WE’RE NOT SATISFIED

Interview with Danny Shonerd
of the BOYS
by Angelo Ruggiero

“the engineers were having a hard time with the band because we played so loud and kept telling us to turn our guitars down!”

I bet that every time you listen to the Boys songs, your heart starts beating faster, and you have that pleasure sensation in your brain which makes you ask for more. Trust me, they were great! They were ahead of their time. They created an absorbing power pop with a bit of glammy punk. The Boys were truly Nebraska’s celebrated power pop idols.

Emerging from Lincoln, Nebraska, the Boys formed in 1974 by Danny Shonerd on vocals and lead guitar, Allen Havlicek on vocals and rhythm guitar, Terry Pieper on bass and vocals, and Steven Light on drums. 
The Boys were an outgrowth of a previous musical project called Grundy Gilpin, who played small venues largely as a cover band during the early seventies. Grundy Gilpin involved Danny Shonerd, Allen Havlicek, Steve Koontz, and Rich Christie. After two years together, the band grew and started to perform original material. Consequently, their lead guitarist Rich left the band. The band’s roadie, Terry Pieper was enlisted, and the band turned into the Boys.

In Lincoln, Nebraska, the Boys started a campaign in order to achieve an influence on people by way of music. To do that, they developed their own high-powered original sound. An unique sound that can enjoyed on the band’s fabulous singles.  “(She's My Girl) She's All Mine” backed with “I'm Not Satisfied,” was the Boys’ 1975 debut. It was released on Outrage Records, label owned by the band’s manager, David Hibbler. The art for the record and the flyers for promoting concerts were created by Don Vogel. It was about imagery of war, planes, and tanks.

Drummer Steven Light quit the band following the release of “(She's My Girl) She's All Mine.” His place was taken by Phil Shoemaker, drummer for another local band called the Tories.

The Boys' second single,"You Make Me Shake" was backed with “We're Too Young,” and was also released by Outrage Records in 1977. By this time, the band had gained control of the label. 

The Boys went on to sign with Kansas City's Titan! Records. Some of the most beautiful songs were written by the Boys during this period, but only two of them were selected to be released as the band's third and last single, “(Baby) It's You” b/w “Bad Little Girl.” It was issued by Titan! in 1979. 

In 1980, the band break up. The Boys came to an end as a band, however no time was wasted, and the three main members, Danny Shonerd, Allen Havlicek, and Terry Pieper, started in 1981, another cool project called the Eyes. In 1984, they changed the band's name to Movie Eyes.

In November 2008, Chicago's Numero Group label released a two-CD box compilation of the Titan Records acts, which included  previously unreleased  studio tracks by the Boys: “Please Change Your Mind,” "On A Night Like This,” “Tell Me It’s You,” “We’re Dancing Again,” and “Hold Me.”

A live 4-song EP that had been proposed to be released by the Titan! label in 1980, remained unissued until 2011, when it was included with pre-ordered copies of Numero Group's Titan: It's All Pop! vinyl boxed set. The EP was a limited pressing of only 1000 copies on hot transparent red vinyl from the original 1/4 " tape, and includes "Out Of Touch," "Night Time," "You're Bad Too," and "Yesterday's Circles." 

A stop-motion animated film called (Baby) It’s You, was published in 2011. 
This short film was directed by David Cowles, Jeremy Galante, and Brad Patrullo.
The music on the film was the track "(Baby) It's You," taken from the band's third single, and written by the brilliant minds of Shonerd and Havlicek.

The following is an interview with the Boys’ vocalist/guitarist Danny Shonerd, who kindly answered some questions:

ANGELO: Hi Danny! Please, let us know what’s the story behind the Boys debut single“(She's My Girl) She's All Mine.” Tell us about the Don Vogel's artworks for that record and the concerts' promotion?

DANNY: The first  was recorded at Sound Recorders in Omaha, Ne. in which the engineers were having a hard time with the band because we played so loud and kept telling us to turn our guitars down! There were no producers so we were pretty much on our own to deal with what came out for the recording, it was kind of a battle with the studio and the band, (They were not used to rock and roll bands, and at the time in the Midwest recording studios didn’t have the technology or the knowledge that the coast had to make loud music. So the sound of the record didn’t come out the way we wanted but we did the best we could under the circumstances. And as time 

has proved out, it was a great record for what we were trying to accomplish. The B-side became the favored side (I’m Not Satisfied). Which I think surprised us all. 

To back up a bit in time, The Boys had always had the idea of creating a musical movement that involved a sound and other bands. To put it bluntly we wanted to take over the world musically just as the Beatles and all the British bands had done and make a mark in the music of the world, pick up were they left off, the Boys had a sister band call the Tories who were part of this Idea and a great 3-piece band, and we were always looking for other musicians in the same vain, although not to many existed in the early 1970’s . 

I bring this up to show you the mind set of the band, we were determent to fill that void which we thought was passed over in the musical growth of popular music, it went from Beatles to fusion and Yes and left a lot of great band behind without notice, Badfinger being one, who never got the credit they deserved until later, and many, many more, which are now being recognized today and finally given the credit due to them. Okay I’m a bit off the subject sorry, in any case that was the setting to some degree of when we began to record and release the first single. David Hibler , an English professor at the University Of Lincoln Nebraska got wind of the band and came to hear us practice, needless to say he became our manager and we began the process of planning the release of our first single, ( of course there is much more to this story but I’d have to write a book ), this was after of course he had went to England with demo tapes and tried to sell us to the record companies over there, with little success we decided to make our own record label Outrage Records, and release our music ourselves. 

Don Vogel a friend of David Hibler and an Art student or Assistant teacher at the university became the art director for Outrage Records, he was very much into graphics of war, poster, uniforms, and such from world war two, so the influence of the art on the cover of the first single was of that nature, as was the back drop of a plane, now this lead to the thinking of doing an invasion for a promotional concert and the release of the single. So began the invasion. We got our little army to dress up and wear red arm bands, carry a Geneva convention card of the rules of war, and distribute flyers with graphics and announcing something was coming, there was a new one every day for two weeks, and we made the newspapers ever day, along with a few attempted arrests of our people passing out the flyer, had a lawyer to get them out as they had done nothing wrong, only exercising freedom of speech. Needless to say it was getting out of hand and the city officials were thinking it was some kind of fanatic group meaning harm to the city, by the time the last flyer came out announcing that it was a concert for the release of The Boys first single, we had made a lot of enemies in the police and political dept. they shut down any more coverage in the newspapers. This was more or less a live art experiment that showed just how easily a community could be convinced that they were being taken over. It’s was fun and the concert went on along with the release of the record, but there were debates on the radio about how we had harmed the Jewish community with our antics, and this certainly was not the intent, it was taken all wrong, and blown way out of proportion by the media. We were just a Rock and Roll band promoting a record in an inventive way, and we got peoples attention.

ANGELO: As a follow-up to the debut single, it would have been great to record an album. Had the Boys plenty of compositions to complete an entire LP back in 1976?

DANNY: The Boys had more than enough material to complete an album and more quite prolific in writing material, the problem was money and we couldn’t find the backing that we needed to produce more records, at that time it was hard to get anyone to believe in what we were doing musically. I wish we would have recorded more, but we are lucky we got out what we did, it was a tuff time for shall we say Power Pop Bands. We do have a lot of recording done by ourselves with limited equipment for demo’s and writing proposes and with any luck some of these will be fixed up and released, but that is yet to happen.

ANGELO: How many copies of the singles were pressed? Were they sold mainly through mail orders?

DANNY: I believe that there were 1000 copies made of the first two on Outrage and they were put in local record stores, Trouse press ran a reviews which started the mail order going, also New Musical Express had the record on the cover of its magazine with some other independent start ups which helped with world coverage. I have no idea how many were sold, and now bootlegged from the record. But the 1000 copies are gone so I guess that was a good run! Ha ha, I’m sure there are more than 1000 copies now, copies of copies. As far as the Titan release Baby It’s You, I’m not sure how many they pressed, I know that they ran out of money after the pressing and the record was not promoted the way they wanted to at the time. 

ANGELO: Were you and Allen the main songwriting team in the band?

DANNY: Yes, Allen and I were the main songwriting team and also the leaders of the band; we guided the direction and image of the band. I suppose looking back we didn’t do such a great job, since we didn’t attain the goals we had set as Pop Stardom. I believe we were just ahead of our time, and being recognized today with reissues of the recordings proofs that in someway. I think.

ANGELO: Did you write original material during your Grundy Gilpin days? 

DANNY: Grundy Gilpin was the band where the song writing started which broke up the band, or at least we lost our lead guitar player, There were a few songs that did get recorded as demo’s but I don’t have copy’s anymore, lost to the world, unless somebody out there has them, don’t know.

ANGELO: When was your most creative era?

DANNY: I would have to say the most creative time for us started around 1969 and went through 1984, there are tons of songs, and tons of bad recording, but that is what we did, The Boys lasted till 1980 and produced at least 100 songs if not more, but nobody that handled us knew what to do with us, the bands that came after The Boys…. Allen and I were still writing for, and came close to a contract with Polygram record, but trouble inside that band stopped the contract.

ANGELO: The less we get, the more we want. Even though the band released only three singles, I realize that the Boys’ music has reached a cult status. Can we expect the Boys to record new songs to be eventually released?

DANNY: Well it is highly unlikely that The Boys will get back together to record I’m sorry to say, however you never know what the individuals might do, I know Phil is still playing, I’m still writing, Allen is into producing, Terry has had some health problems, but you never know. 

ANGELO: Thank you Danny!

DANNY: Thank you, best to you!

April 9, 2014.