Wally Palmar of Supergroup The Empty Hearts on New Album: “Come On, and Try It” (Interview)

The Empty Hearts-a supergroup of artists including Wally Palmar of The Romantics, Elliott Easton of The Cars, Andy Babiak of The Chesterfield Kings and Clem Burke of Blondie-are back with their second release, appropriately titled: The Second Album.

The group’s chemistry is a combination of what Palmar tells 1071 The Boss mid-day host Michele Amabile are “little tie-ins between us all.”

Palmer has knows Babiak since visiting Babiak and the rest of the Kings working at a record store in Rochester, and hooked up with Easton and Burke through The Romantics.

“We used to open for The Cars,” he said. “And with Blondie, there was a time Debbie Harry was on hiatus, and Clem played with The Romantics for a five year stretch.”

Palmar’s adventures included two “tours of duty” as part of Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band, and in a serendipitous stroke of good fortune, The Empty Hearts scored a Beatle on the track, “Remember Days Like These.”

“One night..we were hanging out after recording like good boys do after a studio [session], and topics came up like me being in the All Starr band came up, an either Elliott or Andy said ‘wouldn’t it be great if we could have a Beatle on our record?” he laughed. “Andy was relentless about me calling Ringo, and I don’t want to bother anybody, this is Sir Ringo Starr, not just Ringo.”

Starr agreed, and fans can hear the track on the new album, which was just released last week.

Says Easton of the album: ““We wanted to make an album like the ones that really captured our imaginations when we were coming up. The sort of record that, when it came out, you’d get together with a few friends, maybe get a buzz on, turn the lights down and listen from beginning to end – like those classic late ’60s records that took you on a little trip.”

The new album–on Steve Van Zandt’s Wicked Cool Records–is produced by Ed Stasium (Living Colour, The Smithereens, Talking Heads).

Check out the interview below, and a few tracks as well.