Eleven songs, several genres, one Hoboken band still going at twelve years

Transmission 409: Interview with Glenn Morrow

Glenn Morrow’s Cry For Help released Our Final Album Vol. 1 on July 17, on 12″ vinyl, CD, digital and streaming, via Bar/None Records, the label reaching its 40th anniversary this year. The 11 songs were recorded with producer Ray Ketchem at his Magic Door Studio in Montclair, New Jersey, and range from straight rockers to bossa and soul-leaning material. Keyboardist Andrew Burton, who has toured with Steve Van Zandt and Cyndi Lauper, guests throughout and wrote the intro to “In Love With Love.”

Title: Our Final Album - Vol. 1
Artist: Glenn Morrow
Release Date: 2026-07-17
Genres: Indie Rock
Label: Bar/None Records
Description: Glenn Morrow's Cry For Help release Our Final Album Vol. 1 July 17 on Bar/None Records. Glenn Morrow discusses the new record and his Hoboken roots.

The Hoboken quartet, formed in 2015, is Glenn Morrow (vocals, guitar), Mike Rosenberg (bass), Rick Sherman (guitar) and Ron Metz (drums), now in its twelfth year together. Morrow was earlier a member of “a,” the first band to play Maxwell’s, and of the Individuals, and wrote for New York Rocker. In 1986 he signed his band Rage To Live to the newly formed Bar/None Records, later running the label until handing it to Emmy Black this year.

The band’s debut arrived on Rhyme & Reason in 2017; the streaming-only 2 followed in 2020 and gets a vinyl release later this year, with new remixes by Chris Stamey. Morrow, who turned 70 this year, has said the new album’s title is not literal and that a second volume is already being sketched.

What was the exact moment or record that made you say, “I need to pick up a guitar and start a band? 

Listening to Dylan, the Velvet Underground and the more approachable music of Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers got me to pick up an acoustic nylon string guitar my sister abandoned and after learning a few chords I started writing songs. I had a folk group as a sophomore in college called the Jaded Lovers who played a few coffee houses in our dorm. We played about half and half covers and originals. Patti Smith’s Horses was a total revelation about what a rock and roll song could be. Rob Norris was the person who put an electric guitar and a pick in my hand and just said “play.” His band Tin Can backed me up on some of the songs I had written with the idea that I would record some demos but that band morphed into “a” Rob actually played in a late period version of the Velvet Underground after Lou Reed quit and Doug Yule took the reins. I’m grateful Rob took me under his wing.

Growing up, who were the local or national artists that defined your idea of what rock and roll should sound like? 

There was a high school band of guys a few years older than me called Genghis Bills and Co. They played stuff by the Nazz, Led Zep, the Faces, CSN&Y. Very cool guys. There’s a song on our second album I wrote about them called “GB&Co.” 

In the early days, did you feel like an outsider looking in, or did you instantly find your tribe in the North Jersey scene?

It was kind of lonely in the beginning when I moved to Hoboken but then I met like minded souls like Rob Norris and the guys who would become the Bongos along with the dBs, Human Switchboard and Ira and Georgia of Yo La Tengo before they had a band. Then Steve Fallon opened Maxwell’s and we all swarmed in and were excited when the already established Feelies came aboard.

What’s the story behind the title Our Final Album – Vol. 1? Is it a joke, or a promise of more volumes?

I don’t think we want to hang it up quite yet so we needed an out.

Is there a unifying concept or common thread running through the tracks on Our Final Album – Vol. 1? 

I thought about that after the album was completed and realized it was an album about love and relationships seen from different vantage points; lost love, familial love, long distance affairs, melodramatic love, new love. Okay I’ll stop. 

The album jumps from rock to bossa-nova and “soap opera-soul.” 

Did you plan this variety, or did the songs just happen that way? 

I do like albums that switch from genre to genre. The Beatles exemplified that in the second half of their career. I like an album that takes you to many different places.

You built Cry For Help out of Hoboken music veterans. Did the band chemistry click instantly, or did it take time? 

It took a while for Ron Metz, our drummer, to commit but we have now been together for 12 years.

Now in your twelfth year as a band, how has the relationship between the four of you evolved? 

We come out to listen to music as kids from the 60s and then most of us embrace the music that came out of CBGBs. 

I knew everyone in the band since I was in my twenties (I just turned 70) so we already knew each other pretty well. We’ve gotten better at arranging and we are a tighter live unit that likes to keep it a little loose. I think we are all trying to hold on to our chops and get better at our instruments.

Did running a record label for decades ever get in the way of your own music, or did it fuel it? 

Between the label and getting married and having kids I didn’t have the bandwidth or deep self involvement that songwriting kind of takes but I kept writing and learned lots of covers and always missed being in a band. I think being perceived as a business guy in service to musical artists also cut into my ability to get out and play let alone make record albums.

Your 2020 album 2 came out during the pandemic and is finally getting a vinyl release. How does that record feel to you looking back? 

The politics of the times seemed so dark so that’s an angry record. I wrote the song “Forever and A Day” to give a little relief to the brooding quality of it. Now we are in 2026 and the politics is even worse! Chris Stamey did a great re-mix on the song ‘The Other Side of the Dream” and we will soon be releasing a mix he did on this album for “Sweater Weather.”

As someone who has seen the industry go from vinyl and zines to streaming, what do you think has been lost, and gained? 

I just went to a DIY show in Bushwick last night to see a band Bar None just signed called the Dallas Cowboys. It was a basement space and all three acts were really good and the Cowboys tore the place up. Their manic super excited fans were all hopped up and ready to go. It gave me hope for the future; that there is a continuum of music that exists outside the corporate music world that goes back forever and will continue to roll out long after I’m gone.

Since this is Vol. 1, is Vol. 2 already finished, or do you have other projects lined up next?

I’ve got five or six songs sketched out at the same time I’m doing intensive music and guitar study so we’ll see what comes out of that. Not ready to stop quite yet!

Photos courtesy of © Glenn Morrow

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others