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The Smithereens don’t live up to their name in one particularly special way: The moniker suggests fracture and destruction, but the band’s lineup has been strongly cohesive over their 45 years together — and has roots that go back even further.
While in high school in Carteret, New Jersey, guitarist Jim Babjak met future bandmates drummer Dennis Diken and bassist Mike Mesaros, and they began playing together in the 1970s. Lead singer Pat DiNizio, who hailed from the nearby town of Scotch Plains, teamed up with the group in 1979 and a winning lineup was locked in.Â
Their energetic, guitar-heavy pop spawned hits such as “Blood and Roses,” “Only a Memory,” “Behind the Wall of Sleep” and “A Girl Like You.” Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain cited the band as an influence, according to the band’s bio.
Their sound draws on ’60s rock, including The Who, The Kinks (with whom they collaborated) and The Beatles. In fact, among their 17 albums, The Smithereens can count several albums of Beatles covers and “The Smithereens Play Tommy,” a tribute to The Who’s rock musical.
The group has seen some changes over time. Sadly, DiNizio died in 2017. The Smithereens continue to tour and record, with Babjak, Diken and Mesaros performing together and bringing on a rotating lineup of guest vocalists. Mesaros left the band for a time. Severo Jornacion took over on bass and he still performs with the band sometimes.
We spoke with Babjak ahead of the band’s June 26 concert at The Guild Theatre.
Babjak and the band have East Coast roots, but he isn’t a stranger to the Bay Area or the Peninsula — his parents used to live in San Mateo, he noted. He also enjoys visiting San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Embarcadero Media: You’ve known most of your bandmates since high school. How does being part of such a longtime collaboration shape your music?
Jim Babjak: Well, now it’s just so wonderful to be up there with who I consider to be my best friends. I met Dennis, our drummer, in 1971 in high school through freshman year, and we’ve been friends ever since. So we started playing together then and then Mike, our bass player, started to pick up the bass in ’75 because he saw how much fun we were having.Â
Then we were looking for a lead singer for another couple of years and we met Pat DiNizio by late 1979, so then we became The Smithereens in 1980.
So when we met Pat, we had already been playing for nine years, you know, developed the sound already. And so what Pat got was an instant band, and then we got an elite singer that could also write songs.
Embarcadero Media: What have been some of your favorite experiences performing with the band?
Babjak: My kids are in their 30s now and they were like, “Dad, you were on “Saturday Night Live”” (or “SNL” they call it now). “Yeah, yeah. We were on ‘SNL,'” and that was a cool highlight. We played these huge festivals in England, you know, the Glastonbury and Reading festivals, toured all over Europe, toured Australia. I mean, we were in Europe a lot, and I’ve hit all 50 states. I’ve been to all 50 states, which is incredible, yeah,Â
A good memory, actually, is in your area. It would be the Embaracadero (Plaza). We did a free concert out there. It was after the U2 one, because I remember when Bono got arrested, or whatever, for spray painting a statue or something (Bono was cited for vandalizing a fountain). I didn’t paint any statues, but we had a great turnout. It was a fun show. San Francisco was a great stop for us. We had legendary shows there in the clubs when we were starting out.
Embarcadero Media: “The Lost Album” came out in 2022. (It featured previously unreleased songs from a 1993 album that didn’t go forward.) What was it like to revisit those songs from the early ’90s? Was that a bit of a time capsule?
Babjak: It was kind of a surprise, because I was looking through old tapes, and I found this one and gave it a listen. I’m like, ‘You know what? This is pretty good. I think our fans will like it’ and and now, in retrospect, since our lead singer has passed away — he’s been gone for seven years — it’s really great for the fans to hear a youthful Pat DiNizio and songs that we just never had a chance to put out back in the day because we lost our record deal, and that’s one of the reasons why we had that music left over. And then after we got a new deal, we started recording new songs, and then we just forgot about it
We’re working on new songs now for a new album, and this time, I’ll be singing some. Dennis will be singing some. And we have Robin Wilson from Gin Blossoms.
For live concerts now, we alternate lead singers. So for The Guild Theatre, it’ll be John Cowsill, from the band The Cowsills, who we’ve known for a long time, for decades. He’s a great singer and a great friend. He was with The Beach Boys as a drummer for 25 years, but he just left The Beach Boys, and he was looking for something to do. And I said, ‘Well, you know what?’ (Laughs).
The other singers that we use sometimes are Robin Wilson from Gin Blossoms and Marshall Crenshaw, who is also active as a solo artist.
Embarcadero Media: So it’s kind of a rotation? That’s an interesting dynamic.
Babjak: It’s great for fans, too, because we don’t do exactly the same songs with the three of them, though, of course, we’ll do the popular ones and the hits. But then they get to choose their own favorite deep cuts.
Embarcadero Media: You mentioned a new album. Do you have more details you could share about that?
Babjak: Only that we have started recording it. I have about 20 songs, so you know what’s gonna happen: We’ll try to pick the best ones, or the ones that flow the best together for an album, and you watch, I’ll have leftover songs for another whole album.
Embarcadero Media: When it comes to your songwriting, what inspires your music?
Babjak: (Laughs). Sometimes things are just made up, like a made-up story. I tend to write more about relationships. I stay away from politics. I mean, I did write a song years ago on one of our albums, “A Date with The Smithereens,” called “Love Is Gone”. People thought it was a love song, but it was actually about all the turmoil that was going on with rioting, that sort of thing.Â
I usually have a phrase in my head. There’s a song called “Better Days” that I’m working on and it’s like, reflection, I guess. I do like relationship songs, whether they’re there, they’ve gone wrong or gone good, but they’re not about any real events in my life, because I had a happy marriage, and I’m actually with a woman now, since my wife passed away, and she’s great.
Pat tended to write songs about relationships that went south.
Embarcadero Media: What do you do for fun when you’re not when you’re not making music?
Babjak: Dennis (our drummer) and I have been planning to go to Liverpool for 20 years now to all the sites of where The Beatles grew up and where they played at The Cavern and The Casbah. So we finally did that. We were there in Liverpool for four days, and then we went over to Dublin for four days to enjoy the food and everything there. That’s a trip we were planning for 20 years, and we finally got to do it, because we had a break in May. That was fun.
And the other thing is, I have a granddaughter now, so I like to spend as much time with her as I can. She’s 15 months now.
Embarcadero Media: You have your own coffee brand (Babjax Coffee). How did that come about?
Babjak: I had a friend who’s a roaster, and he’s actually been a fan of the band for like, 30 years, and I told him one time as a joke, if he can blend some bourbon with coffee, we’ll try a couple of things. They did one with rum — we call it Highland Grog — and it was so good. So it started there and now I (also) have a dark roast, a chocolate-flavored one that I just had this morning; a light roast, a morning roast; and a whole bean dark roast.
I only sell it online because I started bringing them to shows, but then the bags would get all messed up, and it’s hard to fly with it because (the cabin pressure) will condense the coffee bag into this hard brick.
Embarcadero Media: What do you hope that people take away from seeing you perform?
Babjak: Just a good time and a few hours of getting away from all the problems in the world. You know, not escaping from it, but just a relief. And that’s how I look at it. For some people, to bring back memories of where they heard the songs for the first time, and it’s just a happy event. It’s a feel-good event. We come out after the show, sometimes, into where the merchandise is, and we’ll take selfies and sign autographs and stuff.
I love hearing people’s stories about the first time they saw us. So I don’t take any of it for granted. People will just get a 100% rock’n’roll show, and they’re gonna have a good time.
The Smithereens perform June 26, 8 p.m., at The Guild Theatre, 949 El Camino Real, Menlo Park; $57 general admission/$96 reserved (waitlisted)/$440 VIP tables. guildtheatre.com.
