Photo credit: Rock Eyez.com

Author’s note: I conducted this interview at last year’s M3 Fest.

For over two decades, Steve Riley has provided the backbeat for L.A. Guns, one of the sleaziest bands to emerge from L.A.’s Sunset Strip.  Before joining the Guns in 1987, Riley was a journeyman, pounding the skins for Steppenwolf and W.A.S.P.  I sat down with Steve to discuss playing in Baltimore, the songwriting process and the dangers of flaming signs.

L.A. Guns comes through Baltimore a lot.  When did you first come here?

Steve Riley: I first came to Baltimore in 1984 when I was with W.A.S.P.  We were touring with Metallica and Armored Saint.  We played a club called the Coast to Coast and it was packed out the door. Metallica had just come out with Ride the Lightning and we had just released the first W.A.S.P. album.  That was an infamous tour.

Where was the club located? Near Hammerjacks?

SR: It was down where Camden Yards is now. It had a really low ceiling, but was really big.  The show was a complete mob scene.

What was it like following Metallica every night?

SR: Well, we switched off every night. W.A.S.P. would headline one night and then Metallica would headline the next night.

Were you in competition with each other?

SR: Not really.  We became really good friends with them and it was an entirely different style of music.

W.A.S.P. was a very theatrical band.  When you played clubs with them, did you have to tone it down?

SR: Yes.  I think that was one of the big mistakes with W.A.S.P.  After I joined, we went to Europe right away and recorded Live at the Lyceum with all the blood and the meat.  We took that all over the world, but stopped doing it when we got back to the States.  We were still theatrical over here, but not like overseas.  We went crazy over there.

Didn’t you have a girl that would be stretched out on a rack?

SR: We dropped her too.  We dropped all the shocking stuff.  I thought we needed to go back to the States with it but (W.A.S.P. singer) Blackie (Lawless) didn’t want to.

Do you have any memories of Hammerjacks?

SR; Oh man, that was such a crazy time.  I played there a couple times with W.A.S.P. and a bunch of times with L.A. Guns.  It was one of the best rock clubs in the country.  It was always packed to the balcony.  Now it’s a ballpark.  Camden Yards is right there.

You guys have a new record coming out soon.  What is the recording process like for you guys?

SR: We’re actually not going to tour behind a full album.  We’d be stuck on a small label with no distribution and no record stores, so we don’t want to go that route anymore. We’re just going to record five songs and put them on iTunes, so the fans can get to them right away. We’re gonna test those waters, because we haven’t done that yet. We have plenty of material, we just need to get in there and do it.

How has the digital marketplace changed the process?

SR: For an older band like us, it’s a godsend. Digital recording is much quicker, and you can take a line and double it quickly. It really helps the vocalist.  Analog recording sounds great and everything, but it was a really slow process.  You were in the studio for hours and hours.

For example, how long did it take to record Cocked and Loaded?

SR: That was actually a pretty easy process.  We wrote material for about six months, went in the studio for five weeks and then released it quickly.

The follow-up, Hollywood Vampires, took much longer?

SR: Yeah, that came out two years later, in 1991.  It took forever because we were in preproduction for six months and in the studio for five. We didn’t even tour behind it in the States.  The band dissolved because we were so burnt out. It had been five years of nonstop movement and when Hollywood Vampires came out, we were burnt to a crisp. I liked the way it turned out, but it’s a bit disjointed.

Music had changed as well.

SR: Yeah, the whole Seattle scene was like a tidal wave coming at us. Like a lot bands, we panicked. Looking back on it, it was just a natural change. We didn’t need to panic, because there is always a new scene coming up.  The ‘80s metal scene was getting fat anyway.  Labels were signing a bunch of shitty bands.  It got to the point where labels were signing anything that remotely looked like a rock band. There was no substance.

You guys were sleazier than the glam bands.

SR: Yeah, we always tried to keep a street sense about us and not be fluffy.

Even though you never were truly glam, you did have a hit power ballad with “The Ballad of Jayne,” about 50s sex symbol, Jayne Mansfield.  How did the song come about?

SR: It started as a simple blues song, and then (lead singer) Phil (Lewis), (guitarist) Mick (Cripps) and (bassist) Kelly (Nickels) took the music that we recorded and came up with the melody that became “The Ballad of Jayne.” Phil came in with new lyrics about Jayne Mansfield, and there it was.  Phil put a really nice touch on that.

Did you know it was going to be a hit after hearing the final mix?

SR: Yes, because it had a really good hook. It kind of stuck out like a sore thumb on the album, so we couldn’t jump on it right away. We launched the album with “Never Enough” and things like that so we could build to “The Ballad of Jayne.”  We knew it was going to be a special song.

Do you remember the first time you played it?

SR: Yeah, man. People liked it right away.  The first time we played it in LA, there was an immediate reaction.   I heard the crowd and I knew we had our first top 40 hit.

And the video was in heavy rotation on MTV.

SR: The video was really well done.  It had a dreamlike quality to it, and it was filmed on (former Filipino dictator) Ferdinand Marcos’ old estate in LA.

Really?

SR: Yup.  Crazy, right?  I think the song still holds up today.

So you never get tired of playing it?

SR: Nope, because if you are lucky enough to have a song that resonates with people, that’s what it’s all about.

Yeah, although Phil has a love/hate relationship with “Sex Action.”

SR: (laughs) We all do, because we had to play it so much. For the first year we were on tour, we only had one album, so we could only play that material.  Phil really got sick of it because he had to sing it so much.  Everywhere we went, it was “Sex Action,” “Sex Action,” “Sex Action.”  It got old after awhile.  I love the song now. It’s a killer rock song.

Has the songwriting process changed since the early days?

SR: Not really. Everyone contributes.  Someone usually brings an idea and then the band pieces it together. After the band has worked things out musically, we give it to Phil and he writes the lyrics and melodies.  That’s how we’ve always done it.   Or (guitarist) Stacey (Blades) comes in with a riff, and we come up with a verse and a chorus to make some sense out of it and then we put it together with Phil in the room.

So it’s an organic process?

SR: Yes.  Phil is a really great songwriter, and it’s not easy to write good melodies and good hooks.  I don’t think he gets enough credit.  He comes up with all of that himself.   For example, “I Wanna Be Your Man,” was just a riff, but Phil gave it the melody. He writes all the lyrics and all the melodies. The band puts the music together.

Phil is British, so was there a culture shock when he joined the band?

SR: Not really, because Phil had already been to The States.  Remember the actress Brit Ecklund from the ‘70s?  Phil went out with her for a few years, so he’d already had a taste of Hollywood and everything.  He fit right in.

You’ve been in Steppenwolf, W.A.S.P. and L.A. Guns.  That’s basically three different genres of music.  Did you have to change your drumming style for each band?

SR: Not for L.A. Guns and Steppenwolf, but for W.A.S.P.  I had to become a double kick drummer right away.  It was a real challenge playing those songs, and it gave me a real workout every night.

You also had the flaming logo behind you.  Did you ever worry about catching on fire?

SR: Nope, because it was my job to light the sign every night (laughs)! I got used to a lot of shit happening around me.

A lot of things can change in a year.  When I last spoke to Jetboy, they had just reformed and were getting ready to enter the studio.  They have since released an acclaimed EP and played several rock festivals around the country.  I sat down with them again at this year’s M3 RockFest to discuss the new album, viral marketing and flyer wars.  You can check out Jetboy at www.jetboyrocks.com.

Last summer, you guys were writing songs and getting used to being a band again.  You have since released a new EP entitled Off Your Rocker.  Why did you release an EP instead of a full length album?

Mickey Finn: The way the music industry is going now, people want instant gratification.  They don’t necessarily have the attention span to listen to a whole record.  I think you are better off to release singles and keep a constant flow of music coming instead of releasing an album and having a long break.  We’re going to get in the studio within the next couple of months and do another one.

What have you been working on lately?

MF: We have a new song called “Beating the Odds,” which is really cool.  It’s a bit more classic metal than our other stuff.  It’s got some Priest in there.

So instead of the usual swinging bluesy feel, you are going in a different direction?

Fernie Rod: It really depends on the song.  The swing will always be there, but some songs are heavier than others. We just kinda go with the flow.

MF: You gotta wear your influences on your sleeve.  Our influences are classic rock, alternative and punk.

How did you choose the live tracks?

MF: We went with the ones that had the most energy and the most personality.

Do you have any favorite live records?

Jess Reckless: Cheap Trick’s At Budokan.

Jesse Mendez: Mine is Ozzy’s Speak of the Devil.

FR: You can’t beat The Song Remains the Same.  You just can’t go wrong.

Billy Rowe: I’m going to go with Ted Nugent’s Double Live Gonzo.

You guys were all in the same room when you recorded Off Your Rocker. What are the advantages to recording this way?

BR: It’s cheaper and you get the live feel.

JM: You get to interact with the other guys as you are playing.  It’s very organic.

BR: There is sterility in a lot of records now because of our technological advances. It makes it possible for people that aren’t so talented to make a great sounding record.

Do you think the Les Paul adds to the organic sound?

BR: Definitely.  It’s the classic standard rock n’ roll guitar. I play a Gretsch for the exact same reason.  It’s very warm, but also very raw.

The music industry has changed a lot since your last original album, Damned Nation, came out in 1990. How has digital music changed your approach to marketing? Is it easier now that you don’t have to deal with a major label?

MF: It is and it isn’t. Record companies have a lot of money and you get an entire staff of people to promote you and your music.  The downside is that they take a lot of your money. The DIY approach is a lot more work, and the band has to be a lot more involved.  If you do the work you get more of the profit in your pocket.

Back in the day, bands lived and died by MTV and magazines like Metal Edge. Is it easier to go directly to the fans?

MF: Yeah.  Now you have YouTube, which is basically the MTV of today. That and the music download sites are the most powerful tools we have.  More and more bands are getting used to giving away their music for free so that people will go see them on tour.

Are you happy you came out when you did?

MF: Yes. We got to experience the glory years.  We experienced the major labels, the money and the fame.  We had three or four years where it was just glorious.  Bands today will never experience that in the same way. It’s a different world.  On the other side, bands today grew up with computers. They have an edge because they know how to make websites and are technologically proficient.  That’s where the promotion of a band lies now. We have to get people to help us.

Facebook and Twitter are kind of like the new Sunset Strip.  Do you ever miss papering a boulevard with flyers?

MF: Oh yeah.  That was our thing, man.  We were the flyer kings of San Francisco.  We would out-flyer everybody. We’d be on ladders at 3 A.M. trying to get our flyers as high as we possibly could.  We’d photocopy our logo, cut it out and then glue it together so it would fit on a billboard.  When we played LA, we’d come down a few weeks before the show just so we could pass out flyers.  We’d be out all night long.

Who did you engage in flyer wars with?

MF: Poison and Guns n’ Roses.  They were our friends, but we’d cover them and they would cover us.

BR: Sea Hags and Vain too.

Jetboy is known for raucous club shows.  Clubs are very intimate, while arena rock is more impersonal. How do you guys connect with the audience when playing a larger stage?

MF: You just have to work a lot more. When you play a venue like this, you gotta exaggerate everything.  I’ve seen videos of some bands on big stages and it looks like they aren’t rocking out very much.  When you are in a club and the people are close, it looks impressive.  When you are far away, you look like a statue.  You have to go back and forth and try to connect with the crowd.

Does it help to focus on one particular side?

MF: Yeah.  You acknowledge the people on the left, on the right and in the back. You go from side to side. Unfortunately there was a fucking Harley on one side of the stage, so I couldn’t make it to the right side.  I could only go to the left.

How has touring changed for you?

MF: It’s tougher because the economy sucks.  It’s a lot harder to book a tour when gas prices are up.  The expenses are up and attendance is down. We’re just happy to get out, play and break even. We just want to get our music out to the people. We’re still paying our dues.

Are you able to turn your onstage personas on and off?

FR: I was just talking about that the other day.  It’s instinctual.  We don’t think about it, we just do it. If you think about it, you are going to mess up.

MF: I’ve always felt like people pay to see a rock show. They wanna see rock stars and attitude.  That’s not something you see walking down the street.   The key is not to carry it with you. If you carry it with you, then you become one of those guys that think they are better than everyone.  I turn it on when I hit the stage.  I become Mickey Finn and I put on that persona. I give people the show they want to see.  That’s what I think is missing today.  Where have all the rock stars gone?

Photo Credit: handout

Bobby Blotzer has been keeping time in RATT’s rock n’ roll circus for over 25 years.  The band recently released Infestation, their first studio album in a decade.  The album debuted at #30 on the American charts and #6 in Japan.  Besides playing RATT n’ Roll, Blotzer has also written a book entitled Tales of a Ratt: Things You Shouldn’t Know, detailing his life in the rock n’ roll trenches.  It is available on Amazon and his personal website, bobbyblotzer.com.  RATT is currently touring North America, and you can follow their exploits on www.therattpack.com.  I spoke with Bobby before their show at Ram’s Head Live about the new album, writing a book, and drinking a beer from the rafters.

Infestation is RATT’s first studio album in a decade.  Did you have to shake off some studio rust?

Bobby Blotzer: Not really.  We had a meeting where everyone played the songs they had written and we picked the best of the batch and worked them up.  Then the producer just decided where they needed to go.

Is this a different process from the early days?

BB: It’s similar, but there was a little more collaboration and co-writing back then.

Do you miss sitting in a room and writing songs together?

BB: I love doing that but (guitarist) Warren (DeMartini) doesn’t do that and (lead singer) Stephen (Pearcy) takes the music and writes his melodies and lyrics to it.  It’s pretty much every man for himself to get his best material presented and ready to go.

Infestation is a return to the classic RATT sound. Was that a conscious decision or was it more organic?

BB: It just kinda turned out that way. We knew we wanted to go back and have a more aggressive, gut-level sound and everyone kept that in mind when they were writing. Michael Baskette really nailed it with his production.  It wasn’t anything too contrived.

Carlos Cavazo joined the band last year.  How did he enter the fold?

BB: We were auditioning guitar players because John Corabi went to work for Gibson guitars full time. Carlos came in and Warren was very adamant about having him join. I was a little apprehensive, because I was so used to John Corabi as the rhythm guitarist. The thought of having two lead guitar players felt very weird to me. But I’ve always been friends with Carlos.  He’s a great musician, great human being and great to work with. I’m glad it worked out.

You have a book coming out. What prompted you to write your memoirs?

BB: I have a lot of friends that love to hear me tell stories about my life of touring and my famous friends. I had so many stories that people kept telling me I should write a book. So in January of 2008, I wrote a couple chapters.  I was introduced to a screenwriter named Jim Clayton, who took what I wrote and enhanced it. All the words are mine; he just structured it and put it into context. I don’t think I could have put it together singlehandedly. It was quite an undertaking.

What’s it called?

BB: It’s called Tales of a Ratt: Things You Shouldn’t Know. I threw that in there just to tease people.  It’s a really fun book that doesn’t dwell on the negative.

So it has a lighter tone than some other rock memoirs?

BB: Right. It really focuses on the time of the 80s and what we were doing.  It goes back to when I was a kid, but the meat of the story is my career in RATT. It has ups and downs like everybody’s life does, but it’s mostly about good times.

Let’s go back a little bit. The first RATT flyers classified the band as “Fashion Rock.” When did Fashion Rock morph into RATT n’ Roll?

BB: That’s a good question.  Stephen knew someone that worked at this clothing store on Melrose that sold all these puffy coats and stuff like that, and he got them to loan us some clothes for our first photo session with Neil Zlozower.  If you look at the pictures from the EP, Warren is wearing a long trench coat, Stephen has puffy shoulders and I’m wearing a leather coat and spandex pants. Somebody said that we looked like fashion models, and Stephen said, “Yeah, we’re Fashion Metal!” It started out as a joke and then it got into the press a few times and became a moniker for our music.

When did it become RATT n’ Roll

BB: I don’t remember who coined the phrase RATT n’ Roll, but we started writing it everywhere.  It was on autographs and shirts.  Maybe it was (former guitarist) Robbin Crosby, maybe it was a fan. I don’t remember.

Bon Jovi and Poison both opened for RATT in the mid-80s. When you guys were starting out, who took you under their wing?

BB: I’m going to answer that question by asking you a question.  Whatever happened to Bon Jovi and Poison?  Did they even survive?

I have no idea.  I think that Bon Jovi guy is a country singer now.

BB: (laughs) OK. He was always good at deception.  All joking aside, it was Ozzy.  We toured with other bands, but nobody took us under their wing like he did. We started out by opening for Billy Squier, and our merchandise was outselling his three to one. Our album was killing his album.  I’m not saying he wasn’t big at the time, but we were already headlining arenas. I remember asking our manager “Why are we opening for him when we are doing it on our own?” He said, “You have to do this because it’s bad business if you don’t. blah blah blah.”  So we go out on the tour and they didn’t give us anything.  We didn’t have any lighting, they had this big round thing in the middle of the stage covered the whole thing. They treated us like shit, so we said, “This changes or we walk.”  We were selling the tickets. When we went on, it was complete bedlam.  Ozzy really stepped up and helped us out.  He had a history of taking out hot young bands that were doing great. We used that template for our next tour, when we took out Bon Jovi.

During the Dancing Undercover tour, a six pack of beer would come down from the rafters and you would drink it with the crowd.  How did you come up with that piece of business?

BB: I was looking for something fun to entertain the audience with, so I was talking with our lighting guy one night and I said “Dude, you should just hand a me a beer from up there.”  So we worked it out.  I would do this thing where I would raise my hands and lower my hands, and get the audience to do it with me. When I finally got them to a climax and put my hands straight up into the air, that was his cue to let the six pack down on a rope.  It would stop just eye level and I would open the beer.  As soon as I opened the beer, the old Tonight Show theme would play (sings) “buh duh dun duh dana bun dan dana.”  I would toast the crowd and guzzle that beer down.

Other than “Round and Round,” what song sums up RATT n’ Roll for you?

BB: Any of the videos we did could be considered pure RATT. The staple songs like “Dance,” “Lay it Down,” or “Way Cool Jr.”  All of those exemplify RATT.

Is the EP ever going to be rereleased on CD?

BB: The problem with EP is that our ex-manager, Marshall Berle, owns half and his ex-partner owns half.  There has been a lot of litigation going back to 1982, when we made it.  Marshall’s ex-partner claims that he gets half of everything, even though he wasn’t involved with Out of the Cellar or anything. He wanted half of what Marshall and the band was getting.  He doesn’t care how much money he’ll make off of it, he’ll never let it happen.  We might rerecord it though.

You once referred to RATT as “Elvis and John Wayne with guitars.” What did you mean by that?

BB: Elvis played guitar and John Wayne was a badass.  I always thought that we were a combination of the two.

Photo credit: Alicia J. Rose

The Thermals were formed in 2002 by singer/guitarist Hutch Harris and bassist Kathy Forrester.  They quickly gained a reputation for their lo-fi sound and politically charged lyrics.  The band gained national recognition with their 2006 album, The Body, The Blood, The Machine.  In 2009, the band released Now You Can See, which stripped away the band’s signature distortion and revealed the pop heart beating beneath.  The band also added drummer, Westin Glass, ending a revolving door of drummers.  You can check out their website here: www.thethermals.com. I sat down with the band to discuss their tour of china, being a secret power pop band and the symbolism of the sea.

You recently got back from your tour of China.  How did you get that gig?

Hutch Harris: Our booking agency in New York has a lot of international contacts.  Our label, Kill Rock Stars, sent a lot of bands over there for a festival last year. Maggie (Vale), who runs Kill Rock Stars, speaks Mandarin and has a lot of Chinese connections.  It was really cool.

What part of China struck you the most?

Kathy Foster: The amount of people and pollution.  We played four cities and they were all really crowded. There doesn’t seem to be any laws regulating car emissions or anything.  Also, the most delicious food I may have ever had.

HH: Yeah, the food was amazing. People were telling us that it was going to be really different from the Chinese food in the US, but it wasn’t that different.  They had some weird stuff that we don’t have here, but I had some kung-pow chicken and it tasted like the kung-pow chicken here.  We went to this hot pot restaurant where you boil a huge pot of water and spices and vegetables at the table.

KF: Yeah, you order tons of stuff and then you cook it in a huge wok.  It was amazing. We also went to this really good Szechwan restaurant a couple times.

Westin Glass: We ate a lot of street food too.

KF: I felt like Anthony Bourdain the whole time (laughs).

HH: Me too!  When I saw all the street food carts, I said, “This is the Anthony Bourdain moment I’ve been waiting for.”

What were the Chinese fans like compared to American fans?

HH: Exactly the same! (laughs) In Beijing and Shanghai, most of the fans were American.

KF: Yeah, the crowds were mostly Americans and Europeans who were over there to teach.

HH; Yeah, but the last two cities we played had a mostly Chinese audience.  They seemed to really like us, but they didn’t exactly rock out.

KF: They were a little more reserved. At the two shows that had a lot of foreigners, I felt like the Chinese people were a little more rowdy.  Maybe it was because the Americans were rowdy and got them going.

Asian culture in general is very reserved.  Was that the biggest difference?

KF: Yeah, there was a weird combination of things going on.  China likes to present itself as a very modern society, but a lot of it feels very third world.  It’s kind of dirty, and people spit and smoke everywhere.

Were there any censorship issues?

HH: No, but you can’t look at our website over there.  You can get MySpace, but you can’t get Facebook or YouTube.  A lot of people will find that stuff on proxy servers, and then the government will take it down the next day. But the government doesn’t seem to have much control over the average person on the street.  There are so many people that it’s impossible for the government to control them all.  It’s mind-boggling.

What was your favorite show on the tour?

KF: I liked Shanghai the best, because it was the rowdiest.

WG: Yeah, we played with a band called Hedgehog in Shanghai.  They sound like Nirvana meets New Order.  They are so rad.

KF: Yeah, and a lot of people seemed to know them too.

HH: Yeah, they were really cool.  Lots of chorus pedals on the guitar.  Nirvana and New Order meet at the chorus pedal.

Let’s switch gears a bit. Now You Can See came out a year ago. It has a much poppier sound than your other records. Was that a conscious choice, or a natural evolution of your sound?

KF: I think it was pretty natural.  I think all our records have a very natural progression. With every record, we try to write more dynamic songs. We’re trying to get away from just writing fast power chord songs and getting into more varied tempos.  It was both conscious and natural.

Do you think the poppier sound made the messages in your music more accessible?

HH: If you go to the shows, the songs from The Body, The Blood, The Machine get people the most psyched.  I don’t really know what people think of Now We Can See, but I know that The Body, The Blood is usually their favorite record.

The first time I heard Now We Can See, I thought it sounded like an angrier version of The Raspberries.

HH: Totally. Like Kathy was saying, we don’t sit down and actually say, “This is the kind of record we’re going to make.” We just start writing and then look back at what we’ve made and decide what it is.  I used power pop to describe the record in the press release, but it definitely wasn’t our intention to make a power pop record.  We just listened to what we were doing and were like, “We made a power pop record.”  It makes sense because the first two Weezer records have always been a big influence. We try to make each record a little different from the last one, but never a complete reinvention.

You still sounded like yourselves, but there was less distortion.

KF: Exactly.  It’s the same kind of songwriting, but with a cleaner recording.

The sea is a recurring motif on Now We Can See.  What does that image evoke for you?

HH: It started on The Body, The Blood and the Machine with “Back to the Sea.” There is a little strain in both of those records about de-evolution, with humans becoming fish again.  That’s kind of an arrogant human point of view. On “When I Died,” the narrator finds out that it can’t happen. A lot of stuff we write is about the arrogance of humans, because humans are wrong a lot.  We kept using the sea because Kathy and I went to a house on the Oregon coast and wrote a lot of the lyrics for Now We Can See there.  The ocean kinda snuck in.  The ocean is a really good tool for writing lyrics I think because it is so vast and unconquerable.

Both Now We Can See and The Body, The Blood and The Machine have political overtones, but you never actually call out the issues.  Is it easier to write using abstract metaphors?

HH: It’s not easier, but it’s a way of making sure that the records aren’t dated.  If you listen to the punk bands from the first half of the ‘80s, they talk about Reagan all the time.  That was cool then, but it’s lost its usefulness because it’s stuck in that time.   We try to make records that could describe any point in time instead of letting it get stuck in whatever year we wrote it.

Do you think it challenges the fans to figure out what you are trying to say?

KF: No, I don’t think we’re conscious of that when we’re writing.  It’s just more fun to write it from a character’s point of view.

HH: We’re always trying to please ourselves. When I’m writing, I just wanna make sure that I like the lyrics and that these guys like the lyrics. It ends there. If anyone else likes it, that’s fine but it’s never tailored for the listener.  You hope people like it, but I think it’s more honest to make stuff we like and make it good.

The Body, The Blood, The Machine was released during the Bush administration.  Four years have passed, and we have a new administration, but the paranoia about the religious right is still there.  Do you think it’s gotten worse with all the tea parties and everything?

HH: The tea party thing is huge in the media, but when you look at how many people are actually in it, it’s very small.  My paranoia has gone down a lot.  Sarah Palin is still scary in the sense that you hope that she doesn’t incite some nut to do something.  That’s kind of scary.

WG: Yeah, but if some crazy person is going to do some shit like that, they are going to find a reason to do it regardless. If it’s not a tea party, then it’s a dog telling them to kill someone.

Ozzy made me do it.

HH: (laughs) Exactly!

What does the new album sound like?

HH: The instrumentation is much simpler.  There are no overdubs, just guitar, bass and drums with one track of singing.  Kathy and Westin both sing on it.  The album is called Personal Life and it’s about the negative side of being in a relationship.

So it’s a new direction?

HH: Definitely.  I tried to keep politics out of Now We Can See, but there were still two or three songs.  It’s still about politics, but it’s more the politics of everyday life.  It’s the power and control of running a country vs. the power and control you have over a relationship.  How many times does power change hands in a relationship? One person is always trying harder to be won over or vice versa.

You have to have a balance.  The Clash did that all the time.

HH: Totally. You can’t be all political.

What’s your songwriting process like?

HH: It’s changed a lot.  On the new record, Kathy wrote a lot of the riffs on bass.  So Kathy would write the bass, Westin would write the drums and I would play a guitar riff over it and sing. There were a few songs that I wrote myself and brought to the band, but a lot it was written with the three of us in the same room.  It was really cool because we hadn’t done that in a really long time.

WG: It happened really fast. We wrote most of the record within a span of three weeks.  It was so fast that we couldn’t remember what we had done.  We would write a song and then the next day write a different song and try to remember the song we wrote the day before.  It was hard to keep up with, but really exciting.

Has it always been that fast?

HH: Fuckin’ A was the only other record that was written by a full band. I wrote the first record myself and then Kathy and I wrote the last two.  When it was just Kathy and I, it was fun but we didn’t know what the song was until it was actually finished. The great thing about this record is that there are no overdubs.  The songs sound exactly how we play them in our practice space.  There are a few little studio tricks here and there, but it was a really raw, old fashioned way of doing a record, where the band just plays the songs in the studio.

Westin, you just joined the band.  Did recording the album this way establish chemistry between you, Kathy and Hutch?

WG: Definitely. I never get sick of these guys.  The more time we spend together, the more fun I have.

HH: The three of us got a really good chemistry really fast.  For the last record, we went to Europe five times, we did the US for two months and we did all these other trips.  There were only a couple days we didn’t see each other for a year and a half.  It was strange, but in the best way.

Photo credit: Last.fm

Testament formed in 1985 in Berkeley California and quickly became one of the most influential bands of the emerging Bay Area thrash scene.  The rapidfire guitar riffing of Alex Skolnick and Eric Peterson was held together by Chuck Billy’s powerful vocals.  The band released Formation of Damnation in 2008 to favorable reviews and went on tour with Heaven and Hell.  Testament is currently touring with Megadeth on their Rust in Peace tour. They will be playing their debut album, The Legacy, in its entirety.  They will be joining Megadeth again this summer, joined by fellow thrash titans, Slayer. You can check them out here: www.testamentlegions.com.

I sat down with Chuck to discuss the recent renaissance of thrash, playing albums in their entirety, and the Bay Area thrash scene.

How’s the tour going so far?

Chuck Billy: It’s going really well. Everybody’s getting along really well and there have been no problems.

Is there more pressure as an opening act than as a headliner?

CB: Not at all.  You have an early night.  You get in and out of there.  There is virtually no pressure.

Testament’s material is pretty demanding vocally.  How do you keep your voice in shape?

CB: I try not to do things that I can’t do. As you tour, your voice gets stronger and stronger.  It’s like working out.  The first day is really hard, but 30 days later you are feeling better.

Megadeth is playing all of Rust in Peace, and you guys are playing The Legacy from front to back, correct?

CB: Yes.

The Legacy came out almost 25 years ago. Has playing the album changed for you since then?

CB: There’s a big difference. We tune the guitars lower to make it more natural for my voice. That’s the biggest change in terms of sound. I think it makes the songs sound even better.

What about lyrically?

CB: Not at all.  When we were rehearsing for the tour, it felt like old times.

Do worry about losing spontaneity by playing the album in its entirety?

CB: Not really. We played the album in Europe and it went well.  We played it in Japan and it went over well. When it came to touring around here, we knew it was something that we probably weren’t ever going to do again.  It’s a one-time shot, so we’re going to go for it. I think the fans are more appreciative because they haven’t heard a lot of these songs live in 20 years. It’s good for us and good for long time Testament fans.

A lot of bands are doing that now.

CB: Yeah.  If you are in a band that has been around a long time, it can’t hurt to do something like this.

Megadeth and Exodus are two other stalwarts of the Bay Area thrash scene. There has been a resurgence of thrash in the last couple of years. Why do you think that is?

CB: Because it’s good? (laughs) I don’t know.  It’s not just thrash, I think metal is hitting around the world.  It’s getting popular and having more success and there are younger fans learning about it. It’s a growing process again. There are a lot of great bands around the world that play this kind of music. In the old days there was just a handful, but now there are great bands everywhere.

Was the Bay Area competitive or more unified?

CB: It was competitive, but friendly. In the early days I was more obsessed with friendly competition, but now we just go up there and do what we do.

Fast tempos and complicated rhythms are the core of thrash metal.  Does the speed make it harder to sing?

CB: Actually it’s easier. I’m more comfortable singing to that time signature.  If we start with a slow opening riff, I want to do the opposite of what the music is doing.

When you are writing a song, how do you figure out where your voice fits?

CB: I just jump in and figure it out. That’s the way we’ve always done it.

What’s your songwriting process like? Do you start with a riff?

CB: Yeah.  Then (guitarist) Eric (Peterson) and I figure out what riff goes with the verse and what riff goes with the chorus.   We piece it together from there.

So it’s not a meticulous process?

CB: Nope. We just go with the riff and jump in. You gotta go with what feels natural.

How’s the writing for the next album going?

CB: Slowly but surely. We’d like to get it out by the end of this year, but if not we can wait until next year. We want it to be right.

What sound are you going for?

CB: It a cross between The Gathering and the new record, Formation of Damnation. It’s a combination of both styles.

Photo credit: Dan Griffiths

The 9:30 Club was packed.  1300 kids were crammed into every corner.  The house light went down and The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” blared through the PA.  A huge backdrop slowly rose to the rafters as The Gaslight Anthem came onstage.  Dressed in a white t-shirt and black pants,  Brian Fallon grinned as he strapped on his Les Paul guitar.  The  band respectfully waited for Joe Strummer to finish the chorus before launching into “High Lonesome.”   The Gaslight Anthem are now legitimate.

I sat down with Brian after the show to discuss the importance of the 9:30, meeting Bruce Springsteen and finding his character.

Last time we talked you were playing the Recher Theatre, and now you’ve sold out the 9:30 Club.  How does it feel?

Brian Fallon: It’s awesome.  Everyone’s been really good to us. It seems like whatever we were drawing in May has doubled and tripled in some areas. It’s really validating.  At the same time, we have a lot to lose now.  I’m feeling the pressure writing the new record.

Do you think it’s the promotion or constant touring?

BF: I think it’s a mixture of both, plus word of mouth.  I think God likes our band, because we’re doing so well.  Someone is definitely looking out for us.

What does playing the 9:30 Club mean to you?

BF: This is the spot where only the most legitimate bands get to play.  DC is the hardest place to play because they don’t care.  It’s like a mini-England.  They are like, “OK, why should you play here? Prove it!”  Even the smallest clubs are like that. We were never able to get a show here, even in the smallest clubs.

Not even The Black Cat?

BF: No way dude!  We could never get a show there.   The Loved Ones got us a show there, and we were in the small room.  That was only a year and a half ago.  They would not touch us. Then all of the sudden they tell us, “You guys are playing the 9:30 Club.”  Then a few weeks later they tell us, “Oh by the way, it’s sold out.”  If you can play DC, you can play anywhere. This was a real triumph for us.

What was it like playing “The ’59 Sound” with Bruce Springsteen in England?

BF: That was insane.  It was absolutely unreal.  I knew at that moment that I was doing something of some value.  It wasn’t just me that thought it was valuable anymore.  I was like, “OK, this means something to people.  This is a delicate thing now.”  It became about more than four guys in a band.  I was like “OK, what’s going on here? Is this really gonna happen?”  Because even at this stage, we have to stay on tour otherwise we wouldn’t be able to pay our bills.  I would probably be making more if I was still a carpenter.  But there’s that chance that we might really do it.  Now I’m thinking, “What if I could afford a really nice car? What would I do? What kind of person would I be? Would I change?” I don’t know, and that’s weird.  You can almost smell it.  Is this really going to happen to us?  Are we going to be like Pearl Jam and have a long, long career?  Are we going to be around in ten years?  That’s insane.

Jersey bands tend to have long careers. Springsteen and Bon Jovi still fill arenas.

BF: It’s weird though, because those guys treat me like I’m the next one.  That’s what really freaks me out.  Bruce’s crew treats me like I’m Bruce at that age.  It’s really something else.  People really think that we can do it.  I’m really excited to see what happens in the next year.

What was it like meeting Springsteen for the first time?

BF: He came in gracefully and had a bunch of stories. He told me all about when he started.  He hung out.

Was it his idea to play “The ’59 Sound?”

BF: It was his.  We didn’t know he was coming.   He just said, “I want to play ‘The ’59 Sound’ with you.  I just looked at him and said, “OK.”  After we did it the first time, he asked me if I wanted to sing with him during their set.  I was just like, “Yeah!”  We did “No Surrender.”  The second day, he came out and did “The ’59 Sound” with us, and I did “No Surrender” again.  It was unreal.  I was in front of a hundred thousand people. It’s so weird, because you look and you see nothing but dots.  I looked around and was like, “I can’t believe this is happening.”

Did you have to adapt your performance for such a big crowd?

BF: Nope. I just went for it.

How did the crowd respond?

BF: We won them over. When we first started playing, they were very skeptical.  Their arms were folded and hands were on their chin like “Who is this kid?” Then they started clapping and smiling, and laughing.  By the end, they were going ballistic.  You can’t win Britain over with hype.  I respect them for that.

Now that you are playing bigger venues, is it easier for you to turn on the swagger?

BF: Yeah. I actually watched Bruce do that. He taught me that the person that you give to the people doesn’t have to be the person you give to your friends and family. It’s OK to have that.  It’s a protection thing.

Mystique is an important thing to have.  Not many bands have it anymore.

BF: Exactly.  I don’t think the kids necessarily want to know my everyday secrets.  They want you to seem more mysterious and special than you really are, even if you’re not.  It’s about being larger than life.  I get up during the day, and my hair is messy and I’m wearing the same ratty clothes.  When it gets close to showtime, I start combing my hair and then I put my boots on.  When I put the boots on, I become the guy.  I’m the guy wearing the boots to work.  It’s the little things like that.  The one thing I haven’t done is change my clothes.  Whatever I wear that day is what I wear onstage.  Then when you put the guitar on, you become a different person.

The Clash blare over the PA and the metamorphosis is complete.

BF: Right.  But I don’t turn on the character when I’m outside and someone comes up to me.  If a kid comes up to me, they get the real person.  That’s the difference.  That’s what Joe Strummer was doing.   At the same time, I’ve also learned not to let people ask too much of me.  At a certain point you just say, “Hey man, good to meet you, but I gotta go.”   I’ve learned to just say no.  In that instant, they get it and they say, “I went too far.”

There has to be a few boundaries.

BF: Yup.  It’s a way of protecting myself. You put so much into this character and being honest with people and telling stories that they can relate to and hopefully be able to help them in their real life that it’s exhausting.   I put so much into this character that when I get up in the morning, I usually don’t have a lot to give.  I’m tired and emotionally spent.

Does having a routine help?

BF: Oh yeah.  I’ve figured out that if you eat and brush your teeth at the same time every day, you start to feel like more of a normal person. Once you figure out how to separate what you do when you are normal and what you do when you are performing, it gets easier. In real life, I’m not the life of the party.  I’m usually the guy in the corner trying to eat as quietly as I can.  That’s who I really am. The character is the person I wish I was in high school.  That’s not who I am, that’s who I was when I went home and played guitar in the mirror.  It’s the same thing.  At the end of the day, everyone just wants to be Mike Ness or Bruce Springsteen or Angus Young or Sebastian Bach. Everyone’s trying to be their hero.

You got some tattoos today.  Isn’t it a risk getting tattoos on tour?

BF: (laughs) Probably. You just gotta keep it really clean. My friend knew the guy and gave me a good recommendation and I checked all the equipment before we got started.

What did you get?

BF: (rolls up pant leg) I got an old fashioned shaving razor with some blood on it. It symbolizes the old saying, “Cut ‘em off at the knees.”  It means to be smarter than your enemies.    As our band has grown, I’ve met the snakes of the snakes. Everyone tells you that they can do something for you. I’ve been educating myself about how the music business goes, and I’ve watched the rise and fall of other bands.  Behind the Music is the best thing ever, because it tells you what not to do.

When did you start getting tattoos?

BF: I got my first one when I was 16.  I got a couple when I was 17. Then when I was 18, I went for it.  When I was 12 years old, I was sitting in my friend’s apartment watching 120 Minutes and the video for Social Distortion’s “Story of My Life” came on. I saw Mike Ness and I was like, “Oh my god, that’s my life. I’m getting a hundred tattoos, I’m going to play guitar and I am going to be in a punk rock n’ roll band.”  That was the end of it, and now he’s a friend of mine. It’s surreal.  I got to sing “Story of My Life” with him the other night.   He just came up and asked me and I was like, “OH MY GOD! Mike Ness wants me to sing with him.”  He’s so cool man.  Everything he does is cool.  The guy you see onstage is the guy you see in real life.

Just turned up to 11.

BF: Yup. Exactly.

The tour is finishing up soon, correct?

BF: Yup. We have six or seven dates left.

How long have you been on the road?

BF: We’ve had two week breaks here and there, but it’s been about three and a half years.  We’re taking six months off and making a new record.  The new record will be a harder, less ‘50s influenced version of The ’59 Sound.  We’re writing in the same style, but it’s more bluesy and faster. The ’59 Sound is pretty fast, but it’s quiet.  We’ve turned it all up.  The slapback echo on the vocals is gone.  It’s a meaner record.  We’re not a meaner band, but we’re worldly.  We’ve taken a lot of kicks since the last record.

The ’59 Sound came out a year ago, but the songs were written before that.

BF: Yeah. We wrote the songs almost two years ago.  I can’t write about the same stuff anymore. I want to write about what I know now, because I’m a different person.

During your set, I noticed that the songs seem heavier and you guys are improvising more.  How have the songs evolved in three years?

BF: They’ve gotten more experimental. They are a little harder than before, but I think that’s because we’re a rougher band now.   Even though we’ve done well, we’re still in the same position. Everyone is always telling us that we’ve made it, but we have not made it.

There was an almost religious furor tonight.  Every kid was with you.

BF: Yup.  I can’t explain it.

Well, there is a moment in “Great Expectations” where you sing, “We were always waiting, always waiting…”

BF: “For something to happen!”  It’s almost like a revival.   It’s really cool.

It feels like the kids are trying to get something out.

BF: They are. I want to ask important questions like, “What are you going to do with your life?” That’s the big thing.  Your life is something you have.  What are you going to do with it?  I like to make people think about big questions.

The big questions are scary.

BF: They are. I try to create a big forum where I don’t give out all the answers, but let them figure it out for themselves. I don’t have all the right answers.  I have one or two of them, but I certainly don’t have all of them.  If I meet a kid one on one, then I’ll tell him what I think, but generally I just try to stir the pot.  I try to remind people that every day is special and you never know what is going to happen.

You want music to mean something.

BF: Yeah, because it meant something to me.

Is the new record going to be released on SideOneDummy?

BF: Yup.

So the rumors that you had signed to a major label were false.

BF: Yes.  People expect us to sign with a major label because that’s what everyone else in our position has done.  There are only a handful of bands that haven’t taken a major label contract.  We’re not doing it to stay punk; we’re doing it because we don’t want to lose everything we’ve built.  If we sign with a major label, there is chance we might get rich, but chances are we won’t have a top ten record. So we’d probably get dropped. You can make big money today and lose everything or you can wait ten years and probably make the same amount of money. I’d rather wait.  I’ll have my career, my integrity, the rights to my songs, everything.  Instant fame would make me crazy.  I get weird now.  If I came out here right after the show as all the kids were leaving and anyone could talk to me, I’d lose it.  This place holds like 1300 people.  What if it was 25,000 in an arena?  I’d lose it.   I could never be Billie Joe Armstrong.

So I can’t option The ’59 Sound as a musical?

BF: (laughs) No way man! That is not happening.  Unless you want to star in it.

Photo credit: handout

In 1995, a simple guitar riff and a coastal city catapulted Everclear out of Portland Oregon and into the national spotlight.  The band’s simple, hook-laden rock n’ roll made them a staple of modern rock radio in the mid ’90s and early 2000s. Frontman  Art Alexakis’ knack for hummable melodies covered up the darker themes within;  drug addiction, suicide, divorce and abandonment.  Almost 15 years after their major breakthrough, Everclear begins the next chapter of their career with In A Different Light, a collection of their biggest hits reinterpreted.  In A Different Light comes out tomorrow, and you can catch Everclear on tour this fall.   Check them out here: www.everclearonline.com

The tour for the new record begins this week.  How do you prepare?

Art Alexakis: It’s different than it used to be.  I have a significant other, a 17-year old daughter and a two-year old daughter, so I just try to spend as much time with them as I can.  I get in shape and work out more.  I warm up my vocals and get prepared so I can be my utmost when I get out there.

Do you change the setlist every night, or does it stay the same?

AA: It pretty much stays the same.  I feel that if a show is working well, it’s new for every audience that I play for.  I’m not trying to make it new for me every night.  What’s new for me is how I perceive and how I perform the songs.  I work that all myself.  I’ve never been one for changing the setlist every night.  I usually go on tour with two or three different setlists.  We don’t have a lighting guy anymore, so it makes it easier to change stuff around.  Sometimes if I see a set going a certain way, I’ll call for a different song or go into something else.  The band is pretty good at following me around.  It’s fun to throw a curveball now and then.

When you play a hometown show, do you play more obscure songs?

AA: Yeah, I’ll play obscure songs sometimes, not just in Portland, but in other places where we’ve had a strong fanbase for years, like Kansas City or Lawrence, Kansas. I might play something off the first record, like “Nervous and Weird,” or “Fire Maple Song,” or something like that. They appreciate something from the first record, and so do the people in Portland.  It really depends who you talk to.  Some people consider “Wonderful” an old school song, and it’s from our fourth record (laughs). I don’t really consider that old school, but they do.

You are touring with a new band once again.  When you have to start from scratch, is it hard to adapt to the new members’ playing style?

AA: The beginning of any relationship is exciting and kind of awkward.  The good news is that they know my music more than I know their playing.  Their assimilation into the band has been really quick.  It took a few shows before we started playing like a band, but now it’s really cool.  I’m really excited about this tour because we’re firing on all pistons right now.   We’re past the point of rehearsals.  We play shows and stretch out a little bit and I’ll break down parts and the guys are feeling their oats a little bit. They feel free to take off and do things their way.  After the show, we talk about what works and what didn’t work.  It’s a growing thing.  This has been the easiest transition ever. These guys are the best musicians I’ve ever played with.  The last band was amazing, and these guys are even more so.

Why did you decide to expand from a three piece to five members?

AA: I really like having another guitar player so I can concentrate on singing live.  I also love having a keyboard player, I just love it.  It really fits and I love the textures.  When you are a boy and you have sex with someone else for the first time, it’s hard to go back to having sex with yourself.  It’s just better.  That’s how I feel about it.  I write Everclear songs and Art Alexakis songs like I always have, I just arrange them differently to include a more voices.  Having three other singers is really cool.

The new record is a collection of Everclear hits reinterpreted.  How did the idea come about?

AA: I wanted to do two records for a while.  One was a covers record, and we did that last year with The Vegas Years.  I’ve wanted to do a reinterpretation of our songs to show how the songs have evolved over the years. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Everclear live, but our songs have evolved because we play them a lot.  We change them to keep ourselves happy and the people who come to see us happy. A lot of them want to see the hits and certain songs, and to make them interesting, they’ve evolved.  They are a little more acoustic, a little less bombastic to really show the melody. It gives these songs a different bent.  I wanted to make this record to not only show the evolution, but also to show why these songs worked so well in the first place.

How did you choose the songs?

AA: I wanted to do the hits and album favorites.  There were a couple songs that didn’t really work.  We just tried a bunch of songs in rehearsals and went with the ones that felt like a record.

By reinterpreting the songs, do you feel like you are tampering with your history?

AA: No, but obviously you do (laughs).  It’s my history!  I don’t think so.  If I do an all kazoo version of my songs or an electronica album of my songs, then it could be seen as pandering.  I think these songs are pretty true to the nature of how they were recorded in the first place.  They are different and they sound different, but I think you can like both versions of “Santa Monica.” You can like some of the similar things about them while appreciating the differences.  This is just a different view of songs that people know.  I don’t feel like I’m screwing with history, it’s my history.  I can screw with it if I want.  People don’t have to buy it, that’s what makes America great.

Sparkle and Fade came out almost fifteen years ago.  When you play those songs now, is it hard for you to get in the mentality you were in when you wrote them?

AA: Not really, to be honest with you.  I’ve been through enough therapy where I can go back and touch into different parts of my life.  “Father of Mine” is a song that I have to get really into to perform it well.  It’s a very emotional song, so I have to get into that emotion.  “Santa Monica,” “Summerland,” “Heroin Girl,” all those songs.  I have to get into the mindset that I was in when I wrote them.  I think performers need to do that with every song, whether they’ve been playing it for fifteen years, fifteen months or fifteen days. You have to be able to get into it.  It’s not easy to get into an emotion after so much time has passed, but it’s something that I’ve always been able to do.

Has your songwriting process changed at all?

AA: I change the process constantly.  Sometimes I write the music first, sometimes the lyrics.  Some songs call for the former, some for the latter.  Some of them call for a little bit of both. Some require a different attitude all together.  Sometimes I’ll take a line from a poem that I’ve written. Sometimes I’ll take lines and ideas from scripts and stories that I’ve written and build songs around them. I plagiarize myself (laughs).

I was reading your top ten songs of all time, and I noticed a lot of soul music.  What is it about vintage soul that inspires you?

AA: I just grew up with it.  All the songs on that list are songs that have really touched me.  There are hundreds of songs from every genre that have touched me. I still get chills when I hear the opening riff of Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.”  If you ask me about a certain point in my life, I’ll get an image with a song playing in the background.  It just comes naturally.  Music has been one of the most defining things in my life.  You know what’s funny about that?  I was driving my daughter to school one day, and she said to me, “I didn’t know ‘For No One’ was one of your favorite Beatles songs.  It’s one of mine too.”  I knew she was a huge Beatle fan, but I didn’t know she loved that song.  She said the song makes her really emotional, and it makes me emotional too.

Have you heard the Beatles remasters?

AA: Yeah, they sound great.  You can’t walk into a Starbucks without them blasting it (laughs).  I haven’t bought any yet, but I probably will.  I want to hear them really, really loud.

It’s worth every penny.

AA: Have you been buying them?

I bought the set the day it came out.

AA: The whole set?! That’s like 13 records!

Well, I’d been mooching off my dad’s collection for my whole life, and I promised him when The Beatles remastered their catalog, I would buy my own set.

AA: That’s so cool. I was in the car with a friend of mine and the remastered version of “Taxman” came on the radio and and I was like “WOW! Listen to that!”  They really did a great job.  They didn’t overdo it.  They didn’t get rid of the good white noise that came with recording equipment back then, but it sounds so big and full.  They did a killer job.

It began with a nickname.  Whenever Dominic Luciano would overdo a joke, his friends would chant “Dead air!”  A year later, when Dom was looking for a name for his new college radio show, the nickname seemed to be a perfect fit.  Dominic Luciano became Dead Air Dom, and Dead Air Radio was born. The show began as a lark, with Dom discussing his week and making inside jokes with his pals in the confines of the Goucher College studio.  Three years later, Dead Air Radio is being syndicated by the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System and Backbone Radio.  Dom’s friends have become partners, each with his own beat; Phil Williams on sports, Justin Clark on current events, and Brandon Holthaus on television and music.  Dead Air Radio’s fourth season begins on Tuesday, with several new additions, including a smashing music journalist named John Nagle.  I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, but he’s a good dude.  You can listen to Dead Air Radio every Tuesday from 8 to 10 PM on www.goucher-radio.net or iTunes Radio.  You can also find them on Myspace, www.myspace.com/deadair_radio

Dead Air Radio is about to start its fourth season.  How did it begin?

Dominic Luciano: I was going into my senior year as a communications major at Goucher College.  I’d worked in television but I interned at a radio station that summer and I really liked it.  I knew the president of the Goucher radio station, so I asked him if I could do a show.  Then I asked Justin and Phil they wanted to do the show with me.  Then we got our friend Pat (McAvoy) involved, and our friend Scott Walston to do a sports report once a week.  I started hanging out with Brandon shortly after we started and asked him to take some pictures.

He did a character at the beginning correct?

DL: Yeah, he started doing a character called Emo 911. I think he can explain it better than I can.

Brandon Holthaus: The character originated from Phil making fun of a picture of me at a punk rock concert.  I had aviator sunglasses on and he said I looked like an emo cop. I started calling in and giving a weather report each week.  Every single day was cloudy and rainy, but only in my heart. (in Emo 911 voice) Yeah guys, I’m just calling in this week to tell you what the weekend is going to look like (deep sigh).  It’s going to be cloudy.  Every day is going to be black…just like my heart. (normal voice) I did that for the first season and then the character started to evolve.

DL: At the end of every season, he would try to kill himself.  One year he tried to hang himself from the top of a door, but his feet were still on the ground.  The next year he tried to slit his wrists with a Razor phone.  Our first season was really an experiment.  It was mostly us talking about our week.  We really didn’t know what we were doing.

Justin Clark: We were really trying to find ourselves.  Every week we got more and more comfortable with our voices and what we wanted to do.  We went from imitating people we admired to doing our own thing.  That’s when it became a lot more entertaining.

The first season was your experimental phase.  Going into the second season, how did you refine the format?

DL: We decided to let Pat go, and we gave Phil more responsibilities.

Phil Williams: I started doing sports in the second season.  It was a little bit of a transition because Scott used to do sports and then these guys would be doing other stuff and I would give my two cents every now and then. It was tough at first because I didn’t know if I wanted to talk about national sports or local stuff.  I just did everything I could to figure out my new role.

BH: One of the biggest changes for me was being an official part of the show.  Dom always jokes that I was hired to take pictures and never left (laughs). I had a really good time that season.  I covered television because that was when the writer’s strike was going on. I gave updates on who was coming back on the air and who was still picketing.  I also started booking guests, which we only did once or twice on the first season.  It was mostly local musicians from around Baltimore, but we got lucky with a few reality stars.  We had Jessica from Big Brother 8.  She called in and gave us huge numbers.  We had 500 people streaming live, and then we had over 5,000 streaming on zShare.

PW: I think one of the things that helped us in the second season was having a structured show.  I remember our first show, we were only on the air for a minute and people were calling in.  It was a convoluted mess.  We started working on stuff during the week, and it made the show flow a lot more.  It was organized chaos instead of chaos.

JC: We became a little bit more professional in season two.  When Dom asked me to do the show, I had already started what I thought was going to be my career, in retail and management. When I started doing Dead Air, something happened.  I left retail and went to school for broadcasting and the rest is history.  We all took a lot of what we learned in school and put it to work.  In season three, we became our segments became a lot more structured.  It became just the four of us.  We did gimmicks for a while, like having models come in and do photo shoots as the show was on the air. That was fun, but at the end of the day, it’s not good radio.  Our segments had to become more structured.  Dom has the Un-Entertaining Entertainment Report, which is hysterical.  Phil does sports and he ran with that. Brandon has TV and music news, and I do world and local news.  Each of us put our own spin on things and we all have our own opinions.

The show started when you guys were in college.  How did you manage to keep the show on after graduation?

DL: I was very good friends with the president of the radio station at Goucher, Richard Simon.  We always stayed in contact and had a great relationship. I don’t have anything negative to say about him. I kept in contact with him and asked him if we could do another season, because I knew an alum and a guy from Morgan State was doing a show. He listens to our show and loves our show, so he said “Why not?”  That carried over to the third season, and the new head of the station asked us to bring it back.  I had no plans to do a fourth season, but vice president of IBS, The Intercollegiate Broadcasting System, George Capalbo, convinced me to bring it back for another season.

So the third season was supposed to be the end?

DL: I thought it was going to be the end.  That week I was just thinking in my head, “Do I really want to come back?”  There was so much I could be doing with that one night a week with my jobs.  I kept thinking about and then lo and behold, we got this news that we were going to be broadcast in syndication.  Backbone Radio and IBS picked us up.  It was a new hope.

JC: The support we got from George and Backbone has been tremendous.  It’s been the largest driving force in giving us a fanbase. George is the vice president of Backbone and IBS, but he’s also a fan, or at least that’s what he says (laughs). He’s either very adamant about our future or he’s a really good liar (laughs). Brandon deserves a lot of credit because he put a lot of stuff together for season three.  We got a lot of interviews outside of the studio.  In season two, we got a chance to go up to New York to take part in a lot of seminars and broadcast our show from the board room in the Hotel Pennsylvania.  We had an opportunity to do a fundraiser at the Greene Turtle for a really good cause.

BH: The fundraiser was George’s idea and it was the world’s first virtual Woodstock.  It was three days of nothing but music all over the Internet.  All the schools had a certain amount of time and they would broadcast for an hour, two hours, and then you would have live bands from all over the country and the world filling up different spots.  We had two hours at the Greene Turtle and we had No Compromise, a really great band out of Silver Spring.  We also had Failure to Excel, the Carbon Kin.  George was the one that told us to do two hours.  When he said that he wanted to syndicate us, we all jumped at the chance. That’s the reason we’re still going, because George has given us new challenges every season.  It’s something that we all look forward to.

JC: You can have people in your life believe in you and be confident in you, and that’s great.  But the second you have the support of someone that has made an impact in the business, no matter how dark the future gets, that kind of support will keep you going.

How long does a season last?

BH: Nine months.  A typical school year.

When a season starts, do you know exactly what you are going to do, or just a vague idea?

JC: I think we flirt with ideas all summer, but we have a basic idea at the last show.  Last season especially, because it was d-day.  We talk about different ideas throughout the summer.

DL: As we get closer to the first show, we start to figure things out.  We go through everything and say “OK, we should be doing this differently, or this more often. We need to do less of this and get more of these kinds of guests.” We ask ourselves what we can do better.

BH: We all think about the show constantly.  In June I was texting these guys and saying, “I wish we were on air right now because I want to do this.” This summer would have had a lot of music news since Michael Jackson passed away. I would have liked to been on air when that happened.  Over the summer I did interviews with two bands on location and put them on the internet to keep people entertained and make sure they didn’t forget about Dead Air.  We want to make sure that we use the internet as our biggest tool, especially since we’re an internet radio show.

JC: All of us are constantly brainstorming ideas.  We’ll find a Post It note and write it down, but then we’ll lose it and forget the idea. We’re constantly working on ways to improve our craft, even when we are off the air.   We do more than cut and paste stories.  We put our own spin on it, so every time we see a story that piques our interest, we try and figure out how we would tell the story on the air.

Since the dawn of television, people have been saying that radio is a dying artform.  The internet has been the catalyst for a DIY radio movement. Do you think the internet will be the only people listen to the radio in the future?

DL: Here’s where I think the internet will be the future.  I don’t think it’ll be satellite.  I can go on my phone right now and listen to Goucher’s station for free, rather than pay for a subscription.  If you have an iPhone, you can listen to it anywhere.  There’s always something playing.

JC: Let me put it this way.  Recently there has been a spike in online shopping.  Radio is going the same way.  Amazon and eBay are the new malls. People will still go to the mall, people will still listen to regular terrestrial radio, but within the next decade, internet radio will be number one. It’ll be the main source of audio entertainment.

BH: I think that a lot of the FM stations will still be around, but they will have apps and websites. Greyhound busses have Wi-Fi that you can use, so you will have the internet in your car.

DL: Sprint has mobile Wi-Fi that can hold up to four phones and computers.

JC: Technology is going to keep advancing.  The more technology advances, the more old technology dies. It’s unfortunate, but inevitable.

Photo credit: Molly Chester

The human condition is a catalyst for documentary filmmaker John Chester.  The twists and turns of everyday life are far more compelling than fictional narrative.  Chester first gained national attention with Euphoria, a doucumentary about the pursuit of happiness.  From there, he produced and starred in Random 1, a documentary series for A&E Networks in which he traveled from town to town with co-host Andre Miller and helped total strangers with their problems.  Chester’s latest project, Rock Prophecies, is slightly different from his earlier work.  The film tells the story of legendary rock photographer Robert Knight, and his quest to stay relevant in the changing musical landscape of the 21st century.  Rock Prophecies is currently touring film festivals across North America.   For more information, check out www.rockprophecies.com.  Information on John Chester’s latest projects can be found on www.johnchester.com.

Rock Prophecies is a departure from some of your other work. How did it come about?

John Chester: A guy walked into (producer) Tim Kaiser’s office one day and introduced him to Robert Knight, and they wanted to do some sort of story about guitar players and they thought Robert would know a lot of them.  As Robert started to tell some of the stories of his life, Tim said “I need to introduce you to John Chester, who is a documentary filmmaker and see if there is something we can do about you.” Robert kept saying he didn’t think so, but I met Robert and started to hear all these stories and realized that Robert was someone who was virtually undiscovered.  He’s kind of the non-fiction version of Forrest Gump.  He just seemed to be there at every poignant moment in rock guitar history, from the birth of Led Zeppelin to the death of Stevie Ray (Vaughan).  I wanted to know what it was about this guy that led him to be at the right place at the right time. It’s really just based on his obsession to be with the greats before they become known by everyone. I wondered how often that happened in his life and if it persists to this day.  I discovered that it did.  He is continually out there searching for the next great guitar player, and in doing so has surfaced with some really cool acts over time.  We decided to make the story about his past, his present and a projection of his future.

The documentary starts out as a chronicle of Robert Knight’s life as a photographer, and his relationship with the Sick Puppies, but halfway through he discovers a kid named Tyler Bryant.  Was this part of the initial storyline, or did it develop during production?

JC: That was one of those things that we hoped would happen.  We thought it would just be about his relationship with the Sick Puppies, who aren’t really a guitarcentric band necessarily.  It just kind of happened.  He found this kid on YouTube and heard about him and we followed him down to the meeting and basically throughout the film, you see his belief in Tyler become very instrumental in Robert’s personal dream of remaining relevant and getting to go back on the ride in his 60s. That was something that was accomplished in the film. To back it up a little bit, what fascinated me most about Robert was his ability to focus in on the characteristics of these young guitar players.  These are the same characteristics that Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck and Stevie Ray Vaughan all had.  There are these seemingly insignificant obsessions, this level of OCD that these guys all possess that Robert pays attention to.  It’s funny because it’s the same thing that Robert has.  He has a very interesting with these guitar players.  I also projected myself into the story, because I had some of the same obsessions. I was obsessed with the way cameras looked.  I had no idea that I wanted to become a filmmaker, I just knew that I liked being around video cameras and film cameras.  All of these guys started out the same way.  They started with music in general, and it expanded into guitar.  They took their small obsessions and expanded on them.  That is the path to legendary artistry in my opinion.  That’s something that Robert clued into early on.

He became a photographer in an era when you didn’t need lots of press credentials either.

JC: Right.  At the first Hendrix concert he went to, he didn’t ask anyone’s permission, he just walked right up to the stage and started taking pictures. He had a full roll of film, but only took fourteen frames. In the film, he says that out of those fourteen, six have made him a lot of money over the years.

This is your first rock documentary.  How is making a music documentary different from other films you have made?

JC: The biggest change was that some of the guys I interviewed weren’t really as warm about being in front of the camera as a lot of my other subjects. I didn’t have a lot of time to build a relationship with the guitar players because they were friends of Robert’s, and that was my entre in. It took a little bit more time for me to find a way of relating to these guys and open them up.  That was a bit more challenging for me because most of these guys have been asked every question in the book.  We just started asking certain questions that had not been asked as much, or if ever. We were interested in another line of thinking that was different than most articles written in guitar magazines. That gave us a little bit of an advantage because they enjoyed talking about themselves in that way. That was the saving grace, because I’m not a guitar player. I’m a music fan, but I didn’t know the depth of Jeff Beck’s career.  That was a little nerve-racking, and Robert was a little worried about that.  I was confident because I can’t stand most music movies. I think most of them spend too much time onstage showing concert footage.  This is not a concert film.  I like going to concerts, but I hate watching them on TV.  A documentary should have a story, so it never bothered me that I didn’t know anything, because I would probably be too geeked out on the wrong thing.  I was more interested in achieving an arc in our film than I was about the screws on the neck of a guitar.

What would you ask?

JC: Mostly about what drew their eye as a young kid, whether it was related to music or not. What was the first thing that grabbed them?  What was it that made them say, “Wow, I’m really into this.”  It could have been the color red, or notes on a page.  What was it about your creative journey that led you to believe that you needed to expand on this thing?  It was really fascinating to hear guys like Jeff Beck, Slash and Carlos Santana talk about.  I guess it was something that they hadn’t been asked a lot.  People usually ask “What was it like the first time you picked up a guitar?” when it really didn’t start there.  I think most of us sit in our houses and wonder what we are supposed to do with our lives. We wonder what we’re supposed to be.  Many of us are expecting a giant sign to fall from the sky and say “Go in this direction.”  Life doesn’t work like that.  People approach these legends all the time and say “Wow, you are so lucky you have that.” We assume that they woke up one day and said, “I’m going to play guitar.” No.  What they had was the courage to take seemingly insignificant obsessions and expand them into careers. I wanted to show that they were confident in following their little signs.  Most of us don’t take the time or have the confidence to follow tiny vibrations.  We wait for some big sign to go up and the creative process does not work that way.

You have to act on it.

JC: You have to act on it.  You said it. You have to act on it no matter how small it is.  It’s like “I don’t know what it is about this red crayon or the color red, but I’m drawing with this red crayon.”  Before you know it, you’ve mastered the art of red in some way.  People don’t take that stuff seriously and they ignore the stuff that vibrates in their chest. If they ignore that, they never really find what their potential is. More importantly, they don’t carve a unique niche or style that they become known for.  They end up gravitating towards something that the rest of the herd does and they become like everyone else. I think all of us are very unique if we have the confidence to follow those small signs. That’s what these guys did, and I wanted to show that. I wanted to see that expanded in real time with Robert and his choices of guitar players.

When I interview a musician, I am often taken aback by how quiet and reserved they are compared to when they are onstage. Did you notice that when you were conducting interviews?

JC: Yes.  Jeff Beck and Slash are incredibly shy people in person.  Obviously onstage they turn into these fierce monsters.  Emma (Anzai), the bassist for Sick Puppies, is so sweet and so shy.  She keeps to herself when she’s on tour.  When she gets onstage, it’s like a huge cathartic expression that erupts through her.  She becomes the kind of person that could rip your head off.  Everyone always comments on how she must be really tough, but she’s anything but.  Onstage she’s just this knee-high leather boot wearing, bass grinding rock star.

There’s definitely a duality sometimes, where you ask yourself “How did this guy become that guy?”

JC: I think Jack Johnson is probably the only musician who was probably pretty cool before he started (laughs). He was a surfer and he probably had a lot of friends.  Most musicians are nerds.  Nerds are artists.  I’m a nerd.  We spend a lot more time thinking and not worrying about what people think of us.  We’re sort of on the creative and inventive side of life. We’re worrying about what our contribution is here, rather than our image.  I think that’s a huge shift psychologically. Those people tend to be more quiet and reserved.

It’s kind of disappointing at first, because it destroys the myth.

JC: (laughs) Right! Exactly.

Rock music is going through a lot of major changes right now.  Music is more portable and disposable.  Do you think any of your subjects are threatened by the changing times?

JC: It’s not in the film, but Slash has mentioned that at some point in the ‘90s, someone pulled the plug on the guitar and forgot to plug it back in.  There are not many talented guitar players that can play leads.  Look at a band like Coldplay. I like their music, but there is nothing challenging about their guitar playing.  They would probably agree, but that’s not the point of their music either.  I think it’s changing, but I think the change has already happened.  I think the change happened ten years ago.  I think what we’re starting to see now are fathers in their 50s taking their sons to Guitar Center and buying them a guitar.  I think you are going to start seeing the father’s taste touching the heart of that kid.  I think that generation is being touched by guys like Slash and the guys that came before him, like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimmy Page.  It’ll go back to a time when the guitar was really central to the music.  I think we’re starting to see a shift back towards the appreciation of real solid guitar playing.

Do you think that video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band have an effect?

JC: To a degree.  It’s really wild to know that a nine-year old and a 50-year old both know who Slash is because of Guitar Hero. There are more people who know who Slash is than Jimmy Page.  I think that Guitar Hero is a gateway drug into the curiosity of playing an instrument.  I don’t know how many actually end up buying a guitar, but I think it starts to single out the appreciation for really good guitar bands.  That’s what I’ve noticed with the young kids. They are really beginning to appreciate solid lead guitar playing.

So you think it’s the challenge of being able to play a convincing lead.

JC: It’s like when you are listening to a band and someone says to you “Listen to that horn.”  You hadn’t been listening to the horn before, so you pay attention.  Guitar Hero forces you to listen and pay attention to your instrument. Typically that is the guitar, so I think people become more aware of the guitar’s presence.

Let’s shift gears a bit.  Why is the documentary form so appealing to you?

JC: For whatever reason, I’ve always been fascinated by the human condition.  I think there are so many beautiful things that happen around us every single day in people’s lives that are profound and magical.  The twists and turns that a life can take can be so much more inspiring than the fictional world.  Capturing that and showing how life can be so beautiful is something that vibrates inside my chest. I’m always more interested in spending four years telling a story that would take six months if I was making a narrative film.  I don’t know why, because I hate the amount of time it takes to make a film, a documentary especially.  There’s just something really beautiful about that to me.  I like to find hope in hopeless situations.  Robert is a very small example of that, since he’s an aging rock photographer.  It might be over for him, but he’s insisting that it’s not.  We watch him prove that.  I believe that there is always two ways of looking at something.  The human condition can surprise us so many times.

Have there been any tense moments where an interview subject didn’t show up, or an unexpected development?

JC: Oh yeah.  We asked Slash where he wanted to be interviewed, because we went to Jeff Beck’s house and Carlos Santana’s studio, so we wanted Robert to shoot him in a unique location.  He says, “Let’s go to the high school that I got kicked out of.   I was like, “OK, cool.  I’ll call and get permission to go on the grounds.”  This was in the summertime, so school was out of session.  So Slash says, “Don’t call, because everyone will know I’m going to be there and it’ll turn into a madhouse.”  The guy is not lying.  If there is an announcement that he will be somewhere, there will be two or three thousand people waiting to see him.  That happened with no other rock star that we interviewed in the film.  So we show up, and he decided to drive his car into the school’s courtyard.  He hops out of the car, and the security guard stops us and asks what we’re doing, tells us we’re not supposed to be there, yadda yadda yadda.  So the security guy asked me who Slash was, and before I could say anything, he asked if it was Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.  I looked at him and I was like, “Uhhh….yeah!” He goes, “Cool! You guys can stay here if I can ask Flea if he’ll come back and talk to the kids.”  I said sure, and he goes over and says “Hey Flea, will you come back and talk to the kids since you graduated from this school?”  He thought it was Flea.  Meanwhile Slash was getting really nervous, because he went to the school, but was kicked out for throwing a desk at a teacher.  It was a really tense moment, but we got all the footage we needed.

Besides making feature films, you’ve also done a lot of work in reality television. What is the biggest difference between making a feature length documentary and directing an episode of a reality TV series?

JC: In a feature documentary you have time on your side.  Within the business there is reality TV, which is game show/contest kinda stuff.  Then there is docudrama where you go into an existing situation, like the LAPD, and document their lives as part of a series.  That’s different from a documentary narrative where you go into a story with a preconceived idea of what it’s going to be like.  You think that you are following the story as you see it, but the more time you spend with your subject, Robert Knight for example, you start to see that the narrative takes on a much different shade.  You have a choice.  They say that in a narrative, God is the director, but in a documentary the director is God.  That’s not a religious or spiritual phenomenon, but if you ignore the profound coincidences that tend to arise within a storyline, you’ll end up with a very soft, flat piece.  If you actually let yourself go down these paths that the story begins to lead you, you’ll be able to craft a story that would never have been able to imagine.  That’s what I like about the feature doc world. It gives you a lot of freedom, but you have to be willing to use force.  You have to be willing to go with the flow.  In docu-reality, you have to deliver a series within a certain amount of time and you have to have your beats envisioned before you start.  There’s not a lot of flexibility.  They are two completely different beasts.

You also need to conform to the network’s expectations.

JC: Exactly.  You also need to worry about commercials.  Every six minutes you need some sort of interesting out that will make the audience come back.   The arc is a lot longer in a narrative.  You can go 10 to 20 minutes.

So if you hadn’t taken the path with Robert discovering Tyler, Rock Prophecies would be a completely different film.

JC: Exactly. It would have lost a lot of heart.  The one thing people say about it that we packed a lot of threads into the film and they all come to a logical conclusion in the end.  That’s really hard to do.  You have to be careful how many threads you start and stop in a narrative structure.  It’s something that we were able to do because it all came together in the end.  That’s something that can only happen in the real world.  Our lives are a helluva lot more dense than we give them credit for.

In 1988, The BulletBoys were pegged as the next big thing in hard rock.  Led by flamboyant frontman Marq Torien, the band was in the classic Van Halen model.  Torien’s flashy stage presence and dramatic singing style was balanced by rock hard riffs and a bluesy groove.  Two decades after their debut, the BulletBoys are determined to reclaim their position in the hard rock pantheon with their new album Ten Cent Billionaire.  Torien is joined by drummer Ryche Green, guitarist Tory Stoffregen and bassist Stephen Allan.  The band is currently on tour with Faster Pussycat, Bang Tango and Sister Sin.  You can check them out here: myspace.com/officialbulletboys.

I sat down with the band before their gig at Ram’s Head Live in Baltimore to discuss the new album, songwriting techniques and the recent wave of hard rock nostalgia.

You guys are in Baltimore again after the M3 Rock Fest back in May.  How was that show for you?

Marq Torien: It was wonderful.  The fans made it so great for us.

So many bands were on the M3 RockFest.  Did it feel like a big high school reunion?

MT: Well we’ve played a lot of festivals with a lot of our friends, but it really felt like a coming out party for us in a lot of ways.  We hadn’t played Baltimore in a long time and we were told we were playing the main stage, but we ended up playing the second stage.  Some people were a bit twisted by that, but as soon as we started our set, hundreds of people started running up the field.

Ryche Green: It was cool hanging out with everyone, but we kind of do our own thing.

Baltimore has a lot of hard rock history.  Hammerjacks recently celebrated its 25-year anniversary. Do you have any memories of Hammerjacks?

MT: Baltimore is the bomb.  I love it here.  Hammerjacks was one of the greatest rock clubs that I ever played. The people were great, the venue was great, and the fans were unbelievable.  This is one of my favorite places in the country by the way.  It’s a great area.  Our label, Chavis Records Universal, is based out here.  It’s just a great city.

Let’s talk about the new record, Ten Cent Billionaire. This is the first new BulletBoys record in a while, correct?

MT: Yup. Since ’03.

Why was there such a long gap?

RG: Can I take this one?

Yes you may.

RG: OK, here’s the thing.  This record was written in ’06.  It was never ever meant to be a BulletBoys record. It has that old BulletBoys flavor because you have Marq, who was the writer 20 years ago, as well as now.  When this record was written, the BulletBoys were finished.  Marq was so against it that I had to beat his head against the wall to convince him that this was a good idea.  10 Cent Billionaire was supposed to be the new band, not the record.

MT: It was our fans.  Ryche and I have been doing this for five years now.  We started in a pickup truck playing covers and not even thinking about the BulletBoys.  When it came down to it, we were just like, “Well, if we’re really going to do this, let’s do it for the fans.” I want to do it for the people that have been there for me through all the pain and suffering over the last few years.  My marriage ended, and there were times when I didn’t really want to be on this planet at all.  I went through a lot of changes and transformed myself into someone I enjoy more.  I had to retrain myself to focus on other human beings and to lead with empathy and make wonderful music and have a real band.  We’re all very close.  We can call each other and give each other shit about anything.  That’s real important when you have people that you are working with.  There’s always something waiting to implode, that’s just the way rock n’ roll is.  But when you have four guys who are good lads and who know what they are doing, leading with kindness and joking and letting stuff roll off their backs, it’s good. This isn’t the easiest business that we’re in.  I’m not crying in my beer, but you make your own successes.  You make your own friends by treating people with love and kindness, not by spouting off a bunch of rock star-isms. We’re really down to earth.  If we sold billions of records, we’d still act the same way.  We’re at that place as people.  The fans are why I am still here; it has nothing to do with anybody else.

You are here to entertain again.

MT: Not just to entertain, but to take this band to the top again, more than we’ve ever been before. My vision for this band is the Today Show.  If we get on the Today Show, I know this band is going to be successful.  Whether we meet these goals or not, it’s no consequence to anyone but to us. We have set goals for ourselves and we will meet these goals.  We will die trying to meet these goals.  We lead with a positive influence.  We try to keep the negativity out. There are times when people come at us with a bunch of stuff, we talk about it, get pissed off and then laugh about it.  It’s like “Eff those people.  They don’t know what they are talking about.”  A lot of people think that I am nuts.  They think that I won’t make these lofty goals. Everyone has opinions, but the people that I hail as famous, the Madonnas of the world, the Mick Jaggers of the world, don’t listen to these outside influences. A lot of times, people are very jealous and don’t understand that I’m not leading with arrogance; I’m leading with positive influence.  I have this vision and I know we’re going to achieve it.  We have a wonderful record that God has blessed us with.  I’ve dedicated this record to God.  It is a great record, and I’ve worked very hard on it for our fans.

What’s the songwriting process like? Do you start with riff?

MT: Ryche calls me up, cusses me out and I start writing songs, or Tory calls me up and tells me about all the beautiful girls he’s having sex with. (laughs) To be honest with you, they give me a lot of rein to write about what I have going on.  Tory also has his own band called The Black Mollys.  Tory is a wonderful writer. Stephen and I worked on a project called Staring at Stars.  Ryche and I have been working on some stuff that has nothing to do with the BulletBoys.  We’re constantly writing.  There are real musicians in this band.  We’re not walking around like “Oh I’m going to rock around like a rock star and fuck the music, where’s my paycheck?”  We’re not like that man.  I think that’s why everyone trips out on us because they tell me, “You look like you are still 28.  Nobody else can sing like that.  Why are you doing this?”  Wouldn’t you be if you had the opportunity to do it?  You use what you have.  God gave me this gift, I’m not going to sit around and not use it. I do this to bring joy to people’s lives, you know?

Do you think that is why hard rock has such longevity? Because it makes people happy?

MT: I think so.

Stephen Allan: Yeah man.  It’s just a good time.

When you play a show, how do you balance songs from the new record with the older stuff that people know?

MT; It’s hard man. We’ve been very lucky though because people want to hear the new stuff. They’re not telling us, “We want to hear ‘Badlands.’” It’s a whole different thing. They’ve heard little snippets of things, but we’ve been very closed on this record.  We’ve been keeping it away from people’s ears because we want it to be special.  We want people to say, “There is no filler!”

RG: You get a different show every night.  You can see us Friday and Saturday, and you will get two different shows, with different setlists and everything.  Sometimes we play five minutes, and sometimes we play 45. It depends on the night before (laughs).

MT: (laughs) Yeah, it depends if there was any drinking done the night before. Can I tell you something that makes me really happy?  A lot of beautiful women come to our shows.  I think it’s Tory or Sexy Stephen over there that bring these beautiful women, because I don’t get to do anything.  I just see pictures of these beautiful women on Tory’s phone. (laughs)

RG: We’re going to go back on the road around October or so.  Once the record comes out and everything is solidified, we’ll just support that record.  It’ll be played in its entirety.  We’ll probably still play “Smooth Up,” but you are going to hear the new record in its entirety.  Right now we’re changing the setlist up every night.  We’re doing some old BulletBoys songs that we haven’t played in five years. Toward the end of the year we’ll go back out and mix it up.  There is going to be a time when Ten Cent Billionaire is going to be played in its entirety, but now is not the right time.

MT: Yeah, it’s only when Steve says.

(whole group laughs)

Tory Stoffregen: It’s interesting though, when we play a new song like “Road to Nowhere,” the crowd goes nuts.  It’s just as good as “Smooth Up.”

MT: Let me tell you something right now man, we have two other records ready.  We’ve been working on stuff on the road that gives me the chills.

RG: There are so many songs that could have gone on this record, but we put ten on, plus the radio edit of “Road to Nowhere.”  We’ve got six or seven other ones waiting in the wings, as well as some other stuff that we’ve been working on.

MT: We have the next record basically written, and we’re working on the third. It’s like when Ozzy left Sabbath.  The first record was Blizzard of Ozz and the second record was Diary of a Madman.  This is our Blizzard of Ozz.  The next one will be our Diary of a Madman.

That’s setting the bar pretty high.

MT: Why not?  If I was blessed by God with the talent that I have, I’m going to pull out all the stops and throw the kitchen sink at people. The second record is going to be unbelievable.  We are going to another place with it.  This is not the BulletBoys of old, this is reinvention. We’re not the past, we’re in the now.  If bands aren’t relevant in the now, they aren’t relevant. If you don’t have new music, a new record, a new stage show, you aren’t relevant. You aren’t giving the fans what they are paying for. Our fans are coming to see a show.  I want to give them up and above what they are planning on seeing from us. We’re a plug and play band.  It’s not about the lights and the flashy stuff; it’s about the four personalities in this band.  I was signed with Motown and I was signed with Warner Brothers, and I was taught that if you can’t do it for real, then don’t do it at all.  People come up to me all the time and say, “Dude, your fucking vocals are killing, you have to be using tapes.”  I’m like, “No, that’s all me…or Tory.” (laughs)

TS: I have to pick up the slack sometimes.  At least Stephen approaches the mic.

(whole group laughs)

MT: We’re actually really lucky, because everyone sings.  Ryche sings, Tory sings, Stephen sings. If a part comes up and I miss it, we cover for each other.  We cover for each other a lot. We’re very tight and very well rehearsed.

SA: No backing tracks or anything, it’s all old-school.  If you can’t pull it off, then go home.

That’s one thing that I’ve learned as I’ve grown older.  When I was a teenager, I was all about the pyrotechnics and the flash, but as I grew up, I realized that you didn’t need pyro as long as the song was good.

MT: That’s why KISS was so great, because they had good songs, plus the pyro on top of it. It’s all about the songs.  That’s part of the problem today.  People start prioritizing being a star over writing good music.  All the predecessors wrote great music. All the greatest bands in the world were always challenging themselves musically, and that’s what we do.

Recently there has been a major revival of ‘80s hard rock.  Do you think the nostalgia wave has held some bands back?

MT: Yes. We talk about that all the time.  I’m not going to name names, because I’m not going to deride anyone that is making a living in this day and age, but I will say this: I am very disappointed in some of the bands we have played with, and I do not think they put on a great show. I think that they go through the motions and I personally know how broke this country is and I know how much money people have right now.  If people pay money to see my band, they are going to get a show. They are going to get as good a show as they have ever seen, with as much capability as we have.

You’ve mentioned “Smooth Up” a couple times. Do you ever get sick of playing that song?

MT: Never. I never get tired of singing it.

RG: I can’t stand AC/DC, but if I were in a cover band I would play all AC/DC.  Even though I think they suck, people love to hear their music.  I’d rather do that then play songs from my favorite band, Queensryche and have five people there.  I like them, but nobody wants to pay eight bucks to hear Queensryche covers (laughs).