going on with your current marriage. I'm like, no, that has nothing to do with me. Then. I'm very happy with my marriage. I said, it has to do with someone that told me that story, you know?

Alex Gadd 28:28

what good songwriting is, is getting the influences wherever you can get'em. It doesn't have to only be self confessional, you know, autobiographical songs.

Steve Gonza 28:37

buddy that's a touring drummer, I, I won't mention his name, but he's, he went through a really rough time. And you know what, I get inspired like that, man. I get inspired, like I, I say, you know what, let me go downstairs. Then I go downstairs and, and, and you know, I strum and, and something comes out and sometimes it. Just doesn't sound good, you know? But like I said, that the funniest thing is sometimes I think it sounds really good, and then I come back the next day and I'm like, oh my God, that is awful.

Alex Gadd 29:03

Yeah. But having said that, you then archive it and you've gone back and found some of these 22 songs, were those songs that years ago you said, I don't like it, I'm gonna

Steve Gonza 29:12

well, Alex an Ink,

Alex Gadd 29:14

boom, it's on the record.

Steve Gonza 29:15

an ink song called Four Long Days, which is, it's a breakup song. And it, uh, when, when I, when I wrote that initial riff, I took it to the guys and they liked it. And we played it at rehearsal for a couple weeks. And then I remember coming to the next rehearsal after a couple weeks and saying to them, guys, I'm just not feeling this song anymore. They were like, no, no. We like it. We like it. Guess what? We can't, we can't take it out of our set. our

Alex Gadd 29:43

Yeah.

Steve Gonza 29:43

like get pissed off. So it goes to show you that sometimes I just don't know either. You don't, you don't know what you're,

Alex Gadd 29:49

a songwriter, you know,

Steve Gonza 29:50

yeah. you don't.

Alex Gadd 29:51

guess what your audience is

Steve Gonza 29:52

No. And you know, and then there's songs and boy Sal could definitely attest to this. We, you know, we, we like to keep 12 to 15 songs in the ink set. You know, that's the most that our, our memories could, uh, uh, could memorize it in a, in a night, you know? And 15 songs is enough for us, right. But there are songs that we are like, wow, this one's gonna go over really well. And then we'd play it live and we're like. Nobody really like, so you just don't know Alex. You gotta throw it at them to see what it's like. So that's what I'm doing with this 22 song album. I threw it out there, let all the comments come in. I mean, the truth is I'll probably get 600 to a thousand views the most on my solo stuff, Ink Will get more because we have more fans connected to the website. But I'm out there just having fun and hopefully I'll inspire somebody that really likes the song and I get a lot of that. I'll get some diehard fans that I'll say, man. I really like track number two or three, and then I'll send them the lyrics and hopefully it connects with them.

Alex Gadd 30:52

I'm gonna put the link to the YouTube album.

Steve Gonza 30:55

you

Alex Gadd 30:56

you going to release the record on Apple Music or Spotify at any point?

Steve Gonza 31:03

You know, Alex, probably not. YouTube's usually my, my thing, you know, because it's a lot of work to do those things. I, I can't say that I'm too connected with all those other platforms. So YouTube was my, I said, you know what, let me just put these on YouTube. So that's why I made the, the cover. And, and, and every time, every time the song changes, there's a, the title, you know, it's free. I'd like to go inside the, uh. The credits portion, and I always put lyrics if I have them. But, um, in this case there was a list of songs and I just put the times. I didn't notice that you could, they're, they're highlighted and you could click and go through em. But one thing I did notice is an hour's, a long time I think one thing that I probably would do differently is down the road is maybe do like a couple songs at a time release, because people are not gonna listen to an hour unless, you know, I always say grab your headphones because it's definitely something for a nice rainy day or

Alex Gadd 31:55

Yeah. Right on. I think it's, I think it's really exciting and I love that you're stretching out and you're so absolutely unafraid to not just be the guy from ink, but be yourself

Steve Gonza 32:06

Thank you.

Alex Gadd 32:07

the different multitudes that come outta you, man.

Steve Gonza 32:10

and look, I mean it, I, I took this podcast because, I wanted to showcase my songwriting, and that's what this is all about. You know, people could say, oh wow, you're using Suno Studios. Look, I, I'm showcasing my songs and, if you don't like that outlet, that's fine. Come see Ink Friday, May 1st. If not, you know, or like both, whatever you wanna do.

Alex Gadd 32:33

find ink's music on YouTube as well. You can see all

Steve Gonza 32:36

Absolutely. Yeah. And you, matter of fact, uh, Ink is probably going in the studio, uh, late May with a, a new single. And again, look, we'll admit, you know, ink. Ink's, a type of band We play a few times a year, showcases, we'll make, you know, six, 700 bucks at the gig. You know what we do with it? We save it and we put it right back into the studio. Yeah, we, we make shirts for people, give'em free shirts. But Alex, it's never been a revenue driver for us and that's fine. It's a passion, you know, and, um, you know, we love putting the, the money back into the band. We just record some cool songs and, we'll do a video. Uh, we love to do, uh, songs via video. I think it's, it's, it's more exciting and I always told the guys, I said, man, if I had a hundred thousand dollars that I could put into like this stuff and quit my job, uh, that's my calling. I love doing videos. I love doing videos and you know, there's, there's some other video technology that I've been fooling around with, so that's gonna be fun if I could incorporate some of that into ink.

Alex Gadd 33:38

Cool. Alright, so ink's playing again. May 1st.

Steve Gonza 33:41

May 1st, right in Milford, our hometown. It's at Anthony D's. We're playing with a, a close friend band of ours. Epic, um, Ink will go on at 9:00 PM Sharp. We're the first band now we always like to be, it's our show, but we will go on first. We just like to do that. We'll play an hour set of a hundred percent all original. Um, and, uh, it's gonna be awesome. I could tell you the last time we played there, um, the next day I had, uh, some people call me and he said, uh, was that you guys, the, there was cars up the street? I said, yeah, we, we draw, we draw pretty good.'cause we don't play out that much. So when we play, we have a, we have a decent following and if we have. A couple hundred people that come out, it's gonna be packed. Anthony Ds probably holds a couple hundred. Right. Um, so yeah, we'll, we'll mob it. And then plus we have another band with us. You know, epic. Epic is from Milford as well. Um, our good friend Steve Vo, um, is the drummer of that band. And yeah, we're gonna pack it again. It's Friday, May 1st. And the coolest thing is I have, um. I'm doing a motorcycle. That's my other hobby. Uh, I have a motorcycle meet. Um, all, all motorcycles from all the United States are coming, uh, Saturday, but they're coming a day early because the meat is Saturday and some of them are coming all the way from like Texas. So, that's the crazy thing is they know that I'm in a band because, you know, Facebook is, uh, just connects people. I mean, if it wasn't for Facebook, um. How would we tell our fans what we're playing? But since I have motorcycles, uh, this specific brand of motorcycle, which is the Honda Fury, it's a chopper. Um, since all of these motorcycles are coming from all over the United States, they come a day early. So they always said to me, Hey man. doesn't your band play the, the meet, the, the festival that we're gonna be at? I'm like, yeah, we're not gonna do that. But if you wanna come to a show, so I booked the show on the Friday, so, so guess what? We're gonna have like 40 motorcycles and then our following on top of it. So it's gonna be a busy night

Alex Gadd 35:45

Yeah, that's great.

Steve Gonza 35:46

the owner from Anthony De is gonna appreciate that.

Alex Gadd 35:48

All right. Last question for you,'cause I wanna let you go. If someone's gonna check out one song from Broken Wings, what's the song other than Broken Wings you point to and say, that's the song that, that encapsulates everything I was trying to do. Oh wow. I, I really like center of me. I put a video to that one, by the way, and it's out on YouTube, right? But I got people saying, wow, great guitar work. Well, keep in mind I did the rhythm part and I put in, I want a Spanish guitar. So the lead was a Spanish guitar. Suno did that. But the, the amazing thing about the, that Song Center of Me, that was an old ink song, and we used to do that full band. So I put that entire song into Suno and it came up with that, and I don't know. I, I, I think that the, the melody and the chorus to me is just one of the catchiest songs on the album to me, Or, well, let's check that out.

Steve Gonza 36:49

center of me.

37:10

Feel the pain when she chopped her body Times not for free All. That she hit a body. I cannot foresee clear the ways everything's turning. I cannot be me. She cannot be found, cannot. All the paranoid. Scream. I don't remember what You need better heart in the Sams.

Alex Gadd 37:58

all right. That's it for today's conversation. My guest has been Steven Gonza and his first full length solo album. Broken Wings is available now on YouTube. put the link to the album in the episode description, so please check that out. Thanks so much for being here, Steve.

Steve Gonza 38:15

Alex, it's been an absolute pleasure. This is the second time I've done this and you are a real class act. I love how you run your show. You could always have me on, I'm always gonna be writing songs, so when the next one comes out, I'll make sure I connect with you. Thank

Alex Gadd 38:32

Let's do it again, and I want to come up and see you and your brother this summer, so I'm looking

Steve Gonza 38:36

We would love to have you up. Come see the studio.

Alex Gadd 38:39

Yeah, I would love it. I'm gonna make that happen. All right, and to our viewers, thank you very much. As always, if you'd like what you heard today, I'd appreciate it if you would like and either subscribe or follow to make sure you get notified about every new episode, and please tell your friends. Also, a reminder that I release a playlist for every episode, but this week's playlist is already been released by Steve. So go look for Broken Wings on YouTube. Additionally, I want to know what you think. Please leave me a comment. I'll try to respond to every one of them. The Rock and Roll Show Podcast is a World Highway Media production. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and until next time, remember that life is short, so get those concert tickets.