{"id":17677,"date":"2025-12-26T16:00:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T21:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=17677"},"modified":"2025-12-26T16:00:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T21:00:22","slug":"frank-dimino-recalls-how-and-why-angel-first-signed-with-casablanca-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=17677","title":{"rendered":"Frank DiMino recalls how and why Angel first signed with Casablanca Records"},"content":{"rendered":"
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SOURCE: sleazeroxx.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Angel<\/strong>\u2018s long-time frontman Frank DiMino<\/strong> was recently interviewed by Marko Syrjala<\/strong> for Metal-Rules<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DiMino<\/strong> was asked about KISS<\/strong> bassist Gene Simmons<\/strong>\u2018 role with Angel<\/strong> back in their early days to which he replied:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy the time Gene Simmons<\/strong> came down, we had already signed a management deal and were ready to go to Los Angeles. What happened was that Gordon Fletcher<\/strong>, who was a writer for Circus Magazine<\/strong> and Rolling Stone<\/strong> and did a lot of album reviews, came down to see us. Gordon<\/strong> was from D.C., so he knew all of us. The more we played, the more he would come down, and he kept coming to our shows and talking to us afterward. One night, he said, \u201cYou know, I do a lot of reviews for bands that play at Largo,\u201d which was the big venue back then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added, \u201cNow, I\u2019m going to try and bring a couple of international bands down to see you guys.\u201d So we said, \u201cYeah, sure.\u201d You know, we were young and thinking, \u201cYeah, sure, he\u2019s going to bring some bands down, whatever.\u201d One night we played, and we saw some guys come walking in \u2014 Gordon<\/strong> was there too. After the show, Gordon<\/strong> brought them upstairs to the green room, where Gene<\/strong>, Paul<\/strong>, Ace<\/strong>, and Peter<\/strong> were waiting. We started talking, mostly with Gene<\/strong>, because Gene<\/strong> loves to talk, especially about business stuff. That\u2019s how we started talking, and that\u2019s when Gene asked if he could get us to sign with Aucoin Management<\/strong>.<\/em> Unfortunately \u2014 or fortunately, depending on how you look at it \u2014 we had just signed with David Joseph<\/strong> of the Toby Organization<\/strong>, so we told him that. He said, \u201cWell, okay\u2026 but we\u2019ll keep you in mind. We\u2019ll stay in touch.\u201d And we did \u2014 we stayed in touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we got to Los Angeles, our manager, David<\/strong>, said, \u201cWell, if you know the guys in KISS<\/strong>\u2026 let me talk to Neil Bogart<\/strong>.\u201d Of course, Neil<\/strong> was running Casablanca <\/strong>at the time and was looking for bands. We brought our sound to Neil<\/strong> and talked with him. Neil<\/strong> spoke with David<\/strong> and said, \u201cI\u2019ll sign the band.\u201d David<\/strong> asked, \u201cWell, don\u2019t you want to see them?\u201d and Neil<\/strong> said, \u201cI\u2019ll sign the band sight unseen.\u201d We had a lot of people come down to see us \u2014 Ahmet Ertegun<\/strong>, Nesuhi Ertegun<\/strong>, and many others. David<\/strong> had also brought many people to check out the band.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we were going to sign with Capitol<\/strong>. Even after we had spoken with Neil<\/strong>, we were planning to sign with Capitol <\/strong>because John Carter<\/strong> and Rupert Perry<\/strong> from Capitol<\/strong> had seen the band and wanted to sign us. But as all this was happening, David<\/strong> said, \u201cI\u2019m putting you guys in the studio,\u201d because we were rehearsing every day. We never stopped \u2014 we just kept writing and rehearsing through all of this. So when we got to L.A., we went straight into the studio. We had a house we all shared at the time, and we also went straight into a rehearsal studio while all this was going on. We finished the album and brought it to John<\/strong> and Rupert<\/strong>. John<\/strong> listened to it and said, \u201cOh, it\u2019s great.\u201d But then he said, \u201cI want you to change this and that,\u201d and he started wanting to change a lot of things. And I thought, \u201cWait a second \u2014 we just finished an album we felt pretty good about, and now he wants to change a lot of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, we had Derek Lawrence<\/strong> and Big Jim Sullivan<\/strong> producing the band. Both of those guys were just great to work with. Between Derek<\/strong>\u2019s ties to Ritchie Blackmore<\/strong> and Deep Purple,<\/strong> and Big Jim Sullivan\u2019s<\/strong> history with Jimmy Page<\/strong> and all the studio work he had done, we felt really good about the album. We walked away from that meeting feeling pretty despondent. David<\/strong> picked up on it and said, \u201cListen, guys, maybe we should go see Neil<\/strong> one more time. Let\u2019s have a talk with him.\u201d Because everyone had told us, \u201cDon\u2019t go with them.\u201d You have to remember, at that stage, KISS<\/strong> still hadn\u2019t made their big breakthrough. Their third album, Dressed to Kill<\/em><\/a>, had just come out. It was still kind of a floundering label, and it didn\u2019t have any major acts on it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Syrjala<\/strong> noted that Casablanca Records<\/strong> didn\u2019t have much money at the time, DiMino<\/strong> indicated: \u201cWell, I mean, the money KISS<\/strong> was making came from touring and their live shows because their performances were so incredible. But the albums weren\u2019t doing that well at the time. So we talked with Neil<\/strong>, and he said, \u201cI really love the band. Do you have anything ready?\u201d We told him, \u201cWe have the album finished.\u201d So he stopped everything, called everyone in the company down to his office, ordered food, and set up these big studio monitors. He said, \u201cI want everyone to sit down. Don\u2019t talk until it\u2019s over.\u201d He played the entire album. When it finished, he said, \u201cI love this album. I love you guys. I want you on my label.\u201d And that\u2019s exactly what we wanted to hear \u2014 someone who truly supported the music we were making and believed in what we were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can read the rest of the interview with Frank DiMino<\/strong> via Metal-Rules<\/a><\/strong>\u2018 website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SOURCE: sleazeroxx.com Angel\u2018s long-time frontman Frank DiMino was recently interviewed by Marko Syrjala for Metal-Rules. DiMino was asked about KISS bassist Gene Simmons\u2018 role with Angel back in their early days to which he replied: \u201cBy the time Gene Simmons came down, we had already signed a management deal and were ready to go to Los Angeles. What happened was that Gordon Fletcher, who was a writer for Circus Magazine and Rolling… Read More »Frank DiMino recalls how and why Angel first signed with Casablanca Records<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17679,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17677\/revisions\/17679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}