"The Look's" Never Were A Garage Band

by Pete Holly

"The Look's" never were a garage band.Our biggest audience at
the peak of our popularity here in Boise,were Jr. High and High School Students.
To them we were just a Rock' n Roll Band.Nobody ever called the music we played
Garage Band music,Frankly,because we didn't play any garage band songs.Unlike
All the other bands on The Voxx Album-"The Battle of the Garages" our song
wasn't a remake of a old Garage Band song and the style of the song owes alot
more to Devo,Television and The Clash.Those were the bands that inspired
me to write "Look Out Below"not any old 60's Garage Band.Our song got put
on the album completely by accident.We didn't know anything about the
Contest.We were just sending out the Demo tape we'd made to all sorts of
Label's and our Drummer-Lenny Montoya suggested we send one to Bomp.
I'd never heard of Bomp but Lenny grew up in East L.A. so he was familiar
the label,Lenny knew alot of things about L. A. that Mitch and i didn't so i
just said O.K.-If Lenny thinks it's a good idea to send a copy of our demo
To this Label in L.A.-He knows alot more about L.A. than i do so i just took
him at his word that it was a good label to send our demo to-and so we did.
So that's how we got labeled as a garage band.Because "Look Out
Below' got chosen by Greg Shaw to be on the Album.It was the first time we'd
ever been called a garage band.The Demo also had "Are You Gonna Be My Girl"
on it.The first time i called Greg he said "Pete Holly amd the Look's ? "Oh Yeah,
your the band with the Merseybeat Song".That's when i talked Greg into letting
us record a single.I think Greg knew all along that we really weren't like any of the
other bands on "The Battle of the Garages".The Demo tape we'd sent to him had
three original songs on it.I wrote,arranged and Produced all three of them and
none of them were garage band songs.The style of the songs on the Demo tape
were the style of my own that i'd developed over 10 years of songwriting.My
Biggest influences were Mott the Hoople,The Beatles,The Who,Bob Dylan,
Todd Rundgren,and The Beach Boys.
We were the only band that Greg put on both "The Battle Of Garages"
and the compilation album "Expieriments in Destiny" which contained recordings
that sounded more modern.He put the version i had produced on the "Battle" album
and he put the studio version on "Expieriments in Destiny".So i believe Greg knew
all along that we were a band that could play many differant styles-because we were.
The only label he ever put on my music was when he wrote me a letter and it said
i still had that "cool sound".
So that's the true version of what really happened and who our infuences
really were.What can i say-things just happened the way they happened.I was
allways just trying to write the best songs i could.I didn't have any control-and
i still don't-over what label gets put on them.

Written by Pete Holly