The Beginning

Jack Mack began rehearsing in August 1980 and didn’t play their first show until October 10th of that year. We didn’t want to sound like a thrown together jam band, so we rehearsed as much as we could for two months until our first gig at the Blue Lagoon Saloon in Venice, Ca. In 1978, I had a band called, “The Andrew Kastner Band” with drummer Claude Pepper. Often we would speak about putting a big, soul horn band together and play one night a week just for fun. Two years went by, but, we never did anything about it until early 1980, when I saw Billy and The Beaters at the Troubadour. The next day, I was driving past a used clothing store in West Hollywood, California and I saw a cool looking gold soul jacket in the window. After being inspired by The Beaters, the jacket reminded me about the conversation I had had with Claude back in ‘78. When I saw Claude at the gym I asked him and my other best friend, drummer Rick Shlosser, if they wanted to do it and they both said yes. That’s why we started out with two drummers.

We began in my garage, but soon started rehearsing at Debbie Reynolds dance studio in North Hollywood. I remember we used to listen to the old soul songs and copy them note for not making sure we coped the tempo and feel exactly like the original records. Our working title name for the band in the beginning was “Salmon Dave”, a play on words based on the famous soul duo, Sam and Dave. I had known a drummer, Claude Pepper, for two years and before this and one day I got a glimpse of his driver’s license. To my surprise, the name on his license was John Mack. I asked him why he was using the name Claude Pepper, and he said he and a bunch of his New York musician friends went to Florida to play with a southern singer and he didn’t like all their new York Italian and Irish names, so he gave them all southern names. Claude Pepper was a southern Senator. The guitarist in his band was given the name Earl Slick, I believe he played with David Bowie for a few years. Claude told me his mom called him Jack and I really got a kick out of his name really being Jack Mack, after knowing him for so long. So when I got home that night, I got out my rhyming dictionary and found a word to go with Jack Mack, and that is how we got the name Jack Mack & the Heart Attack.

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The band came together very easily because there were so many amazing transplanted musicians in LA seeking studio and back up gigs that were ready to do something they loved, something for themselves. I’ll never forget the day Max Gronenthal walked into the garage and began singing. Here was a good looking six foot five guy from Nebraska with a voice like Wilson Picket and man were we blown away. We rehearsed in my garage in Venice for a few weeks until the line up was solid. The amazing thing about the band was that we all had a common goal, we weren’t playing for money or fame, all we wanted was to capture the essence of the old soul records and go out and have fun. We also didn’t want to play the typical soul covers “Midnight Hour” or “Knock On Wood”, so we chose very obscure songs, some of which are better known now then they were then.

The gold jacket

We also chose to model our style on the Stax Volt, Booker T sound, as opposed to the Motown or slicker Philly sound. The only departure was James Brown covers. After we the band was formed, I went back to that clothing store in Westwood and bought the gold jacket, which I wore for almost the entire first year. (see picture above). We honed our sound for two months before and then played a few gigs around LA until we found our Monday night home at The Central, which is now The infamous Viper Room on Sunset Blvd. across the street from the Whiskey. We recorded a live show at the Central, which will soon be released. Within a few weeks lines were forming around the block to get into the tiny club to see our show. 8 or 9 months later we had to find a bigger venue so we moved to Club Lingerie on Sunset and began playing every every Thursday night. Club Lingerie became the place to be on Thursday nights and we would often get 900 patrons in a club with a capacity of only 325. Many famous musicians, actors, TV and Film directors and producers were all coming in to see us. Hence the reason why we’re in so many TV shows and films. We were Hollywood’s favorite band. In 1982, I was in a car accident and our keyboard players good friend, Josh Leo, subbed for me while I was in the hospital. Josh was recording with Eagle, Glenn Frey and brought him down to the club one night to see us. Glenn fell in love with the band, and hired the horn section to record on his first solo record. After the session, Glenn inquired about producing our band. That’s how we got our first record deal. I remember Glenn and his manager Irving Azoff, and a few of us in the band, sitting down for lunch one day and putting together our record deal to make our first record., “Cardiac Party”. We moved into Wilder Bros. studio for 6 weeks and Glenn ran the show. He only wanted us to do first takes, so between takes we would go out back and play basketball. Many of those songs, mostly penned by lead singer Max, were inspired by our nights at the Central and Club Lingerie. In 1982, after recording our first record, Cardiac Party, Westwood One recorded one of our shows at Club Lingerie which captures the essence of what Jack Mack was all about. A tight, high energy, fast paced, solid horn band, playing the essence of soul music. Sometime in the autumn of ‘82, the Fire Marshal came in between our first and second set and closed the place down for being over capacity, that was our last show at Club Lingerie.

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