Rocker Marco Mendoza’s new life with The Dead Daisies

The rocker’s fans followed him into a local Starbucks, but they seemed more taken with his role as father and uncle than with his musical celebrity.

Marco Mendoza, a bass guitarist for The Dead Daisies who has played with Thin Lizzy and opened for KISS and Aerosmith, makes it clear that his first priority is the three youngsters joining him at the cafe. The man who is recognizable to the hard-rock set is a father of five who has brought two of his children and a niece with him on this day.

“Excuse me for one second,” the Huntington Beach resident says. “This is my daughter’s first day of junior high. It’s a big day so we celebrated it with breakfast.”

Dressed in a tight tank, shorts and sneakers, Mendoza clasps his hands, revealing fingers adorned in personalized silver rings. His jet-black hair is a riot of long, feathered strands. And he’s wearing a darkly tinted pair of Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses.

Mendoza, who is reluctant to give his age, is making new music with The Dead Daisies, an Australian rock band that formed in 2012 with musicians who played in Guns N’ Roses, Nine Inch Nails and Whitesnake, among others.

But before he talks about this year’s touring, Mendoza starts at the beginning, explaining he grew up in a musical home. His father played the clarinet, and his mother was a singer.

He was born in San Diego, but after his parents’ divorce spent his formative years living with his grandmother in Tijuana, Mexico. One Christmas, he received the Beatles’ “Abbey Road.” He picked up his brother’s guitar and became obsessed with strumming notes. Playing guitar in a garage band and at school dances would eventually become his solace.

At 16, he was recruited by a Mexican rock band, Super Mama.

A few years later, he had a run playing with Cher and Lionel Richie, but by that time he had fallen into alcoholism and drug addiction.

“My world crumbled down in my mid- to late-20s,” he says. “But by the grace of God, I got saved, and I got sober. I carry the sobriety flag proudly.”

Sept. 20 will mark his 28th year of sobriety. When he got sober, Mendoza says, is when his career really started. A clear head and a clean body helped him rediscover his passion, stay focused and get the little things — like showing up on time for rehearsals — right.

He met Bill Ward at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. The Black Sabbath drummer told Mendoza he was doing a solo album, “Along the Way,” and asked him to play on it.

Word got around among musicians that Mendoza was playing the fretless bass and that led to more gigs. Mendoza played in Blue Murder, a British heavy metal outfit, and in 1994 was recruited into a reformed lineup of Thin Lizzy, the Irish rockers behind “The Boys are Back in Town” and other classic rock hits.

He recorded and toured with rocker Ted Nugent — “We got along so well, he threw me to the front to sing more” — and also with heavy metal band Whitesnake. He played on two solo albums featuring indie-pop singer Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries.

“The career really took off,” he says. “I was so grateful. To this day, I don’t keep track of how many albums I’ve played on. I don’t want all this to get to my head.”

While touring in Australia with metal stalwarts Motley Crue and KISS, he liked the sound of the opening band, The Dead Daisies.

“I was really impressed with them because that music spoke to me,” he says. “It was like Stones meeting Zeppelin and Bad Company. You hear it one time, and it clicks.”

Rhythm guitarist David Lowy told Mendoza that the band had an opportunity to open for Aerosmith and offered to send him the music. After attending a rehearsal and remarking on the group’s professionalism and musicianship, Mendoza joined.

The Dead Daisies joined Aerosmith on its Australian and New Zealand tours and have opened for major artists including ZZ Top, Bad Company, Lynyrd Skynyrd, KISS and Def Leppard.

After finishing their commitments in 2014, members of the group talked about where they wanted to go next. Someone suggested Cuba, and the group became the first Western rock act to play there since the U.S. began normalizing relations with its Carribean neighbor.

“I’ve always wanted to go to Cuba, and it was just a great music experience,” Mendoza says.

During the visit in February, the band played a sold-out show at Havana’s Maxim Rock Club, performed at the Concert for Peace in front of over 6,000 fans and jammed with local musicians. The Dead Daisies also recorded three tracks for their latest album, “Revolucion.”

The road has called this fall as well. On this late August day in Starbucks, Mendoza was looking forward to a tour in Europe and rejoining KISS for the Australian leg of the band’s tour. In November, the Daisies plan to perform with Whitesnake in Moscow and Judas Priest in Frankfurt, Germany.

Each time he makes a stop in a new city, Mendoza says, he visits recovery centers, sharing his story with patients.

“I just feel so blessed,” Mendoza says glancing at three children. “My wife is amazing, my kids are amazing. I’m doing what I love. So far, so good.”