Deen Castronovo (year unknown)
Deen Castronovo started his musical career behind the drum set when he was 16 or 17 for the heavy metal band Wild Dogs (1982–1987). His drumming caught the attention of Mike Varney, head of Shrapnel Records. Mike put him in contact with many talented guitar players, including Tony MacAlpine and Marty Friedman. Through Tony’s connections, Deen met guitarist Neal Schon of Journey and Santana. In 1987, Neal asked Deen to join the hard rock band Bad English along with Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain. Bad English had a number-one hit, “When I See You Smile.”
Bad English broke up in 1991. In 1993, Deen played with Ozzy Osbourne on Ozzmosis (1995). Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath, who also played on Ozzmosis, asked Deen to play for his band GZR. Deen played on GZR’s two albums Plastic Planet (1995) and Black Science (1997). In 1995, Ozzy fired Deen, but Deen rebounded and played drums for Italian artist Vasco Rossi.
In 1998, Deen got the call from Neal Schon to play with him, this time with the legendary rock band Journey. Deen is a rare breed of drummers who can sing lead vocals. However, Journey tunes are not easy tunes to sing due to all the high notes that former Journey vocalist Steve Perry hit. That Deen can sing a Journey tune and still be able to play drums is amazing.[Side note: I saw Journey in 2014 and did not expect that Deen would sing lead vocals. It was very impressive.]
However, in 2015, Deen was arrested in a domestic dispute, and as a result, he was fired from Journey. A year and half later, Deen continued his musical career and got session work, and then he joined the Dead Daisies, an Australian band. Various people who played with INXS, the Rolling Stones, Whitesnake, and Nine Inch Nails have played with the Dead Daisies. In 2018, Neal asked Deen to partake in a musical project called Journey Through Time. Journey Through Time covered some of the familiar Journey tracks but also a lot of rare and obscure Journey tracks. At the time of this writing, Deen plays drums for a country rock band, The Rise Above, which has members from Chicago and Rascal Flatts.
Deen’s career is both impressive and resilient. This candid conversation covers the high points, low points, and comebacks of Deen’s career. I want to thank Cat Swinton of Catalyst PR for setting up the interview with Deen, but most of all, I want to thank Deen.
Jeff Cramer: So what encouraged you to pick up your sticks?
Deen Castronovo: Kiss, dude. Kiss encouraged me to pick up my sticks. My older brother brought home a Kiss album, and I saw the album cover and I was hooked. I just loved the way they looked, and then I heard the music and of course loved the music. I mean, I knew from six or seven years old that I wanted to play drums, but when I saw Kiss, that was it for me. I mean that was it.
JC: Your first group was Wild Dogs.
DC: Yeah, Wild Dogs is a heavy metal band out of Portland [Oregon] featuring Jeff Mark, the guitarist, who is a freaking monster player. Danny Kurth was the bass player, and Matt McCourt was our lead singer. Wild Dogs was just a little local act we did, like Seattle, San Francisco, and LA. We just went back and forth and up and down the West Coast playing shows. So yeah, it was a fun band, dude. I joined that band when I was 16 or 17. I was pretty young, but it was a blast.
We got a deal with Shrapnel Records because of Jeff's playing. Mike Varney was the head of Shrapnel Records. Varney discovered me, and he got me involved with Tony MacAlpine, a major guitar player. And then he had me play with all the major guitar players—I went to Tony MacAlpine to Joey Tafolla to Marty Friedman and Jason Becker. [To hear “Metal Fuel” by Wild Dogs, click here.]
Wild Dogs (Deen, top left) (1983)
DC: From playing with Tony MacAlpine, I met Neal. Journey broke up in 1987 and then Neal formed Bad English. Neal got me into Bad English with him. Then we just took off from there.
JC: Bad English had two Journey players in the band: Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain. This would begin your association with Journey.
DC: Both knew I was a huge Journey fan. I knew all the songs. I loved Steve Perry’s lead vocals. I loved Steve Smith's drumming. So when they asked me to join Bad English, it was a no-brainer. I was like, “Yeah, I'll be there.” [Laughs] Incredible. Really, really cool.
Bad English (Deen, top middle; year unknown)
JC: Bad English has a top 40 hit, “When I See Your Smile.”
DC: "When I See You Smile" was number one for two weeks. It would have been three, but Milli Vanilli knocked us off, and then we found out that they were lip-synching the whole time. It's like, “Well, can we go back up?” [Laughs] [To hear “When I See Your Smile,” click here.]
JC: Okay. How did you go from Bad English to Ozzy?
DC: I got a call from Steve Vai ’cause I had done a couple records with Steve. Steve said, "Hey, man, Ozzy's looking for a drummer. I'm playing guitar. Do you want to come in and try this?" I was like, “Heck yeah.” So I came in and Ozzy hired me on the spot, right after I played the first time. We ended up going to New York and wrote songs. I guess the label didn't like the direction that Steve was taking the band, which I thought was kind of crazy because Steve Vai was writing some killer stuff. Steve was replaced with Zakk Wylde and Ozzy kept me on. I was there from '93 to '95. [To hear “Perry Mason” by Ozzy Osbourne, click here.]
JC: From Ozzy you also met Geezer Butler, the bassist in Black Sabbath.
DC: Ah, Geez, I love Geezer. I did two records with him as a member of his band GZR. Those records will probably be the pinnacle of my metal drumming. The first record is unbelievable. They were all one takes. GZR just killed on that record. It was recorded in the studio in Massachusetts, Long View Farm Studio. It was 90 degrees outside when we recorded it, but we were in a barn upstairs so it was probably 103 or 104 degrees. It was hot as heck up there. And I remember just sweating—like profusely sweating—but the songs came out so good. There was so much energy, and it was unreal. After our first song was done, the band came walking down, and Geezer had his hands over his mouth. We were like, “Oh God, does he not like it? Are you cool with this, man? Do you like that?" And he took his hands off his mouth and he had a big smile on his face, and he goes, "It's effing brilliant." [Laughs] So we knew we had something there. [To hear “Drive Boy Shooting,” click here.]
JC: You had played with two Black Sabbath guys: Ozzy and Geezer. Were you ever considered to play drums with Black Sabbath?
DC: No, I pretty much went from Ozzy to Geezer's band, and then Geezer went on to do other stuff. I don't remember what, but he was doing his other things. I was ready to quit music after getting fired from Ozzy. I was so heartbroken.
JC: What happened with Ozzy?
DC: I don't know. Ozzy said, “It’s just the chemistry wasn't right." And I was a very busy player, and also I'm a very happy guy. I didn't fit into the doom-and-gloom thing. I can remember one time before a show, I said, "Man, let's go out and kill it," and Ozzy was like, "Don't say that. You'll jinx it. You'll jinx the show." I was like, “What?” I didn't really fit in, so I got the boot. First I was the greatest drummer Ozzy ever had, and then at a press release I was the worst drummer he ever had, so I was like, “Yeah, well, okay.”
But I was ready to quit music altogether, dude. I was like, “I'm done. Don't want to do it anymore.” After the Geezer and Ozzy thing I got a call from Vasco Rossi, who's like the Bruce Springsteen of Italy. I shouted out a really exorbitant amount of money to play with Vasco because I didn't want to do it. I figured, “Okay, they'll pass,” but they took the amount I requested. So I was like, “Oh, shoot, I gotta do this now.” Vasco only plays is Italy—he doesn't play anywhere else, only in Italy. I did three nights at San Siro, a soccer stadium. One hundred thousand people a night. That was one of the best gigs of my life, next to Journey. I'd put it underneath Journey, definitely. [To hear Vasco Rossi live in 1997, click here.]
I toured with Vasco from '95 to '97. I was eating the food in Italy and I got really fat. [Laughs] So after Vasco, I got the call from Neal on February 16, 1998, to join Journey. I'll never forget that date . . . one of the greatest days of my life.
JC: Steve Augeri was the singer when you first joined Journey.
DC: Yeah, we started with him and it was tough, dude. The first six months of touring maybe five hundred people showed up. I mean, it was that bleak. I remember Jon Cain saying, "No, we gotta reeducate the fans. Let them know that we're still here, we're still doing stuff, and we've moved on from Steve Perry." I remember our manager at the time, John Baruck, saying, "Well, let's do something with Foreigner. You know, we'll do Journey-Foreigner, a co-headliner tour. Let's go on the road.” And that was when we started playing to sixteen or eighteen thousand people. We were killing it. It was great to rebuild something that was so legendary and had such an amazing legacy. So I was very, very blessed and honored to be a part of that.
Journey (Deen, second from right; year unknown)
DC: Well, I was in a band when I was about eleven, and my guitarist, who was like twenty-three at the time, brought over Journey’s Infinity and said, "Here, learn ‘La Do Da’ and try and sing it." I hadn't reached puberty yet and I had a high voice. So it worked out really good, and that was where I started to learn to sing.
Steve Perry was always a god to me vocally. I mean just unbelievable. It was him and Ronnie Dio. Those were the two guys that I loved singing-wise. I loved Journey and I would sing to Journey all the time, but of course never close to Perry until I joined the band and learned a lot of his inflections and how he phrased things. And again, I’m not even close, but it's an honor. I get hammered for that. "Oh, you're just a Steve Perry clone." It's like, well, you gotta learn from somebody. I might as well learn from the fricking best. You know what I mean? Nobody touches that guy.
In Bad English I remember we had just finished "Best of What I Got" in the studio, and they said, "Well, can you sing?" I said, "Yeah, kinda." And they looked at each other, and I went in and I did the backgrounds to "Best of What I Got." I could see all the guys in there high-fiving and laughing 'cause they had no clue that I could sing as well. So it worked out really good. And then Neal and Jon gave me that chance to sing when Steve Augeri lost his voice, and it just kind of snowballed up, man.
JC: There aren’t many drummers who sing, and you're one of the rare breed who actually sings. What is it like singing while playing drums?
DC: The drumming takes a back seat. It's almost like the drums are on autopilot. I know what I need to do there, and I focus solely on the vocals because I don't want to butcher the songs. One thing I always said was, “If I sound like crap, you guys better fricking tell me” because I didn’t want to screw these songs up, and I certainly didn’t want the fans crucifying me for butchering the song. So they were like, "No, no, no, you sound good, man. Keep going. Keep going." And I got better and better at it. I don't consider me a lead singer—I play drums and I sing, but there are so many great singers out there. It's like I can't even get near those guys. I’m still learning as a singer, man. I think I got drumming down, but I got a long ways to go with singing.
JC: What would you say was the hardest Journey song to sing?
DC: Oh, dude, they're all hard. I think the hardest one for me to sing was “Open Arms" because it's so tender. I sing pretty hard, and so I was trying to learn how Perry sang that. That was a hard one to do. When I sing "Mother, Father," that song’s a bruiser. You gotta go out there and you gotta sing hard. It's not something that you do lightly. "Open Arms" is so tender and so soft, you really gotta know Perry's inflections and phrasing. And if you're reading, Mr. Perry, no one touches you to this day. He's the best of the best, dude. [To hear Deen sing “Open Arms,” click here.]
So “Open Arms” was probably the hardest one for me. I wanted to get it perfect, but singing it was only short lived. I only got to sing it for a few years until Arnel [Pineda] joined, and fricking Arnel kills it, just fricking smokes that tune. So yeah, that would be the hardest one for me to sing, definitely.
JC: Okay. Arnel Pineda came in to sing after Steve Augeri left. What would you say is the difference between Steve Augeri and Arnel?
DC: Well, you know, Steve was more of a bluesy singer, and I loved the way that Steve sang because he put a little bit of a blues taste to it, which I thought was really cool. It wasn't just so R&B. But Arnel is one of those guys like me . . . he's a chameleon. You show him something and he can sing it. And he’s got so much soul, man, just so much passion when he sings. He really does, and to listen to him . . . I’m like, “Dude, I'm not even close to that.” The difference I think is that Arnel could sing anything whereas Steve brought in his own style to the Journey songs. So yeah, that's kind of what I saw. That was the difference for me.
Journey (Deen, second left, 2013)
JC: Do you want to talk about when Journey ended for you?
DC: Oh sure, bro. I mean, it is what it is. I was on a twenty-four-day low on methamphetamine, believe it or not. I was a mess and I got into a domestic dispute with my wife, Deidre, and it got bad. She had to call the police. Thank God she did. Saved my life. It really did, believe it or not. As horrible as it was, it saved my life. There were a lot of charges on me. It was heartbreaking 'cause I couldn't really defend myself, but a lot of those charges were dropped. I was charged with the two charges out of the fifteen they had for me. It was a really rough time, but we're still together. We're still very strong, actually better than ever, and she's right here watching me so—
JC: Really?
DC: —if I say anything wrong . . . [Laughter] No, she's my champion and I owe her a lot. I really do. She saved my butt. Journey did what they had to do. I mean it's a business, and the repercussions of the charges I had is horrible for a business. I needed some time. Nobody would even talk to me. It was pretty bad. You find out who your friends are, dude. I'm telling you, you find out quickly.
I needed to find out what was important in life, and what's important is keeping my crap together and taking care of my girl and my dog and my three cats. So, you know, as horrible as it was, I'm grateful.
JC: So what did you do after Journey?
DC: Well, after Journey I put the drums away, man. I literally stopped playing for about a year and a half. Didn't touch them and didn't want to look at them. Didn't want to listen to music. Just focused on recovery, staying clean, and getting my life back together. Music, career, it didn't matter at that point. What got me back was Serafino [Peruigno], who ran Frontiers Records and actually gave me another chance. He asked me to drum on a couple records and some background singing as well. I gotta give Serafino a lot of credit, man. He really gave me a shot.
He and the Dead Daisies, man . . . that was another one. I'd played on Johnny Gioeli's record, and like two weeks afterwards I was like, “Okay, now what do I do? I've got nothing coming. I gotta support my family, but what am I gonna do?” And that was when the Dead Daisies called. I mean if that isn't a Jesus Christ shot, I don't know what it was. I was like, “You're kidding. You want me, I'm there instantly.” So I gotta give the Daisies’ manager David Edwards and David Lowy from The Dead Daisies for giving me a shot when I didn't have a lot of friends. So that's where I've been ever since, man. Still doing Dead Daisies, and got this other little project I'm doing, this country thing, and that's about it.
JC: So the Daisies came. Was Motley Crue’s John Corabi the singer when you first joined?
DC: Yep, Johnny was the singer. We had Marco Mendoza on bass, and Doug Aldrich and David Lowy on guitar. Johnny, man, he's a great singer. Guy can sing the phone book. He's a badass. That's the beauty of it. I've never played with any crappy musicians. I've been really fortunate to play with the best of the best, and that makes your job so much easier and much more fun because I look up to these guys as masters of their instruments. So to be working with them again, it's humbling. It really is. I don't take it for granted, man. I get tight with these guys. I bond with them, you know, so they're always a part of my life, and I still keep in touch with Johnny and Marco a lot.
JC: As the Daisies went on, eventually the lineup would shift to Glenn Hughes on vocals and bass.
DC: Yes, the god. And I love Glenn too, dude. I mean, come on, he’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for being in Deep Purple, and what a voice. He's a fricking animal. Being able to sing harmonies with that guy, 'cause he's got perfect pitch—it's so effortless to sing with him because I don't have to really think about pitch. I just follow right with him and it's right on. So it's really been an honor. I love working with him. We just got back from rehearsals in LA last week, and we really had never played together. We did the record but had never gotten in and played those songs as a band, and once we did the first couple of songs, it’s like dang. He and I are like a fricking freight train, bro. I'm telling you.
His bass playing speaks for itself because he plays very percussively. He's a very aggressive bassist. I'm a very aggressive drummer, so it fits really good, Jeff. It's pretty amazing. You guys are gonna freak out when you see it live ’cause it's amazing.
Dead Daisies (Deen, far right, 2019)
JC: You also did something incredible—Journey Through Time with Neal Schon and Journey’s original keyboardist Gregg Rolie. You did a lot of rare Journey tunes that aren’t often heard at a Journey concert.
DC: Yeah, dude, that was huge. That was an honor. When Neal talked about doing that, we were just kinda throwing the idea around, and he said, "What if we do something with Gregg Rolie and we'll do all the other stuff they don't get to hear at a Journey concert?” I was like, "Dude, I'd be honored." And so we had a chance to do this benefit for the fire victims in Sonoma, Napa, and Marin County. We did that show in February 2018, and it was just incredible. Being back with Neal again . . . I mean, he's a brother, and he always will be. Whether I'm in Journey or not, he will always be very close because he took me to the next level, so I owe him a big, big debt of gratitude.
But oh those shows. Man, it was unreal. It was raw. It was perfect. It was just an incredible experience to be able to play with Neal again and Gregg Rolie. My God. I wish we were still doing it, to be honest with you. I loved that band. That was fun. [To hear Journey Through Time do “Any Way You Want It,” click here.]
JC: Didn't Gregg also call you in after that for his solo album?
DC: Yeah, we were actually working on it and getting some stuff together. Gregg’s got a bunch of ideas, and I got so dang busy with the Dead Daisies that I really couldn't get it finished. His solo album started going in kind of a Brazilian direction, which I wasn't expecting, to be honest. I thought we were gonna go for more of a Journey-esque thing, but he wanted to get away from Journey. He wanted to go in his own direction. We haven't really discussed finishing this record or not. I don't know if we will or not, but I had a great time with Gregg and I love him to death, man. I really do.
JC: Getting back to the Dead Daisies, I’ve heard your recent stuff. I've heard the recent two singles with Glenn, but I also heard The Lockdown Sessions EP. One thing I want to talk about is covering Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” where you sing lead.
DC: I didn't expect to do it. Glenn was like, "Well, go ahead. You sing it, bro." I was like, “Really?” I'd never really read the lyrics. In the past, John always sang it, and I did my backgrounds and stuff. When we covered it, I had cheat sheets on the floor and I had my glasses on because I didn't really know the lyrics, and the Daisies were pressed for time. But it was like, “You gotta sing this today.” The lyrics are so good and, God, I hope I did it justice, dude. Come on, John Fogerty . . . so good, dude. He don't suck. Put it that way.
So yeah, it was challenging for me, but really it was great. It was humbling to be able to sing that song ’cause they're a sixties’ band and stuff, and it takes me back to that time when the Vietnam War was going on and how intense it was. That song kind of explains the times. I was like four or five when the Vietnam War was going on, so I didn't really know what was going on there. But yeah, that song really kinda opened my eyes to like, “Man that was a struggle.” Very heavy, intense. Protest song, dude. I love it. [To hear Deen sing Creedence’s “Fortunate Son,” click here.]
JC: I'm sure this is a question a lot of Journey fans ask, which I wanted to ask you: Did Neal ever call you when they fired drummer Steve Smith?
DC: Well, yes and no. I mean he talked to me and said, "What are you doing, bro? What are you up to?" I said, "Well, I'm doing the Daisies still, and I've got this other project with Jay DeMarcus from Rascal Flatts and Jason Scheff from Chicago called The Rise Above.” The Rise Above just do little, tiny corporate things when the Daisies aren't doing stuff. And he was like, "Wow, man. Well, I'm letting you know right now there are some big changes coming up, so check it out. It's gonna blow your mind." So I said, "Are you asking me back? Did something happen with Smith?" And he goes, "You'll see in a few more days.” And then boom, all of that stuff came out with Smith and Ross Valory fired from Journey.
I didn't know what to say. I kept calling, like, "Are you guys gonna ask me back? Is that kinda what's going on?" He said, "Bro, we're not sure yet. Just kinda stick tight. We're not sure what we're gonna do." And then they ended up going in a different direction. Jonathan thought, “Well, you know, instead of going backwards let's go forwards. We'll get Randy Jackson again on bass and Narada Michael Walden, who's an animal drummer, an amazing singer, songwriter, and producer.” So they decided to go in that direction, and I understood. You can't get any better than Narada and Randy Jackson. I mean seriously, they're great.
And when this was all going on with Journey, it was pre-COVID. The Dead Daisies were supposed to start rehearsals in April, so if I did get the offer for Journey, I couldn't do that to the Daisies, give them like four weeks to find a drummer that sang. That's rough. I mean, Journey is a huge thing, but I've got to be able to sleep at night too, and even if they had said, "Look, come back," I don't know if I could have.
JC: Really?
DC: I couldn't do that to the Daisies. I couldn't do that to any band. That's just not right to do. There are certain things you don't do in this business, and having those guys try to find somebody in four weeks before a major tour would have been really cold-blooded. Neal and I still talk a lot, and I wish him well. As for me, I'm grateful that I'm still doing what I love, maybe not on a grand scale like Journey, but at least I'm doing what I love and making a good living doing it.
JC: Yeah. The Dead Daisies were gonna tour with Foreigner and Judas Priest.
DC: Yes. Dude, we had them all set up and it was all ready to go, but that got thrown out. Everything got thrown out. We were supposed to start this year. We've been doing a lot of social media, a lot of content and stuff like that, to try and keep the interest up in the band. I gotta thank you and all the journalists that have asked for interviews for us, ’cause if it wasn't for you guys we'd have nothing. Seriously. I mean you're keeping our name out there and you're keeping the band alive, and so I gotta thank you, and the band thanks you. Because if it wasn't for you guys and all the journalists, man, we'd be screwed. Seriously. You can only do so much social media content. You know what I mean? Just thank God for you guys, man. I gotta tip my hat to you, bro.
JC: How have you as a musician dealt with COVID?
DC: Well, for me . . . I never really went anywhere. I'm not one of those guys that goes to dinner every night, heads out, goes to clubs, watches bands and stuff. I'm a homebody. When I'm off the road, I'm off the road. I just stay at home. So it wasn't a big change for me, but obviously it was a big change for the music industry and life in general. I mean everything shut down. Bands aren't playing. Venues aren't open. So a lot of people have been affected by this. A lot of musicians, a lot of friends of mine, are selling guitars and selling stuff just to keep alive because nobody can tour.
So I'm watching that and that's heartbreaking to see. It really is. It's like, “What do you do?” So that's kind of what we're doing with The Rise Above, this country thing I'm doing. We’re doing benefit concerts. The first one was for the music people, the crews, and the people that can't work that are off the road. They can't go on the road. I don't know how much we raised, but we raised a ton of money for the crew members in the music industry. It's like a big fund and tried to help them out. I think that's what's kind of hurt me or touched me the most is knowing there's a lot of musicians out there and crew people that can't do anything, and it's hard. It's really hard.
JC: Talk to me about The Rise Above band.
The Rise Above (Deen, middle, year unknown)
We go out and do little benefit concerts. I mean nothing major. We're not doing a big tour or anything like that. It's just something fun to keep us busy. I'm actually flying to Nashville in a couple of days to do another benefit show for the first responders, the nurses and doctors, and people that were there when COVID hit. Then I gotta go under the knife, dude. I gotta get back surgery.
JC: Oh, what happened there?
DC: This is my second one. [Laughs] Getting old, bro, really old.
JC: I'm using the word "journey" here, but I mean it in a different sense than Journey the band. Talk to me about the journey you had when you first started with Wild Dogs, then with Journey, and then your comeback after Journey.
DC: It’s been incredible. I mean, I've been very fortunate. My career is like storybook. It really is. From where I started to where I'm at now, I’ve been very, very, very, very, very, very fortunate to have done what I've done. And if I was to stop today, I could look back and say, “Man, what an amazing career.” I dreamed of doing this when I was seven years old. This is what I wanted to do. And to be able to fulfill that dream is massive. I give God all the glory for that. So yeah, it's been quite a ride, bro. Definitely quite a ride.
