1980's

Billy Satellite MySpace

My first major release as an Artist / Singer / Guitarist / Songwriter was Billy Satellite 1984 Capitol Records, two Singles and two Videos, "Satisfy Me" and "I Wanna Go Back." This record did so well that 18 years later it was re-released by a German label on CD.

We spent several months on the road with Jefferson Starship and we got to hang with Grace Slick, Mickey Thomas, and the rest of the band who treated us better than I've ever been treated as the opening act. Grace actually held up the plane for us when it looked like we were gonna miss our flight to the next show. She told me that the pilot was a fan and made up some excuse to take off late. Grace and I sat next to each other on that flight and I probably came off as a rookie but I'll never forget how she treated me and the stories of her daughter and the road and how horrible a singer she was. I remember telling her, "We should all be lucky enough to sing that horrible."

Billy Satellite came out the first year of MTV when it was still playing mostly Rock n Roll. We had no idea what kind of an impact these videos would have until we went on the road and noticed the crowd doing some of our moves from the video — Wow!!! I'll never forget the first time we played Minneapolis and we were headed back to the hotel after the show. As we approached the hotel, there were hundreds of kids hanging around outside... I remember saying to Ira Walker, (Bass player of Billy Satellite), "Hey Ira! Look at all those kids waiting for Night Ranger..." but as we got closer we noticed some of them wearing Billy Satellite T-Shirts.... As soon as the crowd saw us hanging out the window of the bus, they started to flip out, screaming, yelling out our names! Well, you can imagine how shocked we were! We had to be escorted into the hotel not knowing that the lobby was full of even more screaming fans, as we waited for the elevator doors to open, we experienced for the very 1st time, hundreds of fans all trying to get a piece of the band, a handshake, an autograph, a kiss.... There we were, the four of us being pressed up against the elevator doors by hundreds of screaming fans, completely unprepared for any of this. As the elevator doors opened and our road manager, Paul Kalman, was holding the fans off we finally got inside, the doors closed, and for those first few seconds of silence we just stared at each other with a look of disbelief. Then, just as suddenly, we burst out laughing hysterically. That was a first and it never got any better than that!!!!

New Frontier MySpace

My next major release was New Frontier 1986 Mika/Polydor, one Video and one Single that I co-wrote with Bernie Taupin. Bernie wrote all of Elton John's biggest hits, so you can imagine how excited I was at the time.

Remember, this was the beginning of MTV and I was showing up quite a bit in those days. Not only in my own videos but also in some of my friends videos as well. This is my lame excuse for succumbing to the duet with Barbra Streisand on her Emotion album, I sang in 1986 on a song entitled "Your a Step in the Right Direction" written by John Cougar Mellencamp! I've had to live that one down ever since. Three years earlier I'm hangin' with the Grateful Dead and recording Brent Mydlands Solo record.... To most of my fans it must have seemed like the ultimate sellout but, hey! Bab's was just trying to break into the MTV crowd and I was just young and broke enough to accommodate her. They paid me A LOT of MONEY!!!

By 1987 Eddie Money, who was kind enough to let me be his opening act, had his second biggest hit with my Billy Satellite song "I Wanna Go Back." What a break for me at that time. I won an ASCAP AWARD for "most played song of the year." That song still pays the rent, well, maybe one of my rentals. Anyway, I immediately started getting covers of my songs over the next few years, David Lee Roth, The Stray Cats, Rita Coolidge, etc...etc... and the weird thing was, they were almost always "Singles" released to top 40 Radio... The odds of this happening are overwhelming but it just kept happening, over and over again... as we roll into the 90's I'll stop here... I'll pick up where I left off — Monty

1990's

In late 1989 I fell in love with this amazing artist named Laura Satterfield who grew up in this multi-talented family. Her mother, Priscilla Satterfield, made some great records with Booker T. of Booker T. & the M.G.s whom she also married. Her aunt, Rita Coolidge and her uncle Kris Kristofferson, were also a huge influence on her at a young age. By the time we started working together I was already producing Eddie Money and I didn't have the time to focus on her career as much as I should have. Although, one of the first sessions we did together, we wrote and recorded a song called "The Warrior Gospel" which later won a NAMMY (Native American Music) Award for song of the year. It was presented by Robbie Robertson, this was a huge thrill for me having grown up with The Band....

This was a strange time for me transitioning into a full time producer as opposed to a full time artist. I spent approximately the next two and a half years, nearly everyday, producing, writing, recording, rehearsing, and touring with the "Money Man." I wrote or co-wrote and produced 8 of the 11 songs on Right Here. I was the first producer in nearly a decade to actually use his band, instead of a bunch of studio musicians. One of my favorite things we did back then was, after we'd write something new, Eddie and I would try it out acoustically at a local club or on the radio, especially Rock Line, a nationally syndicated "live" radio show. This was very interesting for a couple of reasons. 1st of all, this was before the unplugged phenomenon of the 90's, yet Eddie and I knew it was worth perusing. So, we next had to convince Bill Graham, Sony Music, his agent, family, and everyone else who thought that we had completely lost our minds!!! The only support we had was this wonderful old friend at Sony Records by the name of Randy Jackson — yes it's the same Randy Jackson who played and recorded with Keith Richards, Mariah Carey, Journey, and on and on, and yes is the judge on American Idol, OUCH!!! I still love Randy (even though he sold his soul to Hollywood), he's one of the greatest bass players on the planet and a wonderful brother...

So here we are on this acoustic, unplugged kick and the crowds are loving it, so Randy, Eddie, and I come up with a great idea! Let's put on a little private showcase for all the people in our organization that think we're insane. Remember, these people are used to seeing Eddie on the big stage with the big amplifiers, the killer lead guitars and so on.... So, we start up rehearsals without informing anyone, we bring in an amazing drummer, percussionist, Johnny Snider, some new acoustic guitars and amps, and off we go. Within one week Eddie and I are singing like the Everly Brothers, its the best I've ever heard him sing to this day and also the first time in over a decade that he wasn't being drowned out by the band. Obviously the showcases were a huge success. We sold out every venue for the next year on the road and he's never sung better (what I'm most proud of). I've had twelve songs, five singles and five CDs with the Money Man and loved every one of them.... Next phase 3 in which Doris gets her oats!!! — Monty

The Mid-90's

After several years on the road with Eddie Money, staying at home and working full time as a producer was sounding real good to me. This is about the time I started devoting all my energy into Laura Satterfield. After a whole lotta demos and different studios and assorted instrumentations trying to find what could possibly please this amazing artist — remember also that I had to pass muster with not only Laura but also her incredibly deep and heavy musical family. In the midst of this musical journey I was starting to realize that just maybe I needed some HELP!!! I had just finished a record with Michael Kline and The Gypsys Produced by the amazing Charlie Midnight and I thought, "What a great combination this would be: Laura, Monty, and Charlie... PERFECT!!!" Charlie had produced the likes of James Brown, Joe Cocker, and Dan Hartman and was a truly gifted man. Wow! I could finally get some peace and some much needed sleep. We spent the next year and a half with all the members of the Gypsys making Laura's record. That's the longest I've ever spent continuously on one, single record and it almost drove me insane. The first Big House record took 3 days to record and I've never spent much more than that on any project since then. The lesson I've learned here is, some artists are never happy no matter how long you spend on a record and they forget that music was never meant to be perfect, nothing is!!! The best recordings happen instantaneously in the moment, that's what music is supposed to be. Anything else is an exercise in futility!

Big House MySpace

All of this is what led to the formation of Big House. What made this group unique was a combination of things. We all grew up together playing in different bands, my youngest brother was the drummer, the three guitar attack, the blues harmonica and the fact that we were all best friends. This is why we were able to make those records and write those songs so effortlessly. For three years plus, the inspiration was flowing. The first two records on MCA — Big House and Travelin' Kind had four Singles and four Videos that I'm still proud of to this day. In a world of schlock videos I think ours were tastefully made.

After 200 plus dates a year on the road and hardly knowing where home was anymore, the original lineup dissolved and David Neuhauser and I were left holding the bag (which was empty by the way). After months of different lineups and being dropped from MCA and changing managers and tax liens, and all the "typical band gets dropped from label DRAMA" along comes Benny Rappa! Benny calls me up out of the blue and says, "I'm your new drummer and I've got this great bass player named Steve Vines, he's from Mississippi..." well, that's a big deal where I come from! The very first time we jammed together, my wife Joy was dancing around the house like a 10 year old and my son Beau had that look on his face like, this is a no-brainer. Thank you Benny Rappa!!!

2000's

On the third Big House record entitled Woodstock Nation, David and I, Benny and Steve signed to an ultra cool label (Dead Reckoning) and released our fifth Big House single entitled "I'm Movin' On" written by Hank Snow. We also started working Americana Radio and had our very first #1 single with "Buck these Haggard Blues." We bought Stevie Ray Vaughn's tour bus and hired our old friend Annuska Nemeth to help us out on the road. Annuska and Steve have been living together ever since — I knew I shouldn't have put their bunks so close together on the bus.... Anywho, we played nonstop for the next eighteen months with everyone from Merle Haggard to Johnny Winter. From Asleep at the Wheel to Loverboy. We had quite the reputation, believe me, you didn't want to follow this band on stage, we didn't care who it was.... Next Phase, the grass needs cutting... — Monty

We lost Benny Rappa to a brain tumor this year [2004] and as I'm writing this I know that I'm in complete denial. I have so many recordings of Benny, that I just assume he'll be calling me as usual to start some project, or to tell me about his son, or the new record he just played on and on and on.... So in a sense he really isn't gone because you see, I've got all of these CDs with him, and two years of live recordings, pictures, Videos, and songs. The last time I spent with Benny was in Nashville recording this amazing artist Amber Clark, Benny stayed in the studio for the entire three days of tracking because he wanted to hang and sing some harmonies with me. He slept on the studio couch and would wake up, make some coffee, give support to whatever we were doing and I loved every minute of it. The only thing I regret is we never got around to the harmonies and I wanted so much to sing with him. Little did I know that it would've been the one for the road.... He is the sole reason that I stayed in Nashville for those last two years. If he hadn’t brought Steve Vines to my house and said here's your new rhythm section, Woodstock Nation would have never been recorded and I will always be thankful to him for that great record.   — Monty

Anyway, here is the final phase of my music section. After five years of Nashville I was getting ready to move back to California when my buddy Scott Hutchison who co-wrote on all three Big House records came by. We decided to go see another friend who plays with Malcolm Holcombe — one bad ass slide player named Jared Tyler....

Little did I know at the time that Jared and Scott wanted me to help them produce Jared's new stuff. So here I am in this club in Nashville on a Friday night with maybe 15 or 20 other people watching one of the single greatest performances I've ever seen. When Malcolm came off stage I was worn out. I paid him my respects and told him that in my five years in Nashville I had never seen better.

There was another person sitting at my table asking me a lot of questions during Malcolm's performance and kinda bugging me, why would someone keep talking during such a great show? After the show I sat there and started talking to this person again and found out that Malcolm was Bob Dylan and John Prine's "Local Favorite" — no surprise!!! I found out something I couldn't accept, after some shows Malcolm would go pick up a mop and start cleaning the club!?!?!?

It was at this moment that I knew I had to leave this unforgiving town where the leader of the underground sound was going corporate and Malcolm Holcombe couldn't pack a club.... By the way, as I unloaded on this guy sitting at my table, you know, the typical stuff, "This town doesn't break bands it breaks them up," and "the corporations have taken over," and "if they sign one more karaoke singer I'm gonna shoot myself," or "the record companies have lost or bought out the last few good people they had." I must have sounded like an outpatient from the local psych ward, or I might as well have been wearing a "Nashville Sucks" sticker on my head.... Anyway it turns out that the guy sitting at my table was the new entertainment reporter for the Nashville newspaper The Tennessean— only the No. 1 paper in town! Ouch!!!

It was time to load up the truck and move to Beverly for sure, or Bakersfield in my case. I've been here ever since, and you know what? I love it! I've continued to tour, write, produce, and best of all, hang with my family. I've never enjoyed playing more than this and I don't have to leave town to do it. I truly feel like I've made my contribution to the "Bakersfield Sound" and I'm proud of it and the fans here seem to like it and that's good enough for me because I don't believe I'll ever live anywhere else!!! — Monty

P.S. Maybe a little shack over on the coast for the summer.