Gary James' Interview With Roger Romeo Of
Legs Diamond



They are a '70s band that released their first album in 1977, only to disband three years later in 1980 and then reform in 1984. They caught the attention of Gene Simmons of KISS and opened for KISS as part of their "Rock And Roll Over" tour. The band would go on to tour with a Who's Who list of famous Rock acts, including Styx, Alice Cooper, Black Oak Arkansas, Bob Seger, Riot, Angel, The Babys, Montrose, Sammy Hagar and Golden Earring. The group we are speaking of is Legs Diamond. We spoke with original Legs Diamond guitarist, Mr. Roger Romeo.

Q - Roger, Legs Diamond was working on an album back in 2019. Did you ever finish that album?

A - No. Long time coming. (laughs) We probably have enough material, but we were just getting it together again and the COVID thing hit. Then we had to cancel some concerts. The band has been on sort of hiatus. We're still looking forward to finishing that. So it's slow going. Everybody's doing other projects. I've got four bands. One of the bands is called The Funkin' Maniacs. You might remember a band called Detective. It's the bass player and drummer from Detective, Bobby Pickett and Jon Hyde.

Q - Where does that group perform?

A - We've got a gig coming up. It's just a small gig, but we also have a CD that we put out about three years ago. It's an original band as well. I've got another band called Blueprint and I'm also doing a Roy Orbison tribute.

Q - Who's Roy Orbison?

A - Me. I'm a lead singer. This is the only band I've been in that I wasn't the lead singer in.

Q - Do you try to look like Roy Orbison? Do you put on the dark glasses?

A - Yeah. I just started it. I wear the dark Wayfarer glasses and the whole deal. It's a tribute. It's not a cover band. Tribute meaning I look as much like him as I can and I'm singing just like him.

Q - As more of the name bands start to retire from the road, aren't tribute bands the wave of the future?

A - I hope not. (laughs)

Q - If you missed the original, you'd almost want to catch a tribute act.

A - Oh, yeah. I'd definitely go see it myself. I think there's a place for it. There's a place for cover bands. I'm in all kinds of bands. I'm in a couple of cover bands that we play a variety of songs, cover songs. There's room for everybody. So, everybody has a place.

Q - I guess the first break, if you want to call it that, was when you crashed an after gig party and met Gene Simmons. How did you do that? How'd you get through the door?

A - We all looked like Rock guys, so we just kind of schmoozed the door guy. Our bass player, Michael Diamond, was really good at stuff like that, crashing parties. That was one of the things that helped us. But we also got management and we also had help from a local radio station, KLOS. We were on one of their albums. So, there were quite a few things that led up to us actually getting a record deal. Gene Simmons definitely helped, but that was kind of after we already had a record deal.

Q - And that record deal was with Mercury Records?

A - Right.

Q - You did how many albums for them?

A - Two. The first two albums were on Mercury/Polygram. The next was on Cream.

Q - Was Cream affiliated with the magazine Creem at all?

A - No.

Q - You opened for quite a few acts in the time you were with Mercury. Would that have been the years 1978 to 1980?

A - Yeah. All those tours that we did, they were after the record label, after the record came out.

Q - You still were on Mercury when you did those tours, weren't you?

A - Yeah. We had a record deal in '76 and put two albums out in '77.

Q - What year did Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth beg you to have them open for Legs Diamond?

A - That was like around '76.

Q - That was before their album came out then.

A - That was definitely before their album came out. Once their album came out they certainly didn't need our help.

Q - Back to Gene Simmons. You or someone in Legs Diamond convinced him to come to one of your rehearsals. He was so impressed he got you three gigs opening for KISS on their Rock and Roll Over tour. What did you say to Gene Simmons that made him want to come to one of your rehearsals?

A - Well, it was a combination of things. I think we might have given him a demo tape. I'm not quite sure. But he's kind an entrepreneur kind of guy. He was always helping out other bands. He tried to help out Cheap Trick. That came after us. The reason we didn't play more gigs with KISS was Gene wanted us to go with his booking agency. Our management company at the time, Toby Entner, nixed that. A.T.I. (American Talent International) was the agency that booked KISS. We went with D.M.A. (Diversified Management Agency) and ended up getting a lot more gigs with Ted Nugent. That's when he was big. So, Gene came out to rehearsal. First he wanted to produce us and we said no. Then we didn't get any more gigs with KISS 'cause Gene said we didn't go with his booking agency. Our management company, in their infinite wisdom, said, "No, thanks," and we ended up going with D.M.A. out of Detroit. We got a boatload of Nugent openings out of it. It was maybe fifteen gigs. I don't know. I lost count. It was a business decision made by our management company and it was not a wise decision.

Q - A.T.I. had not only KISS, but Earth, Wind And Fire, Rod Stewart, and a list that was beyond impressive.

A - It was definitely a mistake to back off A.T.I., but you know hindsight is 20/20.

Q - Opening for KISS must have been a hard gig. How did their audience receive you?

A - Excellent. KISS' audience loved us. Not one problem with their audience at all. As a matter of fact, Ted Nugent's audience really liked us too. It was a really well rehearsed band. We were very serious about the process. We had our own rehearsal room. We rehearsed six nights a week. Think of a band doing that. We were very serious about the deal and it showed in our performance.

Q - I didn't realize Gene Simmons had his own management company. I know he had his own record label, but it seems like that would be too much for one guy to handle.

A - I'm not familiar with Gene's whole history, but I doubt he had a record label himself in the '70s. That's when we were doing business with him. So, his label came later.

Q - You're right about that. It still seems like too much to handle for one guy.

A - He was a businessman. He liked all that aspect of it. Obviously if he thought he could handle it, he probably would. I don't remember any bands that I could think of that were on his label. But Gene was a super nice guy too. No matter what other people say, he was like one of the coolest guys I ever met. He loved our songs by the way. We have a song on our first album and Gene wanted KISS to record it. We didn't let him. That was a mistake of course. It was one of our favorite songs and we didn't realize that just because they recorded it doesn't mean we couldn't. Another bad decision. (laughs)

Q - It says in your bio: "There were small efforts in merchandise and memorabilia that can be found today." That would be from your days with Cream Records in 1979. Did you have t-shirts? Hats?

A - Just t-shirts.

Q - And you can still find them around today?

A - Yeah. Every time we play we make a bunch more t-shirts. We're constantly making Legs Diamond t-shirts. Have you ever seen that picture of Michael Jackson wearing Legs Diamond t-shirt?

Q - I've never seen that.

A - We have a picture of him wearing a Legs Diamond t-shirt. Mike Prince, the keyboard player in Legs Diamond, worked for Michael Jackson for years. He was still working with him when he passed away.

Q - Were you ever contacted by anyone related to the gangster Legs Diamond?

A - No. That would have been fun though.

Q - Somewhere out there is someone related to him.

A - Sure. That wasn't really his name. (Note: His real name was Jack Thomas Diamond) There's also a Rap guy calling himself Legs Diamond. This was after we made the album. It's a common name. It's not like you could claim it legally.

Q - You became good friends with the guys in Deep Purple. You attended their rehearsals. They attended yours. What did you get out of attending a Deep Purple rehearsal?

A - I don't quite remember that. I know we were friends with Ritchie Blackmore. We had dinner over at his house. But that was not Deep Purple. That was Rainbow. Speaking of that, Cozy Powell was another person who wanted to produce us. He was coming to rehearsals as well. Cozy Powell was the drummer for Ritchie.

Q - Where was Ritchie living when you had dinner with him?

A - In the Hollywood Hills.

Q - What kind of guy was Blackmore?

A - A great guy. He took me into his bedroom and showed me his private collection of guitars. He showed me his main guitar and let me play it. He was just a really super nice guy. All the stories you hear about him being not so nice, I can't reply to that. He was nice to me. I don't know anything else other than that. Cozy Powell was a nice guy too.

Q - This era of Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Glam Rock, we're probably never going to see another era like that again, will we?

A - Well, Legs Diamond started out in the '70s, so that was before all that. We were never really influenced by it. We were more of a Classic Rock band. You say Glam. To me, Glam is like David Bowie in the early '70s. The '80s were an interesting mix of the styles that came before it. To be honest with you, I was kind of happy when a band like Guns N' Roses came back and started putting the Rock back in. The '80s weren't down to earth enough for me. Guns N' Roses were a signal to get back to Hard Rock music. The Glam thing was a lot of style, dressing style as opposed to actual music. To me, the music from the late '60s, the Hard Rock bands up until the early '80s, was more of a sort of grass roots, Blues based, and then you had some orchestrated bands like Yes. It was more of a street level kind of Rock music. '80s kind of made it a lot more Pop to me. That's why I was mentioning when bands like Guns N' Roses came back on the scene, it was like a welcome to me because it was like back to rockin'.

Official Website: LegsDiamond.com

© Gary James. All rights reserved.

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