Y&T’s frontman on why he turned down Peter Frampton’s supergroup offer — and how Y&T might’ve been bigger if they just could’ve opened for themselves!
By Joe Bosso
“IF YOU OPENED for us, it was a sure sign you were going to make it,” Dave Meniketti says. As guitarist, singer and all-around main man for the Bay Area hard rock stalwarts Y&T, he’s seen a lot of up-and-comers breeze by during the late Seventies and into the Eighties. “Van Halen opened for us, and so did Metallica. Poison opened shows for us. As a matter of fact, back in 1981 Mötley Crüe played their first gig ever when they opened for us at the Starwood in L.A. It’s in their book.”
He laughs and adds, “We used to have a saying: ‘We know how we’re going to make it big. We have to open for ourselves!’ It seemed like there was a time when every band that went on before us wound up going platinum.”
For a while, it appeared that Y&T were on the fast track for success. Formed in 1972, the band, then called Yesterday & Today (after the 1966 U.S. Beatles album), went through a few members before solidifying the lineup of Meniketti, bassist Phil Kennemore, rhythm guitarist Joey Alves and drummer Leonard Haze. They gigged around, playing shows with Journey and other local acts, and in 1976, after opening for Queen during the band’s A Night at the Opera tour, they scored a deal with London Records. The group’s first two albums, 1976’s self-titled disc and 1978’s Struck Down, received solid notices but failed to sell.
Shortening their name to Y&T, the quartet signed to A&M records in 1981 and began a stretch of albums that included high-energy gems like 1982’s Black Tiger, 1983’s Mean Streak and 1984’s In Rock We Trust. With each release, the band inched closer to mainstream stardom — tracks like “Midnight in Tokyo” and “Sentimental Fool” garnered significant FM play — but breaking into Top 30 proved to be a code they couldn’t crack. Then, in 1985, Y&T released a live album, Open Fire, that included a brand-new studio cut, “Summertime Girls.” An irresistible nugget of pop metal ear candy, the track was accompanied by a tongue-in-cheek video, full of sand and bikini-clad volleyballers, that clicked on MTV. “It was a real double-edged sword for us,” Meniketti says. “After a song like that, you’re expected to repeat it over and over, and that just wasn’t us.”
The group’s next album, Down for the Count, stalled on the charts, and it wou
