From Carteret in the Great State of New Jersey, the Smithereens wrote and recorded some of the coolest and craftiest power pop songs of the 1980s and \u201890s, songs with sublime melodies and smart lyrics that managed to find an audience even as the world around them marched to the tune of new wave, hair metal, grunge and other trends du jour.<\/p>\n
The 2017 death of singer and songwriter Pat DiNizio meant the end of the Smithereens as a band that made albums aimed at radio and the rock \u2018n\u2019 roll charts. Songs like \u201cOnly a Memory,\u201d \u201cBlood and Roses,\u201d \u201cA Girl Like You\u201d and \u201cBehind a Wall of Sleep,\u201d however, would simply not go away, and not so long ago the three surviving members of the band began to perform them all over the country, with guest vocalists like Marshall Crenshaw and the Gin Blossoms\u2019 Robin Wilson singing DiNizio\u2019s leads.<\/p>\n
John Cowsill will sing with the Smithereens Friday (March 20) at the Central Park Performing Arts Center in Largo. He was, as you might have guessed, parts of the late \u201860s all-family pop band the Cowsills (\u201cThe Rain, the Park and Other Things,\u201d \u201cHair\u201d).<\/p>\n
Members of the family still sing together, on the Happy Together oldies tour, but John has never re-joined the act permanently (\u201cThey sound great,\u201d he says. \u201cBut we don\u2019t work together. We\u2019re just family members.\u201d)<\/p>\n
He did spend 23 years in the drummer\u2019s chair for the Beach Boys touring band, and in recent years has been writing, recording and performing with his wife, singer\/guitarist Vicki Peterson of the Bangles.<\/p>\n
Ther surviving Smithereens, Cowsill explains, simply made him an offer he couldn\u2019t refuse. \u201cYou can\u2019t replace Pat DiNizio. It\u2019s not possible, and nobody wants to replace him. But the catalogue is great, the guys want to go out and celebrate the music. And they celebrate Pat during the show.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guitarist Jim Babjak, drummer Dennis Diken and bass player Severo Jornacion (who joined the band in 2006) are longtime pals of Cowsill\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t I do it?\u201d he asks. \u201cI\u2019ve known them since \u201991, when the Cowsills sang on their Blow Up album. Dennis and I have been great friends ever since. When I played with the Beach Boys, he\u2019d come to the shows. I\u2019d hand him the sticks. He can play anything, and he\u2019s a huge Beach Boys fan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always said \u2018Man, I\u2019d like to sing with the Smithereens some time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Years later, after dropping in for the occasional guest spot, Cowsill got his wish. Crenshaw was finishing his tenure as lead singer, and the band\u2019s manager asked if he was interested in taking over.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I said, to myself, \u2018You\u2019ve never been the lead singer of any band. What are you doing? What are you going to tell this guy?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Cowsill agreed, but another year passed before Babjak called with an invitation to appear as part of the band at a one-off festival gig in Ohio.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned like 25 songs,\u201d he says. \u201cI memorized all the lyrics. But what I really did was just study Pat\u2019s phrasing. Because that\u2019s what I dug about these songs, how he sang them.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t duplicate his voice. But you can go ahead and take his phrasing, because it\u2019s the best of those songs. And I like doing that. When I played with the Beach Boys, I played Dennis Wilson parts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still sound like me, but I played those parts. \u2018Cause that\u2019s what made them hits, to my brain. And people feel the phrasing of a song; they sang with it on the radio.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that was that.<\/p>\n
Cowsill and Peterson have a 2025 album, Long After the Fire, and their band Action Skulls (which includes Lost in Space alum Bill Mumy) has issued three of its own.<\/p>\n
But his family band (which was the model, by the way, for The Partridge Family) remains an important part of his history.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven when Vicki and I go out, we do songs from our album, and we touch on our histories as well,\u201d Cowsill says. \u201cWe\u2019re just a duo, but I don\u2019t hesitate singing a couple of Cowsills songs. Vicki sings Bangles songs. Our shows are filled with fun things, and a lot of good stories, too.\u201d<\/p>\n