CooperTalk

Steve Cooper talks with musician Michael Aston. Michael Aston is the founding member, lead singer and leader of

Gene Loves Jezebel. 1989 he left Gene Loves Jezebel due to his unhappiness with the direction of the

band and strained relations with his twin brother, Jay. Moving to California, he

started The Immigrants which eventually became Edith Grove. Edith Grove

released its debut album to rave reviews and he eventually decided to tone

things down a bit and he wrote and released his first solo album, Why Me Why

This Why Now?. He reformed Gene Loves Jezebel instead of writing and

recording a new Edith Grove album; the band's debut album was its only

album. Between 1993 and 1997 Jay and him were working together on various projects

and recordings, including an album that would eventually become VII. Both

brothers did a reunion tour from February 1997 to October 1997 as Gene Loves

Jezebel, however that ended with the recording and subsequent tour for VII.

Another bitter falling out ensued. According to Michael, he refused to be pushed

out of the band after all of the work he had put into the reunion and reformed

GLJ with the backing band used on the first '97 Pre-Raphaelite Brothers tour.

This caused much confusion amongst the fans as to who had the rights to the band

name. Jay sued Michael to stop him from using Gene Loves Jezebel. Judge O'Brien in LA Superior Court denied twice the injunctions intended to stop

Michael from using the Gene Loves Jezebel name. Jay withdrew the case with

prejudice meaning that he could never sue Michael again. Jay released VII in

1998. Jay erased all of Michael's vocals and credits off the album however, a

copy of this album with Michael's vocals was released as The Doghouse Sessions. Michael owns the exclusive rights to Gene Loves Jezebel in the US and continues

to perform and release new material as Gene Loves jezebel throughout the world.

 

Steve Cooper talks with drummer Lucky Lehrer. Lucky is a drummer from Los Angeles, California who was voted the best punk drummer of all-time by fanzine, Flipside. He was originally trained in jazz but most famously played in LA punk rock bands, particularly the Circle Jerks, Redd Kross, Bad Religion, Darby Crash Band and LA's Wasted Youth, among others.  He also appeared in three notable documentary films charting the punk rock music scene. He is the brother of LA's Wasted Youth guitarist Chett Lehrer and teaches drums, with notable students being future Bad Religion drummers Pete Finestone and Bobby Schayer.

Steve Cooper talks with writer Phoef Sutton. Phoef started his career at the NBC television show Cheers. He stayed with the show for eight years, working his way up from staff writer to executive producer, winning two Emmys and a Writer’s Guild Award. After Cheers, he has produced and created a number of television shows and consulted on others, including News Radio and Boston Legal. He is honored to have won a Peabody Award, a GLAAD award and a Television Academy Honors award for this work on Boston Legal. Recently, he has worked on critically acclaimed series Terries for FX , The Soul Man for TV Land and Defiance for the SyFy Channel. A particular favorite is of his is the cult comedy Thanks, a sit-com about the Pilgrims starring Cloris Leachman and Jim Rash. He has also worked for many years as a screenwriter and script doctor. Mrs. Winterbourne, directed by Richard Benjamin was an adaptation of a novel by one of his favorite authors, Cornell Woolrich. The Fan, directed by Tony Scott and starring Robert DeNiro was an adaptation of the novel by Peter Abrahams. He is also a published novelist with Always Six o’Clock a romantic-thriller and The Midnight Special a horror novel and he recently announced that is he co-authoring a series of 4 books with best selling author Janet Evanovich, the first of which will be published this year.

Steve Cooper talks with director Anthony Rich. Anthony has worked on over four hundred episodes of prime-time network television and is currently a Director and First Assistant Director on the hit CBS sitcom, The Big Bang Theory. He has directed nine episodes of the series, and in 2014, earned his first DGA Award nomination as Outstanding Comedy Director for the season six episode, The Love Spell Potential. In addition he has also directed multiple episodes of Mom starring Anna Faris and Allison Janney, Hot in Cleveland starring Betty White, Valerie Bertinelli, Wendie Malick and Jane Leeves and Young & Hungry starring Emily Osment and Jonathan Sadowski as well as episodes of The McCarthys starring Tyler Ritter and Laurie Metcalf “Kirstie” starring Kirstie Alley, Rhea Perlman, and Michael Richards and See Dad Run starring Scott Baio. He also wrote an episode of ABC’s MacGyver that aired as the series’ fifth-season finale in 1990.

Steve Cooper talks with writer Cindy Caponera. Cindy honed her comedy with two stints in at The Second City in Chicago and began her television writing career with the early Comedy Central series, Exit 57. She then landed a writing job with Saturday Night Live and after that has worked as a writer or producer on various shows that include Norm, My Boys, Sherri, Ground Floor, and Sunny with a Chance plus Showtime’s Shameless and Nurse Jackie. She recently published her collection of essays, I Triggered Her Bully which is available both in an online and print version, after being named a Kindle Top Rated Humor Book and will soon be available on audio book.

Steve Cooper talks with writer/comic/director John Riggi.  John is an Emmy-winning writer, director and producer. He started his career as a stand-up comedian, logging appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, as well his own comedy stand up special on HBO. He made the transition from stand-up comedian to television writer when he began work as a staff writer on The Dennis Miller Show. From there he worked on -- and eventually became the head writer on -- the award winning Larry Sanders Show, starring Garry Shandling. He has written for such notable shows as Will & Grace, Family Guy and The Bernie Mac Show, where his writing was acknowledged with the Humanitas Prize. More recently he served for six seasons an executive producer on the Emmy Award-winning 30 Rock. In addition to writing, he directed numerous episodes of this critically acclaimed show. He currently Riggi is under contract with Warner Bros. Television and was thrilled to be reunited with Michael Patrick King and Lisa Kudrow for The Comeback this past season.

Steve Cooper talks with comic Felicia Michaels. Felicia has appeared on such networks as MTV, A&E, Comedy Central, VH1 and Showtime. Not to mention NBC, ABC and FOX. She also was the Comedy Grand Champion on Star Search. Her first comedy CD, Lewd Awakenings, landed her on XM Satellite’s list of top 100 jokes. She was nominated twice as Funniest Female by the American Comedy Awards before clinching it. Breaks from touring were supplemented with film and photography courses at NYU and The New School, which led to her writing and directorial debut with the Cine Eagle Award-winning short film In the Weeds. Work soon followed on Mitch Hedberg's Sundance Film Festival selection Los Enchiladas, as an actor and assistant director. Guest appearances followed on sitcoms, and her ongoing photo documentary project "Stand Up / Stripped Down" won first place at the Prix De La Photographie Competition in Paris. She currently performs across the country, has started painting and is working on a book.

Steve Cooper talks with actor/singer E.G. Daily. E.G. has starred in more than twenty feature films as an actress and leaped to the top of the charts as a singer/songwriter. Recently E.G. had a role in a Nick Cassavetes film called My Sister’s Keeper and starred as Candy in Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects. Her credits also include Street Music, Valley Girl, Streets of Fire, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Fandango, Loverboy, and Dogfight. She has done voices for numerous animated series, including the Emmy Award winning Rugrats (Tommy Pickles) and The Powerpuff Girls (Buttercup). She resumed her role as the voice of Tommy Pickles in all three animated feature films and can also be heard as the voice of Babe in the live-action feature Babe II: Pig in the City. Additional voice-over credits include Starship Troopers, Recess, Chalkzone, Eek! the Cat, Duck Days, Duckman, Jungle Cubs, Problem Child, and Baby Blues. She also provided the voice of Froggie in the feature film The Little Rascals, Bam Bam in The Flinstones, Lorenzo in the Academy Award winning feature film, Lorenzo’s Oil and Baby Mumbles in the Academy Award winning Happy Feet. In addition to her extensive voiceover work, she co-wrote and co-produced two solo albums, Wild Child and Lace Around the Wound on A&M Records. Several of her songs soared to the top of Billboard’s dance charts and became well-received music videos, including Say It, Say It, which became a number one hit. She has also composed music and performed on a number of soundtracks, including Street Music, Thief of Hearts, Scarface, The Breakfast Club, Summer School and Better Off Dead. She has collaborated with many well-known producers, such as Giorgio Moroder, Keith Forsey, Stock Aitken, Waterman, Jelly Bean Benitez and Harold Faltermeyer and recently was a favorite when she sang on NBC's The Voice.

Steve Cooper talks with actor Catherine Hicks. Catherine is best known for her role as preacher's wife Annie Camden on the drama 7th Heaven which she played for 11 seasons. She first rose to prominence as Dr. Faith Coleridge on the soap opera Ryan's Hope, a role she played from 1976 to 1978. In 1979, she was one of the leads in the television version of The Bad News Bears and in 1982 she took the lead role in the comedy/detective series Tucker's Witch opposite Tim Matheson. Supporting roles in movies followed, with appearances in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home as Dr. Gillian Taylor, and Peggy Sue Got Married as Carol Heath (both 1986), but it was the role of the mother in the movie Child's Play (1988) that first established her as a name in Hollywood. The next year, she starred opposite Tony Danza in She's Out of Control. In the first half of the 1990s, she found acting work in the form of made-for-TV movies, but it wasn't until 1996 that she got the role on 7th Heaven. She has also starred on Broadway and many other plays.

Steve Cooper talks with writer/actor Nick Bakay. Nick got his start when he a became a contributing editor for The National Lampoon Magazine, which led to a writing job and starring roles in two cable series, Night After Night and Sports Monster. After landing a job as a writer and sidekick/announcer on the syndicated The Dennis Miller Show, he decided it was time to move to Los Angeles. Since that time, he has written and performed in numerous television series including What's So Funny?, She TV, In Living Color and Comedy Central's Baseballapalooza and NFL Offsides. He has also guest-starred in the comedy series Coach, Ellen, Grace Under Fire, Seinfeld and That 70's Show. For the first four seasons of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, he was a writer/producer on the show. He has also taken on that role on many shows including  The King of Queens, Til' Death and Two and a Half Men. He has additionally has written segments and commentary for ESPN and ESPN.com. and was the host of Reel Classics on ESPN Classic. Currently he is a writer/producer on Mom and has co-written both Paul Blart: Mall Cop movies.