Updated: 07/11/01

Jupiter: Here we are in Owings Mills, MD and it’s March 1, 2001. Hi, Stan.

Stan: Jupiter, what’s up? Good to see you again. I like the blue hair.

J: Thanks. So, you’re back here on the East Coast after being in Los Angeles.. What’s it like being back?

S: A lot colder, but I like it. It’s good being back here with all my friends, family, it’s where I’m from. Plus, it’s where everybody in Happy The Man is, so I was sort of forced ‘cause I was the only one on the West Coast. (laughs)

J: How would you classify your new music?

S: Realistically, it picks up right where the second album, “Crafty Hands”, left off. It’s 4/5 of that line-up. Ron’s our drummer on it and we never really got to play live with Ron, so it’s a lot of fun playing with him. He’s a really powerful drummer. Musically, it could have come right after that album. It’s sort of freaking us out, it just sounds like it takes up right where that record left off; more so than the third album. The third album that we released, we were never really satisfied with that. And this album’s much more like “Crafty Hands”.

J: Who’s producing this one?

S: That still remains to be seen. We may end up producing it ourselves, but we do have a couple of name producers real interested in working with us and that’s one of the things we’re going to discuss. We may have a major producer working with us. If not, we’ll do it ourselves, because everybody in the whole band since the 20 years since we broke up, everybody has gotten their individual production skills up, so I don’t doubt that we can put out a pretty good self-produced record.

J: Tell me the names of the guys in the band and what they play.

S: Frank Wyatt, keyboards and saxes and some flute and compositions there; Ron Riddle on drums and Ron also wrote one tune that’ll definitely be on the new record; Rick Kennel on bass; me on the guitars and occasional vocals and compositions; and lastly, Dave Rosenthal who’s the new kid. Kit [Watkins] didn’t want to do any live gigs. He wanted to do the new album but he wasn’t interested in playing live, and for the rest of us, that was a defining factor. That was one of the main reasons we wanted to put it back together was the fun we had playing live. Performing this caliber of music live is a bit of challenge and when you pull it off, it’s very rewarding. So that sort of ousted Kit out of the line-up there and we went with Dave Rosenthal who’s an old friend and is one of the few keyboardists we know who can really cop everything. He’s playing with Billy Joel right now, they went back out 6-7 weeks, but he’s back now in New Jersey.

J: Where will you practice?

S: When we rehearse together for the live shows, we rehearse some here in Baltimore at Club 66 and then we rehearse at David’s house in New Jersey. He’s got a real nice basement studio there. So we’ll probably bat between the two areas to do the record.

J: what’s the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to you?

S: The most embarrassing thing? With Happy The Man or just in life? Ooh, good question! Let’s see.. I’ll have to think about that. The most embarrassing moment with Happy the Man in a performance was an old show in the Carter Baron Theatre where I had some of my slide solos coming up and my slide broke, so I was on the microphone asking if anyone had a beer bottle and someone came up and handed me one and I played the solo with the beer bottle.

J: Okay. I’ll give you that. What was the best thing that ever happened to you?

S: It’d have to be some of the shows we did this summer. Especially the Near Fest, a progressive music festival in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.. That was the main gig that prompted us to really put it back together musically. That was a great gig. It was very different for all of us to have a whole crowd who knew our music and gave us lots of standing ovations and afterwards, there were hundreds of people waiting for autographs. We never had that happen 20-some years ago.

We recorded all 4 shows from this past summer and recorded them on digital 24-track and so we’re gonna probably be releasing some of that live stuff. We want to wait until the new album is out first, ‘cause we performed 5 of the brand new songs on these concerts this past summer so if we put out a live CD, we’d like to put some of those songs on it.

The only two albums we really endorse are the Arista recordings, “Happy the Man” and “Crafty Hands” and they are now being re-released on One-Way Records. Kit re-mastered them both and they sound much better than the original vinyl. The records were never available in Europe until now.

The music seems to have lasted which amazes us how many people still dig it. There’s book out now, called the “Progressive Rock Files” and we’re apparently mentioned prominently throughout and used as an influence on other groups.

J: How do you see the future of progressive rock?

S: Oddly enough, it seems to be more popular than ever. It seems to have recycled around here which is perhaps why our timing’s finally gonna be good here. And like you said, we were a little ahead of our time and now maybe we’re on time. The internet really seems to have helped progressive music. There’s so many progressive music web sites, it’s unbelievable.

J: The official Happy The Man web site is www.happytheman.com.

S: That’s it, Man.

J: What’s your favorite Happy The Man composition.

S: Oh, Man, that’s so tough. But if I had to pick any one specific tune, maybe “Open Book” or “Crafty Hands”.

J: What equipment are you using?

S: I’ve got my Paul Reed Smith guitars still, playing them through a line 6 Pod for recording.

J: Where do you like to buy your clothes?

S: I don’t buy clothes.. . . Target! I’m still wearing the same clothes I’ve had for 10 years! I haven’t bought clothes for so long, some of the stuff I have are coming back in fashion!

(laughter)

J: So you were saying?

S: Yeah. What was I saying?

J: What were some of your musical influences?

S: Personally, I ‘ve always liked classical music. I’m a big fan of Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky. As a guitarist, I’ve always loved Alan Holdsworth, John MacLaughlin, Steve Hillage and of course, Jimi Hendrix who will always be the main man. The bands would be Van Der Graaf Generator and UK.

J: Your favorite food?

S: Probably Sushi. And then Thai, Indian food a close second.

J: Do you like fast food?

S: Not really.

J: What did you think of the Grammy awards?

S: It was actually pretty good Grammy’s. U-2 rocked. Probably the highlight musically, of the show.

J: For the fans of Happy The Man, what would you like to leave them with?

S: Oh, wow. Happy the Man live is and always was a real special experience. Not only for the fans there to see us, but for us as a band.

J: Thanks for the interview, Stan.

S: Yeah, Jupiter. Feel free to edit away.