Stan Bush has been behind a couple of classic AOR albums with cult status now attached. He has also recorded some safer middle of the road material, but remains one hell of a good voice. His last album was attacked for it's production quality. So I thought I would run a few questions past the man himself....

So Stan, so far there has been only a European release with Now & Then/Frontiers for the Heaven album. Will your Barrage releases be exclusive for Europe?
I thought there would be a good audience for that album in Japan.
So far the "Heaven" album is only released in Europe, but we are working on
arranging a release in Japan.

I know you have decided to use the band name for Europe, so what will you be recording under just Stan Bush?
I have a new album coming out at the end of March on BMG Europe called
"Capture the Dream: Best of Stan Bush". It contains the best of the
last four albums, and includes a new title as well.

The last solo album got split into 2 releases, the European and the
Japanese issue, which is becoming an annoying habit with the Japanese
labels. Did you have much say in this?
Well, it just kind of worked out that way. The Japan deal happened first
so they released the tracks with some different songs and with earlier
mixed versions.

What was your preferred release? The Child Within or Higher Than Angels?
I personally like "The Child Within", although a few of the songs on "Higher
Than Angels" seem to work better. We did live drums and re-mixed everything
for "The Child Within", but some of the earlier songs sounded good already.

Lets talk about the tracks on Heaven.
I gave it a pretty good review, more for the fact I was happy to hear more AOR/rocking songs again after a couple of middle of the road albums.
But there was criticism of the quality of the tracks. It was publicized that these were demo's, but I thought some of them sounded pretty good.
But - how do you respond to this criticism?
Yeah, they were mostly demos. It would be nice to have the budget to
record that stuff over. I was offered the deal to release these tracks
as they were. I agree the quality could be a whole lot better on most of
the album.

The best tracks were Joanna, Promises and Love Don't Come Easy,
which seem to be from full band sessions.
Were these sessions for a project that didn't get off the ground?
Joanna and Promises were recorded with a full band in a really good studio
with the intention of being masters. I was working on trying to get an
American record deal then, and as it turned out, they were never released
until now.

I know that these Heaven tracks were only a sample of the many, many demo's you have sung on and recorded. Are there any plans for more to see the light of day?
I have a lot more stuff recorded that I would consider releasing, but I would
prefer to have a budget to re-record or re-mix them. It depends on what
happens with my current releases. I have the new album "Capture the Dream: Best of Stan Bush" on BMG later this month. If the album does well, I'll be in a
position to spend more money recording the next album.

What else are you working on currently?
I've been writing for movies and television and doing session work as a singer
here in L.A.

When could we expect the next Barrage release?
I'm not sure. The 'Barrage' name was used on the "Heaven" album because of
the harder edged style of the music and the time it was recorded. It sort
of 'picked up where the last Barrage album left off'. I would love to go into
the studio and record a new band album like that.

Will this next Barrage release be entirely new material and newly recorded?
I hope so. It's a great feeling to be in the studio with a whole band, the
way albums were recorded in the old days.

Who might we expect to see in a band with you?
I'm not sure. I'm still in touch with those guys like Don Kirkpatrick (Richard
Marx). It would be cool to do a new 'Barrage' album and a tour.

You recently were responsible for singing back up on the new Rick
Springfield album. How did that go?
It was great. Rick's new album is very good, and he's really nice.

You have sung with him before haven't you?
No, but we've known each other for a long time. Most of my the original
'Barrage" band was his touring band then: Jack White on drums and Mike
Seifrit on Bass. We met while recording at Sound City Studios here in L.A.
where I did my first solo album on CBS.

I would like to ask about a few of your back catalogue releases.
Especially your problem with licensing your debut release.
Would Sony not let you buy it back?
It's funny you should ask, because I just got a call last week from a guy
here in the states from Rewind Records who has bought the rights to that
album. It will be released here in the States soon. (Via Song Haus Music)

So what led you to release it yourself as a self done release?
I haven't released it, just made a few copies.

There were some people that were not happy with the quality of this release. I heard of several people that were unimpressed on receiving it in the mail, via the ordering option on larecords.com.
Have you received much grief about it?
The new release will be from the original master recording so the quality will
much better.

The whole LA Records concept. Is it your label?
Yes, it was originally a label for me to license my stuff overseas, but I now have a partner and we're going to be releasing other artists. We are working on arranging distribution.

Ok Stan, thanks very much for your time.
Your welcome. If people want to find me on the web, the address is the following:
http://www.larecords.com/