Interview with Bassist Chip Z'Nuff of Enuff Z'Nuff

June 10, 2024

Interview with Bassist Chip Z'Nuff of Enuff Z'Nuff

By Mick Michaels

Cosmick View: Hello, Chip, and welcome to The Cosmick View. Thanks for taking some time out of your day to speak with us. It's greatly appreciated.

CV: What keeps a band like Enuff Z'Nuff together for all these years? Is the band still reaching for the stars in your opinion, or is it a matter of holding your own and going with the flow of things to keep the wheels spinning?

CHIP Z’Nuff: It’s a blessing from above. We've been very, very fortunate to have our health and to come up with good material and put new records out every single year… between Frontiers Records and Cleopatra Records, we'd been able to get our music out around the country. We have a good booking agency with Artists Worldwide, who seems to keep the wheels spinning at the end of the day. You can look at it a bunch of different ways. I'm just grateful that we get to keep the legacy moving forward and there's still some gas in the tank.

CV: Enuff Z'Nuff is releasing a string of demos from 1987 appropriately titled "The 1987 Demos." Why do you feel releasing this early version of the band is important to fans? What’s it offer them? Why's it important to the band?

CHIP: Because the fans want anything they can get from their favorite groups… all the bands do it, we're not the first. We’re not reinventing the wheel. A lot of groups come out after years and years of experience. They put out the early material because the fans want to hear that. I'm a fan, I want to hear early Led Zeppelin stuff that has never came up before… or Humble Pie or Queen or Moot the Hoople or Cheap Trick. I’m looking for stuff that I've never heard before… early work stuff that's never been released.

It's special and we want to do that for the fans. It's good for us as well. This is a great record that we put out 40 years ago. I want people to hear what we had done in those early days and this is the very first inception of Enuff Z’Nuff. It's special for the fans to hear this as we started peaking. These songs are very special and if I could quote the great Elton John, he says, “The songs are to be interpreted by the artist through the fans eyes.” Embryos are the beginning of life and that's what this record is all about for us.

I think it's going to be something that people can look at later on and go. “Wow man, I want to see these guys play in concert because this is a live record even though it sounds like a studio record.” It's the band playing in the studio live no tapes, no sequences, no guys backstage… nobody. We just plugged in and we played like real bands are supposed to do and that's what makes it so special. We're sharing it with everybody out there because we hail our fans.

CV: Listening back to these tracks from 1987, what picture does it paint for you from that time... where do you feel the band was at with its career at that moment?

CHIP: It paints a picture of a better time, when there was no internet, no social media, no cell phones. We got away with murder back then, it was a wonderful time. I think it was the picture that paints us as a real band at the end of the day… writing songs about everyday experiences that we went through.

CV: Do you find the term "Hair Metal" a fair assessment of that era of music? Do you take offensive to it like some over veteran 80s artists do?

CHIP: No I don't take offense to it. Everybody's got their own opinion. Listen, the guy who invented the name hair metal with some cats sitting in the back room of record company smoking a cigar… he's a musician that failed miserably at what we do and now he's going to critique us? That's all it is… it's another name. I mean listen, as far as I'm concerned, you got rock, he got pop, he got alternative. he got new wave and you got heavy metal, and if you want to put some other names on there for people to grab mine to get new audiences, so be it! Not offended whatsoever.

CV: How do you see the current American music market? Do new, rising, and yet undiscovered bands still have a shot at the top?

CHIP: I think all the bands have a shot if you're hungry enough and willing to go at what you want 24 hours a day. Bands like Greta Van Fleet and Dirty Honey Vintage, Trouble, the Struts, The Lemon Twigs. It's open to interpretation. There’s a lot of good stuff out there. It's just that we're in a time right now where we're too much product and not enough demand. It's going to be challenging for anybody out there. But if it's a band and they are not afraid to go out there and play, you got a chance. There are a lot of groups out there. But don't forget movie soundtracks, TV shows, and commercials… you get your song in one of those, it can definitely propel you to new heights. At the end of the day folks, all the bands including myself, are one song away from being back in the game again.

CV: With digital downloading and streaming the norm, many feel that making full-length albums is a waste of time, money, and resource. Do you feel audience consumption of music would serve itself better with a "less is more" attitude from a band's perspective… singles over albums?

CHIP: Nope. I'm into albums myself. This my personal opinion… you want to put singles out there, there's nothing wrong with that, and that's what most bands do… they put a single out then they put another single out a month later, then another single out, then the full length record follows. It that's okay to do it like that. I'm a fan of music and bands still put out full length records. If it wasn't big why does Taylor Swift keep putting out full length records? All the bands out there that we like… Aerosmith new record, Black Rose another record.

I believe that at the end of the day, if you're a band and this is what you do for a living, give the fans a bang for the buck… give him a 10, 11, or 12 song record. They'll thank you the next time they meet you.

CV: Many artists have hit the big time by doing covers. Do you believe that artists need to include cover songs in their own catalog as a way to gain a larger supporting audience?

CHIP: I think cover songs are great. You show me a band without influences or an artist without influences and I'll show you an artist or a band that hasn't written one note. We all come from somewhere at the end of the day. I was talking to a guy from the music industry. I won’t say to his name because I don't want to embarrass him, but he says you want to make it big do a cover song… put it out every week, just keep putting cover songs out and at the end of 2 months follow it up with a full length record of all cover songs and throw one original in there. It's another idea that you can perhaps navigate these waters with.

I think with covers, many people are going to get a chance to hear your music and hear what you're all about. But you're not going to make any money on it. The cover song goes to the artist who wrote the song. But it can be a shortcut. I think you can put music out there and make money and build a career from the covers but eventually you're going to have to be an artist who goes out there and write your own songs. So listen to your favorite bands and find your love and stick with that because at the end of the day, as I said earlier, it's a really competitive field. There are a lot of fish in the ocean and it's definitely difficult in the way to reach a new audience out there. And we live in a day and age where TV is very important. So you got America's Got Talent and all these different TV shows where people can get up there and sing songs and it's a great way to reach an audience. But everybody's not going to get that chance. I've been making records for 40 years and that's what I do… I write songs, we put them out and then we go out and follow them with the tour and that's pretty much how most artists do it. If you can find somebody out there who can take your songs and get them in a proper airplane where you can find a movie soundtrack, a TV show, or commercial to support that, more power to you! If that's what will help you elevate your perception.

CV: Do you feel artists are suppressed by genre classifications or empowered by them?

CHIP: It's hard to answer that question. In some ways you could be suppressed by it because the band comes out and they're a rock band and they're considered heavy metal. Is it true? I'm not so sure. I don't know… there's so much music out there at the end of the day. Herbie Herbert used to say to me “Call us what you want, just as long as you call us.”

CV: If you had to make one comparison about the difference in the music scene in 1987 and now in 2024, what would it be?

CHIP: It's simple… bands would play in the studio in 87, they all plugged in and played together live… they made real records. There was no Pro Tools. Now we got computers, Pro Tools… we got social media and come on, it's pretty self-explanatory… in the old days it was real and it took the talent of great musicians. Now you can use Studio Wizardry and still sound great.

CV: In addition to "The 1987 Demos" release, what more can fans expect to see coming from Enuff Z'Nuff in 2024 and beyond?

CHIP: I'm very excited about the future… we have a brand new live record that is coming out, “Live at The Whiskey A Go-Go.” We haven't put out a live album in the longest time… very excited about it. Tory Stoffregen, Jason Camino, Daniel Benjamin Hill, and myself are on this live album. It’s difficult to record at the Whiskey, they charge you a brinks truck to get in there and record, but hey, you know what, we got a good name for ourselves and they were kind enough to let us record a live record there. There are a lot of bands that recorded at that place, it's historical! We will also be following it up with a brand new Enuff Z’Nuff studio album we’re working on… and hopefully we'll get them both out sometime in 2024.

CV: Thanks again, Chip, for taking the time to share with our readers. We wish you all the best and continued success.

CHIP: Thank you very much… we'll see everybody on tour in 202;, Enuff Z’Nuff, Trixter, and Pretty Boy Floyd on this run and then at the end of the year. We got some real special new dates that have just come up and I'm looking forward to seeing all your faces out there! Thank you very much!

Check out Enuff Z’Nuff at:

Stream/download the single: https://orcd.co/enuffznuff_newthing1987demo

Order the CD/Vinyl: https://cleorecs.com/search?q=enuff+znuff+the+1987+demos

Pre-order/Pre-save the digital: https://orcd.co/enuffznuff_1987demos

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My name is Mick Michaels...I'm an artist, music fan, songwriter, producer, show host, dreamer and guitarist for the traditional Heavy Metal band Corners of Sanctuary. Writing has always been a creative outlet for me; what I couldn't say in speech, I was able to do with the written word. Writing has given me a voice and a way for me to create on a multitude of platforms including music and song, articles, independent screenplays, books and now, artist interviews. The Cosmick View is an opportunity to raise the bar and showcase artists in a positive and inspirational light. For me, it's another out-of-this-world adventure.