
Steve Luongo has worked with a lot of musicians in his life; Ann Wilson of Heart, Richie Blackmore of Deep Purple and Rainbow, Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad, Joe Walsh of the Eagles, Billy Squier and John Entwistle of The Who.
For 15 years Steve Luongo was part of John Entwistle’s band. Steve in partnership with Deko entertainment has put together “Rarities Oxhumed – Volume 1”, the first in a series of posthumous releases coming from John Entwistle. Steve also has a documentary film out called “An Ox’s Tale” the John Entwistle Story.
So, we talked to Steve Luongo about his musical career and his friend and bandmate-John Entwistle
Q – It’s the strangest thing Steve, why do I feel that John Entwistle wasn’t really given that much attention in his lifetime? The other guys in The Who grabbed the spotlight. Would you agree?
A – Well, yeah. I agree with it in a matter of speaking, John explains it this way; he used to say you had Keith the crazy one, Pete the intellectual doing the windmills and Roger the charismatic singer. What was I going to do? I think by the nature of the fact that he just stood there and played incredibly was not camera worthy. A lot of the times when there were cameras out there and they started hearing a lead, they would think it was Pete. They go to him. So, I agree. I believe he is the most overlooked member of The Who.
Q – How is it that you got to work with people like Jack Bruce or Richie Blackmore? Were you a studio musician or in a support group?
A – No. None of the above. I was in my first real serious group called Rat Race Choir. I just played in that band. I wasn’t a studio musician. We recorded of course, but I was just a guy in a band. As people started to need players they were looking for different players, they started to reach out to me. In the case of Richie, Richie was living out on Long Island. So, chances are he either heard me play or somebody suggested “hey, Steve Luongo would be great for Rainbow. For me, it was really word-of-mouth. I wasn’t out soliciting gigs. How it happened with Jack Bruce is I had a core trio. We used to go out and anybody who wanted to do a show would call us. We would just back em up. So, when the Jack Bruce thing happened, it was actually for the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. One of the guys from the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame rang me up and said, “Listen, Jack Bruce is coming to play. Would you guys like to play with him?” Of course we would! (Laughs). It’s just right place, right time and keeping yourself accessible and available.
Q – So, where and how did you meet John Entwistle?
A – That’s a good story. Sound engineer, guitarist that Rat Race Choir worked with over the years named Joe Berger used to do all the trade shows. There is a show in Germany called Musikmesse and that’s the ones that precedes summer NAMM. So, Joe Berger was at Musikmesse because he’s a monster guitar player. He demos for a lot of the companies. They fly him out. He does all the trade shows. At this particular trade show he ran into John Entwistle. John, I’m happy to say, if it’s about music and you can play and he enjoys playing with you, he’ll be there all night. So, Joe and John got along. Maybe they were at the same booth. I don’t really remember how the connection happened. But Joe said, I have these friends from New York and you really have to hear them play. He talked up Rat Race Choir to John and John said, “well, I’m coming to Chicago in June.” You want to introduce them to me? I’d like to meet them. So Joe said to us, “Everybody go down to NAMM. It was the weekend of June 27. And we’re waiting outside of McCormick Place which was where the trade show was. Up comes walking John Entwistle. Nobody with him but dressed like John Entwistle. The leather coat, the spider, the T-shirt, the sunglasses. I mean, as cool as it gets. And Joe says, “John, these are the guys. Guys this is John.” He shook everybody’s hand and said, nice to meet you. I said to him, do you want to jam? (Laughs). And, he said, any time, mate. So, I took that as a license to steal. I went on the NAMM floor with all the manufacturers. I said, “Listen, were playing with John Entwistle. We’d like to play at your jam.” If you know anything about NAMM it’s all about the floor during the daytime and the jam is at night. It’s all celebrity jams. So, needless to say they made a big space for us in the jam. I think Eddie Van Halen was playing, Leslie West, Dweezi Zappa, Neil Schon (of journey). All of the artists that support whatever instruments were being used. So, I pick John up, we went to the Vic Theater. I guess he figured we were going to a club. We wound up walking on a full stage of gear. Total gear from top to bottom. Because my band used to cover “Live At Leads and “Tommy” and all that stuff as kids, we still know it. So, he said, “What are we going to play?” I said, we can play some Who songs.” He said, “I don’t know any. (Laughs). So, we said, we, will teach them to you.” And we went over em in the dressing room and walked out on stage. As a rhythm section, bass and drums we looked up like we were doing it our whole lives. When you find that in another musician it’s a precious find, because just because somebody an expert at what they do doesn’t mean it’s got a lineup with your expertise at what you do, but we enjoyed playing together. Then after the show and equally as important we sat in the Green Room for a couple of hours telling stories, telling jokes and laughing. I had to leave because I had to get my flight in the morning. John gave me his number and said, “give me a call,” and I did.
Q – When John said he didn’t know any Who songs, he was joking around, right?
A – Well, in part. When he said, I don’t know any, don’t forget even when The Who are playing, he doesn’t play that whole catalog. I don’t know what became second nature to him in that catalog. I think that’s what he meant as far as the arrangements were concerned, and I think he was making a quip about the fact that The Who didn’t tour enough for his taste.
Q – That was going to be one of my questions for you-what could John Entwistle do in his solo career that he couldn’t do with The Who? And, it seems the answer is plenty!
A – Well, the answer is-anything. (Laughs). When you’re in an iconic group like The Who and the people in it have become part of history you have to give and take with the other members, if there is a volume problem or traveling problem. But, when you’re in your own band then you can pretty much do anything you want and that’s exactly what we did. I think the part of The Who John enjoyed the most was the freestyle jamming, the experimentation and I think that was such at “Live At Leeds” and “Live At Leeds” when I first heard it as a kid, a teenager, it just blew me away that they were just going to all these cool places jamming and you could tell they were communicating back and forth almost telepathically but really with their music. And, I always loved doing that. We used to do that in my mind quite a bit. So, when John and I found each other we realized that we both had a vehicle in each other to do exactly what we wanted to do which was to play with reckless abandon, unbridled and unchallenged. It was just let’s go play as loud and as fast and as fun as we can and do it again tomorrow.
Q – And so where did this band perform?
A – Well, it performed for 100 people and for 100,000 people. I guess John would be proud for me to say that he used the rig in both situations. For John it was just let’s play. He would rather play for 250 people than 50,000. We did Woodstock 99 for 300,000 people there. You couldn’t really see anybody. It was crazy you couldn’t hear on the stage because you didn’t get a sound check so the set was all messed up. Then we go and play a place like the Canyon Club which we didn’t play. We played the other one down in San Juan Capistrano. He liked playing clubs and small theaters because he could get to see the people that were looking at him and he loved for lack of a better word, John was a show off. He loves flash. He loves showing people watch this and seeing the dazzled look on their face when he did it. We played every kind of place, like I said we did Woodstock. We did Grant Park in Chicago. We did Humphreys by the Bay on the West Coast. Then we played clubs like The Chance which is a club/theater in New York. BB King’s was really our base of operations. We love playing at BB’s it was really a matter of can they fit our equipment and will we have fun doing it. The rest of it didn’t really matter.
Q – This film of yours “An Ox’s Tale” will be released how? In the theaters? On Cable TV? On HBO or Showtime?
A – I think now it’s playing on Netflix and HULU. So, it’s not a theatrical release. I mean it played some theaters when it first came out, but now it’s available on the networks. If you search An Ox’s Tale or searched John Entwistle or even if you search me (Steve Luongo) it comes up pretty easily. I think people would enjoy it. Certainly Entwistle fans would enjoy it.
Q – Steve, the hardest question I can ask you and maybe it’s addressed in your film is, what was John Entwistle doing using cocaine? He must’ve known the dangers of that. I believe he was what 55 when he died?
A – 57.
Q – He saw what happened to all of the musicians who were his contemporaries and before. What was he doing using cocaine, or don’t you know?
A – I know very well what he was doing with it. I’ll pre-face it by saying this; everybody has their habits and there are things that they enjoy. John enjoyed Brandy as much as he enjoyed fried chicken. He enjoyed cigarettes as much as he enjoyed playing bass. He was a guy who embraced his own life. From the moment I knew John, I knew him to be a man of moderation. I’ve seen him get too drunk to walk, but he wasn’t the kind a guy to do too much of this or too much of that. He was very regimented in the use of extracurricular activities. I believe, and I know for a fact, when we went out to tour he had to get cleared by a doctor. The doctor told him he had blood pressure problems. We had to monitor his blood pressure every day on the tour and not to belabor the point, but, I don’t think John Entwistle did enough cocaine to kill himself. I think he would’ve had that same heart attack if he was in the gym. The disservice, and I’m not blaming anybody but the disservice of a drug related death is it wasn’t from the drugs. It was from three major arteries in his heart being blocked. So, whether he was in bed with the stripper or on stage playing a solo that heart attack was coming. It was his denial in the way he felt and that he didn’t see a doctor, he’d still be with us. If he went for a proper cardiac checkup he would still be with us. As far as drugs are concerned, John knew what he was doing. He knew what he could do and what he couldn’t do and managed it very well. It’s just better news if he dies of a heart attack and that’s involved. It certainly didn’t help I’m not condoning the use of it, but, I just don’t want people to get the wrong idea that John Entwistle was blowing his brains out on a coffee table and then pegged out. Like I said, he was very controlled and it was his first day in the states. He had just gotten here. Again, I’m not condoning the use of drugs especially later in life but, I just don’t want people to think that was the only thing that killed him. What killed him was neglect of his physical being and every cigarette, Brandy, fried chicken and whatever else he was using. John Entwistle died from being John Entwistle.
Q – I have to tell you Steve, I was rather shocked when I heard the news of John Entwistle’s death. He seemed like such a down-to-earth guy, but he neglected his health.
A – Yeah, and that’s exactly what happened. Like I said, I’m not saying that the guy wasn’t snorting cocaine, but the John that I knew was not an abuser like that. This was just wrong place, wrong time.
Q – So now, are you still playing in a band or are you a filmmaker these days?
A – Well, I’ll always be playing in a band Gary. That’s what I do I have a studio so what I’ve been doing is a lot of recording. I mean I still play and if, there’s the right place to play I’ll be out there playing. It’s just the last couple of years have been so troublesome with regard to health, Covid and touring. It’s been crazy. But I will always play. You don’t retire from this business. It retires from you.
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