CooperTalk

Steve Cooper talks with musician Chip Z'Nuff. Chip is best known for being one of the founders of Enuff Z'Nuff a Chicago area band that is best known for their charting singles Fly High Michelle and New Thing. Enuff Z'Nuff has continually recorded and toured throughout their career of more than 30 years, releasing 13 studio albums and a total of 21 CDs to date. They have appeared on MTV, The Jenny Jone's Show, Mancow's Morning Madhouse and multiple times on The Howard Stern Show and Late Night with David Letterman.

Steve Cooper talks with guitarist Michael Wilton. Michael is one of the founding members in 1982 of the band Queensryche. The band has released 14 studio albums, 1 EP, several DVDs and continues to tour and record. They have sold over 20 million albums worldwide, including over 6 million albums in the United States. The band received worldwide acclaim after the release of their 1988 album Operation: Mindcrime which is often considered one of the greatest heavy metal concept albums of all time. Their follow-up release Empire, released in 1990, was also very successful and included the hit single Silent Lucidity. The band has received three Grammy nominations for songs from both albums. His nickname is The Whip for how fast his fingers "whip" around the guitar fretboard and he also has his own beer called Whip Ale.

Steve Cooper talks with writer Bill Knoedelseder. Bill is best known for his book I'm Dying Up Here which recently was turned into a Showtime series. Bill was a staff writer from 1977 to 1989 reporting on the entertainment industry for the Los Angeles Times. His series of articles in the 1980s into corrupt practices in the record business formed the basis for the book Stiffed: A True Story of MCA, the Music Business and the Mafia. In 2012, his book Bitter Brew, which spans five generations of the Busch family and the foreign takeover of Anheuser-Busch made the New York Times Bestseller list and his latest book Fins: Harley Earl, the Rise of General Motors, and the Glory Days of Detroit is slated to come out in early 2018.  

Steve Cooper talks with writer W. Bruce Cameron. W. Bruce is best known for his book the New York Times bestseller A Dog's Purpose. He is also the author of 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter (that became an ABC sitcom), The Dog Master, A Dog's Journey, The Midnight Plan of a Repo Man, Bailey's Story, Repo Madness and many others. In 2011 he was named Columnist of the Year by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and recently wrote a book geared to school age kids.

Steve Cooper talks with singer Eric Martin. Eric is best known for being the front man for the band Mr. Big. Mr. Big was orginally together from 1988-2002 and recorded six albums. They had worldwide success playing sold out shows everywhere and had a huge hit with the single To Be With You. They recently re-united and just released a new cd titled Defying Gravity. Before, after and in between his career with Mr. Big he has recorded solo albums and been involved with many other bands including 415, Tak Matsumoto Group and Scrap Metal.  

Steve Cooper talks with actor Rocky Laporte. Rocky has performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and appeared on A&E‘s Evening At The Improv and VH1‘s Stand-Up Spotlight, along with sitcom appearances on Cheers and his own NBC pilot called the Rocky LaPorte Show. He has become one of the most sought after comedians in the country, and appeared on on the season 8 of NBC’s Last Comic Standing! where he came in 5th place. He was a featured comic on Showtime‘s The Godfathers of Comedy, a special starring five of America’s most hilarious Italian-American comics and the big screen, he has been seen in two Tim Allen movies, Crazy on the Outside and The Shaggy Dog. He has also traveled to Iraq to entertain the troops, was seen on the Showtime special Patriot Act: A Jeffrey Ross Home Movie and has opened for the likes of Garry Shandling, Drew Carey, Tim Allen, Louie Anderson, Hootie and the Blowfish and the Righteous Brothers, just to name a few.

Steve Cooper talks with actor/writer/director Ginger Gonzaga. Ginger is best known for her role as Christy on the Duplass Brothers’ critical darling Togetherness, on HBO and as Jim Jefferies’s frustrated and immature girlfriend Peggy in FX’s dark comedy Legit. She can currently be seen in Showtime’s I’m Dying Up Here. She was also the lead of ABC’s Mixology, and TBS’s Wrecked, as well as the host of Hulu’s comedic daily pop culture recap show The Morning After, for which she also wrote. Other television credits include her recurring roles on Tad Quill’s Jane Lynch comedy Angel from Hell for CBS, NBC’s Trial and Error, and Comedy Central’s Key and Peele.  

Steve Cooper talks with guitarist Joel Hoekstra. Joel plays for Whitesnake and Trans Siberian Orchestra. He’s also well-known for his work with Night Ranger, the Broadway show Rock of Ages and his fill in work with acts like Foreigner and most recently, Cher. Frontiers Music recently released the critically acclaimed debut from his new side project Joel Hoekstra's 13 entitled Dying to Live. He has also released 3 solo albums that you should own!

Steve Cooper talks with comic Tammy Pescatelli. Tammy was part of the Final Five on NBC's Last Comic Standing 2 and headlines comedy clubs across the country as well as performing many Corporate gigs. She has appeared as a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Dennis Miller and has been a featured comic on An Evening at the Improv, PAX's Balderdash, National Lampoon's Funny Money and Comedy Central's The World Stands Up. She has added her comedic observations to specials on VH1, E!, G4, Country Music Television and TV Land and is featured weekly as part of the Fashion Police panel for US Weekly. She has also had her own half-hour special for Comedy Central, Comedy Central Presents: Tammy Pescatelli and a Netflix one called Finding the Funny.

Steve Cooper talks with former NFL all-pro Kyle Turley. Kyle was selected 7th overall in the 1998 NFL Draft and played for 8 season. He played for the New Orleans Saints and a year with the St. Louis Rams before a serious back injury sidelined him for the 2004 and 2005 seasons. He returned to football in 2006 as a member of the Kansas City Chiefs, where he spent the last two years of his career before announcing his retirement in December 2007. His high level of play earned him all-pro honors for the 2000 season and a Pro Bowl invite following the 2001 season. His career is best remembered by many for a 2001 incident in which he ripped off an opposing player's helmet and tossed it downfield, playing a key factor in his team losing the game but also earning the respect of many Saints fans for his defense of the quarterback. He has also been outspoken and involved in a number of player health issues post-retirement, particularly in regards to the neurological problems resulting from his football career.

Steve Cooper talks with singer/musician Mark Slaughter. Mark is one of the founders of the band Slaughter. They have sold more than 5 million records world-wide. The group has had numerous top hits on the Billboard charts such as Fly To The Angels, Up All Night, Spend My Life and Mad About You. They also won the 1991 American Music Award for Favorite New Artist. Mark recently released a solo album Halfway There and tours both solo and with the band.

Steve Cooper talks with bassist Mike Watt. Mike is best known for co-founding the rock bands Minutemen, Dos, and Firehose; was also the bassist for the reunited Stooges and a member of the group Banyon as well as many other post-Minutemen projects. CMJ New Music called him a seminal post-punk bassist and in 2008 he received the Bass Player Magazine lifetime achievement award, presented by Flea. He has also had a very successful solo career relasing many albums and touring the world, has written three rock operas and hosts a radio show called The Watt from Pedro Show.  

Steve Cooper talks with singer/guitarist Janet Gardner. Janet is best-known as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the all-woman hard rock band Vixen. She recently recorded her first solo album that will be released this year. Her band Vixen signed with EMI and recorded their self-titled debut album which was released in September 1988. Their lead single Edge of a Broken Heart became their signature hit song. It was co-written, arranged, and produced by Richard Marx. They would go on worldwide tours in support of Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions, and Bon Jovi along with their own headline shows. Vixen recorded and released their second album "Rev It Up" in July 1990. They toured for another year alongside KISS and Deep Purple before the band split up in the middle of 1991 citing musical differences. They have reformed with a different line-up in 1997 and recorded another album in 1998. They currently are back together and do occasional live dates.

Steve Cooper talks with guitarist Steve Lynch. Steve is best known for his work with the band Autograph. Steve has published several books and instructional videos on his guitar style throughout his career. He also works as a guitar teacher, teaching: the art of composition and his tapping technique. His band Autograph left an everlasting imprint on rock 'n' roll. The platinum-selling Southern California hard rock juggernauts gave the world the ubiquitous hit Turn Up the Radio, seminal albums such as Sign In Please [1984], That's The Stuff [1985], and Loud and Clear [1987] as well as unforgettable sold out shows alongside everybody from Mötley Crüe and Ronnie James Dio to Van Halen and Aerosmith. They disbanded in 1989 and got back together in 2011 and are touring again.

Steve Cooper talks with comic Jonathan Katz. Jonathan is best known for his Emmy and Peabody Award winning lead role in the animated hit series Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist. He has done Late Night with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson twice, Leno twice and Conan 7 times. He has had animated roles in many shows including Home Movies, Bob's Burgers, Adventure Time and Explosion Bus and has appeared in movies such as Daddy Day Care, State and Main, The Spanish Prisoner, Things Change and Are We Done Yet and also created Raisng Dad which aired on the WB network. He recently returned to his most popular character in Dr. Katz: The Audio Files which was just released on Amazon and the Audible channel.