Jeb Wright at Classic Rock Revisited recently caught up with AMERICAN DOG vocalist/bassist Michael Hannon to dicuss the band's latest album, Poison Smile, his former band SALTY DOG, and Charlie Sheen. An excerpt is available below:

Jeb: The new album is yet more classic cock rock, man. Now, I know you’re getting old. How the fuck do you find the energy to keep coming up with this music?

Michael: "The energy is there because we give a damn! I love rock and roll, hell I’m listening to BUDGIE’s 'Bandolier' right now. And besides, what else am I going to do? A man has to have a reason to wake up in the morning and mine is American Dog. We’ve been doing this for 12 years now and we are finally getting our name into the bigger camps, that is with the booking agents and label types."

Jeb: Let’s talk a few songs on Poison Smile. First, 'Charlie Sheen', to your knowledge has he seen the video, or heard the song?

Michael: "I don’t know. I did talk to Kevin Cronin from REO, who’s a neighbor of Charlie’s about the video and he said he’d tell him about it. It’s odd, his first response was, 'What do you have against Charlie?' and I said nothing and explained that I think he’s cool as hell, he’s the hero in this song. So, back to the question, I don’t know if he’s seen it or not, but we haven’t heard anything from his camp."

Jeb: I purchased the Salty Dog CD Every Dog Has Its Day when it was released. You guys should have hit it big. Looking back, why didn’t Salty Dog get its day?

Michael: "Salty Dog didn’t get its day because of heroin. It’s not a good career move and I don’t recommend it to anyone."

Jeb: Is there any truth that your record company pulled your video off MTV?

Michael: It wasn't the company it was an individual. We had filmed a video for the song 'Come Along', which cost us $25,000. The song was getting a lot of radio play at the time, so we figured this would put the record over the top. It was filmed in a ship graveyard in Long Beach, California and the director of the video took one of the color spectrums out of it to give it a very unique look. Everybody was very happy with it except for the one jack wagon at Geffen, who said we should go out on the road and support Robin Trower for a few more weeks and then consider re-shooting!

Everyone else at the label loved it, as did our management company, so we decided to go ahead and mail it to MTV, in those days MTV played music videos! Anyway, MTV got the video, liked it and decided to put it into medium rotation to start, which would have probably pushed the record to gold. Once the A&R; scumbag from Geffen found out we "went behind his back" he called MTV and told them not to show it, this way we knew who the boss was! So there ya have it, it's not a story of a label not getting behind a band, it’s the story of a label head stopping a band from getting sales, all because of his ego."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

American Dog recently released a video for the song 'Devil Dog' from their latest studio album, Poison Smile. 'Devil Dog' is the second video from Poison Smile, serving as the follow-up to 'Just Like Charlie Sheen'. "We've been working on new material for another new studio record, but Poison Smile is still selling well," says Dog frontman Michael Hannon. "So we figured we'd just keep pushing the damn thing and play more shows behind it!"

Check out the new 'Devil Dog' video below: