Lots of bands lose their leaders and are at a loss as to how to move on. Few acts have handled that dilemma like The Smithereens.
When vocalist and main songwriter Pat DiNizio died in 2017 at the age of 62, the rest o the band chose to carry on, but not with someone pretending to be DiNizio. First there was a five-hour long tribute show in Red Bank, New Jersey in early 2018 with such respected rockers as Lenny Kaye, Dave Davies, “Little Steven” Van Zandt, Southside Johnny, The Bongos’ Richard Barone and The Fleshtones all playing Smithereens songs. Then the band started doing regular live shows with a series of guest vocalists, again honoring the songs but not mimicking DiNizio’s vocal stylings. That list winnowed down to Marshall Crenshaw, Robin Wilson and John Cowsill, all of whom are now in the rotation as lead singers with The Smithereens.
It’s Cowsill who will front the band when The Smithereens play the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center in Old Saybrook on Oct. 10.
“We don’t want someone who sounds like Pat,” insisted founding Smithereens guitarist Jim Babjak. The rest of the band still consists of himself, drummer Dennis Diken and (usually but not always) bassist Michael Mesaros.
The New Jersey band, generally classified as power pop or alt rock or just plain rock, was huge on college radio and on the club circuit in the 1980s. Its hits or near-hits included “A Girl Like You,” “Only a Memory,” “Strangers When We Meet,” “Behind the Wall of Sleep,” “Blood and Roses,” “Too Much Passion” and “House We Used to Live In.” One of the band’s masterpieces, “In a Lonely Place,” was inspired by the 1950 Humphrey Bogart/Gloria Grahame movie and featured guest vocals from Suzanne Vega.
Babjak said he’s known Cowsill since the early 1990s. The singer, who’s better known as a drummer and keyboardist, grew up as part of the hit 1960s siblings-plus-mother group The Cowsills of “The Rain, The Park and Other Things” and “We Can Fly” fame, though he hasn’t performed regularly with his family since the ‘70s. For over two decades, Cowsill toured as a member of the Beach Boys. When he left the Beach Boys a couple of years ago, Cowsill told The Smithereens that he’d like to be considered for shows when Crenshaw or Wilson were unavailable. Cowsill is on every show The Smithereens have booked in October and November.
The permanent guest vocalist concept has held for eight years now. Crenshaw is the acclaimed pop singer/songwriter whose 1980s hits include “Someday Someway” and “Whenever You’re On my Mind.” Wilson is the lead singer of Gin Blossoms, whose hit “Til I Hear It From You” was co-written by Crenshaw. Those artists could easily bring their own material into their Smithereens appearances, but the agreement is that they won’t.
“The deal is that they have their own careers,” Babjak said. “We keep it to Smithereens songs.”
Smithereens guitarist Jim Babjak, who co-founded the band in 1980. (Courtesy of The Smithereens)
Since from their earliest days, The Smithereens would do occasional covers of songs by The Beatles, The Who and other archetypal ‘60s bands. That still happens, but if you ever hear The Smithereens crank up Gin Blossoms’ “Hey Jealousy,” something’s gone horribly wrong.
As for which Smithereens songs to play with the varied vocalists, the classics all come up each time but “we like to leave it up to each of them for the deep cuts,” Babjak said. “They have different tastes, though all three of them asked to do ‘Cut Flowers.’”
The Smithereens has a history of making choices other bands probably wouldn’t make. When making a video for “Yesterday Girl,” Babjak said the band decided to stand out from “all those bands who put beautiful women in their videos.” So they made one of themselves standing in a field full of cows.
DiNizio was acknowledged as a key songwriter, but The Smithereens definitely had a band mentality. “Pat never told us what to do. His demos were very simple. We added our own parts. Those guitar solos are mine. I wrote a lot of songs, too.” It was that blend of classic pop styles and their individual gifts that made The Smithereens records so distinctive. “We wanted the solos to be memorable and melodic,” Babjak said.
Babjak, drummer Dennis Diken and Mike Mesaros knew each other in high school in Carteret, New Jersey in the ‘70s. “Dennis and I have been friends since 1971. He said ‘You wanna go see the Beach Boys?’ and that was my first concert. They met DiNizio through an ad the songwriter had placed in an alt-weekly newspaper, and the band formed in 1980.
The Smithereens released a dozen albums with DiNizio (who had a parallel solo career, hosted radio shows and even ran for U.S. Senate in 2001). The output included two albums of Beatles covers (“Meet The Smithereens” and “B-Sides The Beatles”) and “The Lost Album,” which had been recorded in 1993 but not released until 2022.
The band’s first three albums — “Especially for You,” in 1986, “Green Thoughts” in 1988 and “11” in 1989 — proved to be its most popular. Having chart hits could be frustrating, however. “The record companies wanted you to stay in the same place. They just wanted you to do more of the ‘Girl Like You’s.” Babjak noted that the band’s fans today know the entire albums and not just the singles.
The band spent most of the ‘80s on the cusp of greater success. “We wouldn’t give up. It was tough because I got married a few years into it. My dad wanted me to go into business with him — he owned a tavern in New Jersey.” Babjak found himself playing bars with his band instead, and also ended up owning a record store in New Jersey for most of the ‘80s.
“When grunge came in” in the early ‘90s, Babjak explained, “it put a hold to our record deal and we got dropped. We decided we would keep playing live. I needed a day job and I had a friend in banking. I did banking for 19 years. We recorded seven albums while I was working there. In 2007 when we did ‘Meet The Smithereens,’ there was a resurgence and it brought us back.”
The Smithereens have played Connecticut many times. Babjak has fond memories not just of playing Toad’s Place in New Haven — “we could be loud there” — but of the old Cutler’s record shop around the corner. He also remembers a Connecticut show at “an old theater in 1988” — perhaps West Hartford’s Agora Ballroom, where drummer Dennis Diken got up to sing a song, came to the front of the stage and fell through a hole in the rickety floor. He also recalls a time at Toad’s Place when “Pat wanted to crowd surf, but I guess nobody wanted to catch him.”
The Smithereens play on Oct. 10 at 8 p.m. at The Kate, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $68. thekate.org.
