Keith Mack Interview

By GREGG KIRK
Big Shout Magazine, August 1990

When thinking about the state’s musical natural resources, one’s mind might not stop to think of the lower Delaware regions for any length of time. In fact, southern Delaware and especially Sussex County is not ordinarily thought to be a hotbed of local musical talent. But the fact of the matter is some of the state’s hardest-working and most-successful musicians hail from Delaware’s nether regions.

You may have heard of the national attention given recently to Rehoboth songwriter Doug James who penned the Top 40 hit “How Am I supposed to Live Without You?” for Michael Bolton. But while scanning the club listings at the beach this month, you may have overlooked one of Delaware’s higher-profile musical success stories. Hiding under the monikers of the Funsters, Search Party, or a handful of other band names appearing at the Front Page this month is former Patti Smythe and Scandal guitarist Keith Mack.

Now living in Greenwich Village in NYC, Mack is making his yearly trek back to the beach for a handful of reunion gigs with former local bandmates. For those lucky enough to catch one of these performances, it will afford them a chance to watch a seasoned guitarist in action, who has toured around the world, recorded nationally released albums, and performed with the likes of Joe Cocker, Stevie Winwood, Nile Rodgers, and Paul Young.

A 1977 graduate from Cape Henlopen High School, Mack first picked up the guitar in his early teens and soon began playing in a number of junior high school bands. He performed at various junior high and high school dances with these line ups but didn’t form his first serious band until 1976. This group known as Eighth Day — which was comprised of members Jon Sibert, Fred Hazeltine, Sandy Moore, Sherman Ward, and Kenny Martin — became somewhat of a local sensation in the Rehoboth/Dewey beach areas, playing regular gigs there until the end of 1981.

It was this year that a lot of things changed for the striving guitarist.

“Doug James, who is a good friend of mine, was living in New York at the time, and he talked me into coming up and doing some work with him,” says Mack. “He told me I had to move up there, and after a while, I decided I would. He was a big help to me. He let me live with him for a while until I found a place for myself, and he introduced me to a lot of people which got me started.”

Mack didn’t officially move to the Big Apple until the beginning of the next year, and his first roommate happened to be Patti Smythe and Scandal’s newest member — keyboardist Benji King.

“It’s a little-known fact but Benji took Paul Schaeffer‘s place in the band. There’s some music trivia for you,” laughs Mack. “It was Paul Schaeffer who actually played the keyboard solo on ‘Goodby to You,’ but he left the band later because he got the offer to do the David Letterman Show. I joined the band and recorded the first Scandal album with them in May of ’82, which was released in September. We toured in January for about a year and came back to do the next record, Warrior in October of ’83.”

The band didn’t tour with that album because of a number of setbacks that occurred as the product was finished. During the recording of the project, Scandal shared the studio with Billy Idol, and Scandal drummer Tommy Price was asked to sit in on drums for Idol’s record. This initial side work ultimately turned into a more serious commitment, and Price soon jumped ship. The combination of this and Smythe firing some of Scandal’s members left Mack as the sole remaining member of the original line up.

“After all this happened, I was the only one left, so we decided to put a band together,” says Mack. “But then Patti had a baby, and there wasn’t a whole lot going on after that.”

Mack hung on to do a solo record with Smythe in 1985, and soon after he began looking for other projects to keep him busy. Coincidentally, fellow Rehoboth natives Ed Shockley (formerly of Jack of Diamonds) and his brother Mike had also moved to New York and were working with a band known as Cries. Mack joined this line up, and the group was signed to BMG Records in the fall of ’87. They recorded an eponymously-named album and were slated to do a tour of Europe last year when personnel problems kept the band from its obligations.

The current status of this band is in question. Mack relates that of the original group, only he and Ed Shockley remain, and they are presently writing new material that may be recorded in the fall under a different name.

After this last band shake up, Mack again found himself looking for roadwork. Because of the positive reputation he has generated in the music circles in New York, it didn’t take long for him to land a job playing on tour with Joe Cocker. He joined Cocker’s group in September, did a world tour and a live album, and while the band was touring Denmark, the group was asked to play the opening of the Berlin Wall on November 9. After renting a plane and flying in especially to do the gig, the group performed and flew out to finish the rest of the tour. By the end of December of ’89, Mack’s commitment with Cocker ended, and he didn’t have for to search before he landed another impressive gig — playing on tour with Paul Young.

“Somebody at CBS Records (Young’s label) knows me and recommended me,” says Mack. “We played at the China Club in New York last month and Stevie Winwood (who played on Young’s album) and Nile Rodgers (who produced a track) came up and jammed on ‘Good Lovin’. I played with Paul Young for two weeks last month, and I’ll be doing a showcase with him in Florida on the 25th of this month, but after that I want to write some material with Ed and go into the studio this fall. They asked me to do a world tour with them in the fall, but I told them I couldn’t. I want to get this other project going.”

In between writing and recording demos in the East Village apartment, Mack and Shockley will both be making numerous appearances in a variety of bands the tail end of this summer. Come out to any of these scheduled performances and witness two of southern Delaware’s most precious musical natural resources plying their trade.