Smashing Pumpkins co-founder Billy Corgan recently theorized that record companies began orchestrating a deliberate minimization of rock ‘n’ roll in the late ’90s following a shift in economic strategy. What he argued is that labels manipulated the market to make rap and pop appear more consequential than rock despite the fact that the latter’s ability to galvanize the public never faltered.
Now, if you’ve been following this site from the beginning, you’re well aware of my affinity for various hip-hop artists from all eras, but the idea that a corporation would install something or someone in the interest of maximizing profit is easy to believe given how much power BlackRock and Vanguard have over what we the people are exposed to.
Rather than complaining about a system that is never going to change, we should be championing artists whose integrity matters more than chasing the bag. We have the world at our fingertips, so continuing to allow the “Rock is Dead” crowd to occupy a seat at the table in 2026 is downright criminal.
If you’re willing to put in the effort to discover new music, you’ll be rewarded by bands like Bruce Wojick and the Struggle, whose latest album “The Hard Way” kicks more ass than any band currently being touted by the mainstream as the next big thing.
I caught up with Wojick recently to discuss the album and how experiencing Elton John live in 1976 inspired one of its most memorable tracks.
MNOD: A few years ago, I published a list of my 10 favorite albums from WNY-based bands/artists, but I might have to make an amendment given how much this album has grabbed me. Describe the genesis of “The Hard Way.”
Wojick: It all started with the first song on the record, “More Time,” that me and my son Vito wrote and Vito’s on the drums on that song. And that was actually going back crazy enough to COVID. And one morning I got up and just had this idea of a lyric in my head about my God, I would just run out of time. Just thinking about it really had nothing to do with the COVID thing, but maybe it did in a way. And so, we wrote that song, got it together, and a little while after that, I was out shopping, getting a few things, and I saw Johnny Helms. Now, Johnny engineered and mixed and helped produce. He wasn’t a producer, but he did help me. The whole record except for ‘Yesterday is Gone’ and ‘Watching the Sky Turn Blue.’ So crazy enough, years and years back, I don’t even know how many it was, but I had won some, I can’t remember the circumstance, but I won some kind of contest, and I don’t know what it was just because I don’t enter any contests. But I won some studio time from Johnny and his studio, which was The Music Lab here in Niagara Falls. And when I saw him, I said, ‘Hey, John, so good to see you, man. Do you still, do you remember that? Whatever the time that I won, he goes, ‘Oh yeah, man, whenever you can come on in, we’ll make something happen.’ So, me and Vito went in, and we recorded the basics for ‘More Time.’ and, after that, I said to Johnny Helms, I said, ‘You know what, man? This sounds really good. I’m going to have the guys come in and we’re going to start tracking some of these songs.’ That ended up on the record. So that’s how the process crazy enough started. I wasn’t even thinking about making a record until we started tracking more of the songs. Some of them were songs that we had been playing live and then there were newer ones. And as we went along, I was like, okay, man, I think I got a record here. So that’s sort of how it came to pass. It wasn’t totally thought about. It’s sort of piecemealed together and that’s how it started. Yeah, and we took our time with it. I mean, it was over a period of, oh my God, I mean, four years. Crazy enough. So, it was not like some hurry up and go kind of thing. We just took our time with it and there you have it. So, the record that you have that you’ve been listening to, that’s the end result and the culmination from that first song, ‘More Time,’ being recorded to what you have in your hands.
MNOD: I think “More Time” works really well as an opener, because that riff kicks right in and gets you really involved in the record. Was sequencing the songs something you thought about?
Wojick: Yeah, absolutely. That was the absolute choice for the first track. And the lyric in the song too, the first lyric of the song of the, if you really want me to, I’ll tell it like it is. It wasn’t long before I started this. It was sort of like a reflection of how long I’ve been doing this and where I’m at. So yeah. Yeah, that’s how it all went down. But proud of that one man. My son was only, my God, he was only 16. He might even have been 15, but I think 16 when we recorded that. So, he just did a great job on the drums on that.
MNOD: “Cryin’ Shame” is another song that really stood out to me. Also, I love the sax on the end of the song. I thought that really meshed well.
Wojick: Yeah, that’s Will Holton in the Struggle with us, man. He’s just fantastic. He’s a brother and yeah, I love the songs that have the sax on there. Obviously not every song has sax on there, but this song in particular just lent itself amazing to his work. And I’m proud of that one too, because I had a different lyric for the song. Same Chorus, different lyric. I had a different lyric that I just hated. I just hated it. And it was a while back where something hit me. I said, I’ve got to just start from scratch here, keep the chorus, but start from scratch. And I ended up here through ‘Another Day in Paradise’ by Phil Collins. I don’t know if you remember that song. That’s something that I’m going to, I mean, again, I’ve always felt strongly as we all do, I mean about people that are in tough spots like that, and there’s so many of ’em in our country. So yeah, I started from scratch and wrote that new lyric and so glad that I did because it just has some great meaning and great thought behind it and a great message. So yeah, really proud of that song and the video. So again, just something that I wanted to bring awareness to, not that we’re all not aware, but just bring some more awareness to the awful situation that it is as far as homelessness goes in our country. So yeah. Thank you, man. Proud of that song.
MNOD: As I was listening, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the voiceover from Queensryche’s “Empire” when they’re talking about the crime statistics.
Wojick: That’s a great one, yeah. Nobody has said that before, but I totally get that and yes, that’s a great analogy. Absolutely, bro. Yep. Yeah, I wanted to, again, what’s funny is that I used a clip from NBC News that I had found, and I don’t know if you can tell, but, on the record, it’s the NBC News clip, but, on the digital version of the song, it’s not. So, in other words, on all the platforms, it’s actually me with a thing on my voice doing it, because of the copyright stuff.
MNOD: How hard was it to navigate production costs for the vinyl given how much those costs have risen in recent years?
Wojick: Again, there’s a lot of places that do it. I was lucky enough that the label, which is Segno Records, a small label out of Nashville, took care of that. So again, just fortunate that they did the run of vinyl, but I mean, the process was pretty smooth.
MNOD: “Yesterday is Gone” is another song I wanted to talk about. The intro has a “Love Lies Bleeding” vibe to it. Was that a conscious choice?
Wojick: Exactly. You hit the nail on the head, man. Growing up, of course, the studio version of the Elton John song, “Love Lies Bleeding/Funeral for a Friend,” but the version that I listened to more growing up was a live version. It’s on a record called Live Here and There that came out in I believe, 76, and it was side two that started with that live from Madison Square Garden “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding,” and man, it’s just still one of my favorite things. When that was written, that song, that whole vibe was absolutely that Elton kind of thing. There have been many people who catch that vibe, so it’s so cool that they’re catching that. It’s funny, because there’s that on the record, obviously it goes into a different thing there, but that beginning there, yes, with the piano and those hits on the drums, definitely “Love Lies Bleeding,” but then you’ve got “Louder Than Concorde.” The other song that has the Elton vibe. That’s all about me seeing Elton John when I was a kid. So, there’s a couple of Elton parallels on the record there. My son played the drums on “More Time” and “Power Lines 25,” and “Yesterday is Gone” is a song that was, a lot of the tracks were done with Johnny Helms here in The Falls, but then I hooked up with Bobby Rondinelli, who was the drummer in Rainbow and Black Sabbath. And so I got to meet Bobby through Jamie Holka, my buddy that we do a couple different bands with, because Jamie did a record with Bobby. And so, I got to meet Bobby, and I sent him that song and he said, yeah, man, let’s do this. So, Bobby ended up playing the drums on that song and producing the song, and so I’m just still thrilled about that, man. I watched a Rainbow documentary the other day and Bobby’s talking, and I’m like, this is so cool. I used to watch that video right back in the day of “Stone Cold” and it’s just so cool how it sort of worked out. So yeah, Bobby Rondinelli on the drums on that song, and he produced that song, and I love that. I love the way it came out, man. I mean, he just killed it on that track.
MNOD: Another song I really liked was “1983.” It almost has kind a Bob Seger “Night Moves”-esque wistfulness to the lyric.
Wojick: I didn’t think about that, but that’s a cool mention about the Bob Seger thing. I just wanted that to have a vibe of it just was written about remembering. It was just great times back in late high school post high school where we would just, man, get some beers and hang out in the backyard, listen to tunes and get high and oh man. So that’s what that was about, but that’s an interesting thought about the Bob Seger, the Night Moves thing. But yeah, and that one came out too, and that one’s got Erin Hoyle on it. So, Erin’s on that track and did a great job, and I definitely, I still love the horn section in there too, wanted to have that kind of Memphis style horn section is what I was drawn to on that. That’s a thing. So yeah, I love that one, man. It’s a nice up-tempo tune.
MNOD: What I love about the album overall is the sense that everything was recorded live off the floor. Was that actually the case for most of it?
Wojick: We were together for, like I said, you don’t have the liners, so all the songs that we did with Johnny Helms, which are all everything except “Watching the Sky Turn Blue” and oh gosh, what was the other one I just mentioned? Is it “Yesterday is Gone?” Am I Losing My Mind? All those tracks were mostly done here in The Falls with Johnny Helms, but then me and Bobby Rondinelli, we went back and forth in Long Island, so we did a little file transfer for that song, but “Watching the Sky Turn Blue” was the last song recorded for the record and wasn’t even going to be on the record, to be honest with you. So glad we got it on there. But there was supposed to be three cover songs on the record. We were supposed to have “Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings,” a ZZ Top song on there, a revved-up version of “Champagne and Reefer,” the old Muddy Waters song. And oh, “Welfare Music,” which is a song that I’ve been playing for years just by myself. And that’s a song by The Bottle Rockets that came out in the nineties. So those three songs are supposed to be on there, but the label, they did not want to do the covers on there. They wanted to have all original tracks. So, with that in mind, at the end of the day, coming to the 11th hour, I said, all right, man, we need another song. They didn’t want to have eight, so that song was recorded with the drummer from The Strictly Hip, Steve Padin. He’s got a studio. So, me and Steve recorded that at his studio, but all of the initial tracks of that came from my brother, my brother Joshua in Detroit. He wrote the music for that song. It was a little bit of a different arrangement, but I put the lyric and the vocal melody to it and changed the arrangement a bit. And so, it ended up being, all of the basic stuff came from my brother in Detroit, sent it to Steve here, and then me and Steve added, Steve played the drums on it. My brother played the bass on it, which was in the basic track that he sent, and then I recorded the vocal at Steve’s and did the guitar work at Steve’s here. So that’s how that one came about. So as far as answering your question about file transfers, everything was done here in the Falls, except for a little bit of yesterday is gone and none of watching the sky turn blue, that’s the only song that was not done at The Music Lab with Johnny Helms. So yeah, that’s the way it all went down.
MNOD: “Something in the Water” is the last song I wanted to mention. It has a powerful simplicity to it that really makes you feel it from the inside.
Wojick: That’s just a heavy kind of blues kind of thing, whimsical kind of lyric, right? I mean, something in the water can go blind. Nothing serious on that. I did really, really love that one too, how it came out. Just got a nice heavy blues kind of feel to it. It’s funny after the fact listening to it, sometimes I say to myself, wow, it’s so little reminiscent of a slower, some of the parts are a little slower Pat Travers “Snortin’ Whiskey,” which is one of my favorites. God, I love that too. But yeah, so again, just that’s a great one to play live.
MNOD: I know that your summer schedule with The Strictly Hip keeps you busy, but hearing this material live would definitely be a treat.
Wojick: We filmed the whole album release show back in October, and so we’re just about ready to let some of these go very, very soon. The filmed version of some of these, well, we played the whole record. Unfortunately, though, the first two songs, instead of getting recorded, there was an issue. So, the first two songs were still going to put those out, because they’re on film, but they’re not multi-track versions. So, the audio will be a little bit less than as far as quality than the others. I’m just trying to think if there’s any other tidbits of info for you as far as “The Hard Way” goes and the record I told you about the vids, the clips coming up that we have from the live show. No, I’ve just been lucky enough to be doing some other interviews too with some nice people, and there was a nice article that came out. Not many, not all people are familiar with Goldmine Magazine. They have a thing called Eclectic Discoveries, so I think they picked five artists and they included me in that with the new record, which was really cool. So, if you get a chance, check that out as last month’s issue. And yeah, I was just thrilled about that. It was me and Fabulous Thunderbirds and Wall of Voodoo and a couple other artists. But yeah, so I’ve been getting a couple nice little things here. People seem to like the record. I am just so happy, because like I said in the beginning of our interview, I wasn’t planning on really making a record. I just started recording songs and then it all just came together. And so just really pleased with the outcome of it, man, because people have really embraced it, and they’re listening to it too. I mean, they’re talking about all the songs. Somebody last night that I was talking to that just got the record and they were giving me their notes. There’s a lyric video for “Louder Than Concorde” and there is the first single, which was More Time. There’s a video for that. So those vids are out there, For the “Louder Than Concorde” one, we found actual footage of the Elton John show that I went to at Rich Stadium in Orchard Park back in 1976. So, the footage that you see behind the lyric video for “Louder Than Concorde” is from the actual show that I wrote about. It’s really cool and at the end you can see Kiki Dee because she went with him on that tour so they could do, “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” and other songs. And so, you could see her at the end and yeah, man, just was thrilled to find that footage and get it back behind the lyrics of that video. So yeah, those bids are out there. You have vinyl available at http://www.brucewojick.com. The easiest way is to just go to my site; all the videos are there. You can get the vinyl and yeah, if you can, man, just make sure you pop out there how people can get the vinyl through the website.
“The Hard Way” is available now, so do us all a favor and pay for a physical copy.
Music N' Other Drugs 
Leave a comment