Punky Meadows earned his status as a quality player in the ‘70s. After bouncing from The Cherry People to Bux, then forming Angel, he was asked to join Aerosmith and Kiss – but passed, retreating into obscurity with a “sour taste” in his mouth regarding the music biz.
Now he’s back, enjoying his second act with Angel; and he’s certain that if he could do it over again, he wouldn’t change a thing.
“It doesn’t do any good to regret anything,” he says. “But before social media I figured I was forgotten, and people didn’t care about me anymore.”
“I’m gonna go down as a rock guitar player,” he says. “But I wanna be known as a songwriter too. And I hate when people try to put me in the heavy metal category.
What are your earliest memories of music?
The first song that affected me as a kid was Big John by Jimmy Dean. It was about this coal miner who gets killed when a beam that holds up the mine crashes down. It affected me so much. That’s where my love for storytelling comes from.
Who inspired you to pick up the guitar?
Elvis Presley turned me on to rock ‘n’ roll, and then The Beatles came out, and the guitar playing from George Harrison and John Lennon inspired me. But it was mainly the British blues guys like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Gary Moore, David Gilmour, and Jimi Hendrix. I put it all in a pot.
Early on, you were in The Cherry People and Bux. Would you say you were pretty polished by the time you formed Angel?
Before Angel I was always in bands with two guitar players, and I played rhythm and lead. When we formed Angel I had my sound down. The first song we wrote was Tower – I had this little riff and we just started writing. Angel kind of became Led Zeppelin meets Yes!
Angel – Tower (Remastered 2021) – YouTube
Put us in the studio while you were laying down Tower.
We knew we had something powerful and cool. I had an SVT amp that I’d shipped from DC to California. I had my Strat that I put together from two different ones – it was a ’57 body and a ’60 neck. I had a friend who worked at a body shop paint it white.
Back then we’d do any many takes as we needed. It coulda been 12 or 13 takes before you finally got it right. And I had very few effects; if you listen to the first album it’s just overdrive, some reverb, and sounds straight from the amp.
Gene Simmons said, ‘Punky had the best hair in rock!’ He would say something like that!
It seems you were making your own Super Strats before it became commonplace in the ‘80s.
I don’t know if it influenced anyone, or if anyone even knew I put my guitars together. But I started because there were things on guitars I liked that weren’t there. Like the guitar I have now – the only thing that’s actually a Strat is the body.
It’s got a Carvin neck, a Sophia tremolo, a Jeff Beck humbucker in the back and single coils in the middle. I’ve always loved single coils, especially for chords and stuff. The tone of a Strat just cuts through and has that twang.
Is it true that before Angel broke up, you were asked to join Aerosmith?
David Krebs, who managed them, became a good friend when I was with Bux, and Jack Douglas, who produced Aerosmith, produced that Bux album. I also met Steven Tyler, who came to the studio.
I’d seen those guys in Boston playing around. Tyler was kind of a fan of mine. He’d always say, “You’re hot shit!”
When he came to the studio he brought the tapes of Train Kept a Rollin’. When I heard it I said, “Fuck, Joe Perry and Brad Whitford have gotten really good!” The guitars in that song were really incredible.
After Tyler left, Jack Douglas said, “Don’t say anything, but that’s not Brad and Joe – it’s Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner.” I said, “That explains it!” because I knew Joe couldn’t play like that.
Brad and I were friends. We lived in the same apartment building in Framingham, Massachusetts. We used to get together in my apartment, smoke joints, and play guitar. So they were friends of mine.
So Joe and Brad quit Aerosmith, and David Krebs – who wanted to manage Angel when we first started – called me and said, “We know you’d be a great fit.” But Angel were still kind of together at the time, so I said, “Let me get back to you.” I never did. They ended up getting Jimmy Crespo and Rick Dufay, and that was that.
Legend has it you were also offered a gig with Kiss by Paul and Gene personally after Ace Frehley left.
Angel were broken up, and Gregg Giuffria and I had a band called Legend. Barry Levine, the photographer who did all the Casablanca stuff and the Kiss and Angel photos, called and said, “Kiss are looking for a guitar player. I’m at The Record Plant right now with Gene and Paul. I mentioned your name and Gene said, ‘That’s a great idea!’” I said, “Well, have Gene call me.”
Gene calls me up and goes, “Hey, we’d like you to come down and sit in with us. Learn one side of Alive! – we don’t care which.” I probably learned the first side, went down to their rehearsal space and Gene, Paul, and Eric Carr were there, playing Zeppelin’s Communication Breakdown.
I walked in, plugged up, played, and it sounded really great. Everybody was really happy. I sat down on the drum riser with Gene, and he said, “You got the gig. Let’s talk.” I go, “Well, Gregg and I are shopping a deal. I have to talk to Gregg – I gotta let him know.”
As soon as I said that, Gene got up and said, “Come on, Paul, let’s go.” They stormed outta there, and left me sitting on the drum riser, talking to Eric for about a half hour or so. When I got home Barry called and said, “Punky, what did you do? Gene and Paul came back to the studio with their jaws on the floor. Gene said, ‘No one has ever turned down Kiss.’”
I said, “Barry, I didn’t turn them down. I just said I had to let Gregg know.” But I guess I insulted Gene so much by not just saying yes right away. Barry said, “They were going to offer you $200,000 a year plus points.” And at the time, I was broke! Gene and I never talked about it.
It was apparent that people had never stopped talking about us, even though we were never a household name. Andy Timmons said, ‘Thank you for being a part of my musical DNA’
But [Angel guitarist] Danny Farrow and Gene talked about it not that long ago. Danny told me that Gene said, “I remember that. Yeah, Punky had the best hair in rock!” Gene would say something like that!
Not long after that, you left the music business. But guitarists throughout the ‘80s cited you as an influence. Were you aware?
I didn’t know or care, to tell you the truth. It wasn’t until later on, after I left LA and moved to North Carolina to start my own business, then retired and got on Facebook, when I saw that. I figured nobody really remembered much about Angel or me. But then I saw all these pages about how much people loved Angel.
Was that hard to process, given that you’d left it behind?
I had sour grapes. I wasn’t very happy with the whole Angel thing. That’s why I left music. It just left a sour taste in my mouth. But I started seeing pictures of us, and all of a sudden I started digging it again. I kind of became a fan of Angel!
It was apparent that people had never stopped talking about us, even though we were never a household name. Andy Timmons said, “Thank you for being a part of my musical DNA.” And Paul Gilbert from Mr. Big, was a big fan – there’s pictures of him dressed in white, holding up two Angel albums.
Marty Friedman was a fan too. When we played in Japan he was backstage, and we talked about how he’d had Angel posters on the wall. He asked me how to play certain things, like, “How do you do that little thing with your fingers there?” It was just really cool.
Since your return in 2016, you’ve released a solo album and two more Angel albums. The band are working on another album and then a final tour. Why stop now?
It’s gonna be a two-year thing through this year and next. But it’s not like Angel are gonna break up – we’re still gonna record, and we’ll play some one-off shows, that sort of thing. We’ll have the chance to do some other things.
We have a documentary that we’re filming, and hopefully it’ll come out soon. But I really didn’t want to do that “final tour” thing, to tell you the truth. The other guys thought it would be a good idea and business move. But me, I’m the kind of guy who wants to die with his boots on.
- Catch Angel on tour throughout the year.
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