Queensryche Interview - Interview conducted Thursday 20th October 2001.
Geoff Tate, who is the lead vocalist for Seattle's own Queensryche, took the time to talk to Justin Donnelly about the bands new double live album 'Live Evolution'.

Why a live album at this stage in your career?
It wasn't planned at all, and was a kind of a spontaneous in our decision to make it. Our new record company Sanctuary inspired it. We went out to dinner after they came to see us play, when someone suggested we should do a live record. The next day, following a lovely dinner and several bottles wine, we had an agreement to do a live record. (Laughs)

How was the track selection organised? Did you decide to slip in some tracks that hadn't been played for a while?
Their (Sanctuary) idea, what they would ultimately like to see, was a well-rounded record. And the more we (The band) talked about it, we came up with more and more songs we wanted to include on it. It just turned into a big monster. Then we thought, 'Wow! We've got so many songs, why do we just represent our entire career by taking a couple of songs from each record.' So anyway it was sort of growing and growing and it turned into a very large live record! (Laughs)

You have some unusual songs in the set. In particular are some from the 'Rage For Order' album. Is there anything that was a real challenge to play live considering that they hadn't been played in some time?
Well a lot of it we haven't played in a long time. Some of the songs, I think, we've never played live before. 'London' from 'Rage For Order' had never been played before. We came up with a big master list of all the songs we wanted to try, and it came down to a deadline we had to meet. The whole project was very quickly done. It was executed very well, but in a short period of time. It was really up to the guys in the band to learn the songs that they didn't know, and to rehearse them in a short given amount of time. These are the one they could play by the time the show came around. (Laughs)

Was the track listing also dictated to some extent by the fans that log onto the website with requests?
Sure. We collated their input, the record company's input and the band, and came up with the list of songs featured.

Were there any songs that are hard to perform live?
(After a long pause) There aren't any songs that I would call impossible to play live, but some are difficult. A lot of Queensryche songs are difficult to play live. It's quite a difficult question to answer because everybody (In the band) has their own opinion of what's difficult to play. For me, in the physical standpoint, no, they're not that difficult. It's just the mental aspect of putting yourself in that place that's always a bit difficult. That's because some of that material is really, really old, and I'm not in that same headspace any more. So it's kind of interesting to journey backwards! (Laughs)

What sort of preparation was there for this album? Also, was there anything that was fixed up after the album was recorded?
Well we really wanted it to be a real accurate representation of the band playing live. And for me, I approached this thing really differently. I didn't rehearse with the band. I just came in for the sound check for the show, then played the show. So the music was all really fresh for me. I hadn't rehearsed it into the ground, so to speak. There was a lot of excitement and it was new and different. It was a new sort of event for us to do and I felt really good for those two nights, and it went really well. I wanted to project that accurate representation of that. As far as the music goes, I'm not really sure if there were any touch ups in the studio or not. I'm not sure what was done there.

Now, you're in the studio recording at the moment. Was there any temptation to put a new Queensryche song on the live album?
No. Queensryche hasn't written anything for the new album yet. I'm in the studio now working on my solo project. As for Queensryche goes, we are scheduled to start writing and recording in January 2002. So we really haven't done anything since the shows in July. And we don't expect to do anything until January.

What would you say best sums up the direction of the material on your forthcoming solo album?
(After a long pause) Well you know my entire career I've worked with one band and one group of people. And at this point in my life, I'm kind of recognising a want, and a need, to branch out and have different experiences with different musicians. So I wanted to do a record that was a collaborative effort and with as many people as I could. So I started contacting people that I really liked, those who I liked their writing and their playing, and in a short time I had a whole list of people that I was working with and collaborating with. This is really a record of collaborative music with different people, rather than a focussed project with the same people. And I wanted to do something that was very different to Queensryche. Different from what they would do, and could do, of course. I really started writing without using guitars and I found that really inspired me (Laughs). All my life I've been surrounded with very loud guitars, and this was a complete departure from that.

So would the material be more electronic, or vocally influenced?
I would say it's revolved around the singing. The songs are voice dominated rather than guitar dominated songs. The main instrumentation is rhythm and a vocal. It has plenty of chord changes been done by keyboards, or bass guitar and that sort of thing. There is some guitar on the record, but it's not like anything like riff style rock guitar.

So there will be plenty of opportunity to flex those vocal muscles?
Yeah. This album has been in my head for a while. Really it's more or less an exercise in collaboration with different people. That was what I was really after.

So will the album come out under your name, or a band name?
I haven't really decided yet. It's still a work in progress really. We just got into the studio last week, and the first week is purely laying down drum tracks. So it doesn't really have a title yet either. I'm kind of waiting to see to how it all sounds when it's done. That will decide if it should be called one thing or the other. It's so varied. It doesn't really have a theme to it. I want to see if does develop a theme for itself by the time we get done recording it.

Is there any particular reason why you decided to release a solo album now?
Well I think when Chris (De Garmo) left the band (Queensryche) that really was the instigator for starting a project like this. I have sort of envisioned myself only working with Queensryche for my entire career, and when he left the band, it sort of forced me into looking for other people to play with. I guess that's what kind of did it! (Laughs) It started me on a sort of hunt for a collaborative effort. So, here I am doing a completely separate record from Queensryche. It's kind of unexpected for me, but I'm really enjoying it. I think it's a good exercise really, because when the next Queensryche album comes around, I'll definitely be ready and excited to do it. I've been immersed in another way of thinking for a while, and it'll be nice to come back to familiar territory. Something far heavier anyway.

Have you heard the other Queensryche solo projects, like Rockenfield/Speer (Scott Rockenfield - Queensryche guitarist and Paul Speer) or Spys4Darwin (Chris De Garmo - Ex-Queensryche), Vin Dombroski (Lead singer of Sponge), and Mike Inez & Sean Kinney (Alice In Chains rhythm section)?
No. I haven't got around to those yet.

What sort of direction will Queensryche be heading when they head back into the studio?
I can't really answer that because it changes once you start writing.

How do you feel about other band in the progressive field such as Dream Theater and Transatlantic? How do Queensryche fit into that genre these days?
Well I'm really unfamiliar with those bands, so I couldn't really comment! (Laughs)

Do you compare yourselves with any other groups?
Oh I try not to! (Laughs) I really don't listen to a lot of other people's music. I'm pretty consumed with what's going on in my own head. And I never consider myself a part of any kind of movement really. It's a movement of Queensryche and that's probably it! (Laughs)

Where's your main source of inspiration for the music and lyrics these days?
It's the same place it's always been. Really, it's just life experience. When was that (Lengthy pause), I guess after 'Operation: Mindcrime' that I got rid of my television. I guess since then I really been trying to focus on myself and what's going on inside of my own head, my circle of acquaintances, friends and family. I sort of look to that as my inspiration, as apposed to world events, politics and things like that. I'm pulling all the inspiration from my own resources.

How do you look back on the last album ('Q2K') from Queensryche?
Well 'Q2K' is a good example of the band experimenting with the new chemistry. Probably lots of people don't know this, or have ever thought about it, but with Kelly (Gray) coming into the band, he became the main songwriter. He wrote every song on the record, physically. So his style and his influences and his way of thinking about music is what that record is all about. The things he's heard and the things he hears in his head all came out on that record. That album saw Kelly and I working and writing together for the first time on an album. So it was really our first attempt and our first try to put something together. Chris was the main writer in the band for years and years. He's a very talented musician, and I think some people probably forget that. Everybody seems to think that everyone contributes and writes in this band. That's not always true. It's usually one or two people who define the sound and the style of any given record or song. Scott (Rockenfield) has contributed something like three songs in twenty years. It's difficult to collaborate with people who don't work! (Laughs)

Do you guys have any input towards the re-release of the 'Operation: Livecrime' D.V.D.?
Oh yeah. Jimbo (James Barton) remixed it not long ago. I have a good relationship with E.M.I. I talk to them regularly about what their plans are for re-releasing Queensryche stuff. They call and get input about what we want it to look like, and if we would like to add anything to it at this time. We've been trying to get our different record labels to work together. That would allow us to put new stuff on the E.M.I. re-releases and old stuff on the new releases. Unfortunately they haven't quite seen the light yet. (Laughs) They kind of operate in the old school way. That means it's tough competition.

There's the usual argument about promoters unwilling to take the gamble and bring down groups like yourselves down here, but have you ever wanted to play down here in Australia?
Well if you guys had better beer, we'd probably be there! (Laughs) No, just kidding. We've always wanted to come to Australia. Always wanted to. There are a few places in the rock and roll influenced world that we haven't played yet. Greece and Spain are just a couple. We haven't been there in all these years. We know quite a lot of people in bands that have been to Australia, and we have friends there as well, so we know all about it. We've just never had the opportunity to go down and play some shows.

Do you think Queensryche still has something to prove to people out there?
Well I don't quite look at it in that sort way. I see music as a reflection of life, and life is still going on. So there'll always be something to write, talk and discuss. That's the beauty of art and expression, and that's what music is. Music isn't competition. It isn't like a sporting event where you have something to prove, or be competing against another band or artist. Record companies deal in that kind of world. They're the ones selling a product, and using the sports team mentality to operate their business. Music is self-expression. It's much more than competition or sporting events. It's people's feelings and their thoughts about things. So in answer to your question, yeah, there will always be something to say and write about, and there will always be a perspective on an event.

After a rigorous and deep probing interview (Not), I was more than happy to leave Geoff to enjoy what was left of another beautiful, gorgeous sunny day at home.

For information on Queensryche and related bands, check out the following sites-

The official Queensryche website- http://www.queensryche.com/

Geoff Tate's solo website- http://www.geofftate.com/

Michael Wilton's (Queensryche guitarist) solo website- http://www.michaelwilton.com/

Chris De Garmo's (Ex-Queensryche guitarist) new band Spys4Darwin website-

http://www.spys4darwin.com/

© Justin Donnelly 2001

T h e Time Passes I n t e r v i e w

Hey Kelly, thanks for your time again. The album's out in Europe, are Frontiers are going to do the US release for you?
If I can get something better, they'll go for that. So I'm going to see if I can use some of my contacts around that I know. But any of the companies that I know are majors and they're not really keen on signing an act like me.

What, good music you mean?
Yeah. They want all that..., anyway.

Maybe if you dye your hair blond and wear shorts or something and a baggy top.
And pierce everything and brand my face. And play music with no melody in it at all.

Absolutely. And scream a bit more.
It's not a sign of age is it?

Definitely not.
I think we just like good music.

Yeah, we do. And you know what? I've got some kids on the site that e-mail me and say, hey, I'm nineteen and I haven't been corrupted by the crap on MTV. Some of those kids do like good music.
That's cool. That's great.

That's encouragement. They're not all thirty and forty year olds e-mailing me!!
You know I met this one kid from Holland or someplace like that. And he came over to a Chicago show that Night Ranger did. Here's this young kid, about twenty years old. And he was over visiting or doing something and traveling. Came to our show and you know, loved Night Ranger ever since he was a little kid. It was really amazing.

Now where would a twenty year old have heard of Night Ranger?
You know, I don't know. He just found music over there somehow in the record stores, so got into it.

Awesome. I'll tell you, I've also had an e-mail from a fifty-six year-old Night Ranger fan.
Really!?

Well I guess we should talk about this album, eh?
Sure!!

All right, well let's go. The opening track, "Anything Goes".
A great rocker. One of the early tracks wasn't it?
It's one of the earlier ones that Jack and I and this guy Aaron Zigman, he's a songwriter…we wrote that song for a specific movie that was supposed to being done. It's called Rock Star.

Sure.
And so there was at least a thousand writers trying to write for that. And so they had to sift through. It was a couple of summers ago now. So we wrote that song just for that, and it was just a little, funky demo. I sent it to Frontiers because I wanted this to be a rock album. So that song really turned out good for me.
You know, you need songs like that. I was really glad that I could use it.

It's a good, honest, hard rocker. And probably one of the closer tracks to a Night Ranger tune on the album.
Yeah, I think there is a lot of material on here that sounds like Night Ranger.

Absolutely.
The funny thing is, it's just how everybody brings their personality into a band. You know, it's kind of like when Don Henley goes off and does his own stuff, you hear that voice and you know it's the Eagles. Kind of what some of this stuff does for me when I listen to it.

Exactly right. I was actually going to bring this up later on but I'll bring it up now for the sake of it. Night Ranger always is a blend of personalities. You've got five very prominent songwriters and singers in the band, which is a rare task, isn't it? But this does sound like a Kelly Keagy album. This does sound like an individual.
I was hoping that it was going to be like that. You know, that's why I'm glad I had a lot of time to make the record, so I can think about this stuff. Because I'm the type of person that needs to absorb, you know.
When I'm working on material, writing it, or after I've written it and I'm considering it for an album, I like to listen to it and just kind of like let it soak in. And it was nice that I had that much time to figure it out, so I could make it like an individual album. Not so much just sound like the band that I play with.

You debuted "Anything Goes" at the Gods last year. Did you get any feedback off that track? Any response from the people you talked to that night?
You know what, I've gotten e-mails from a lot of people recently saying that they love the track and they couldn't wait for the album. It's really great. Specifically, they like that song but they were kind of bunching it in with the other songs too. They weren't like confronting that song so much as they were saying that they like the whole style and sound of the record.

Sure. One of the tracks that I hadn't heard before, because as you know I've had a quite a bit of time with a lot of the songs off this album, and I thank you for that. But one of the new ones which I've only just heard is "Acid Rain" and that really caught me as a great sort of more modern rocker.
The original demo was recorded over at Jimmy's house with Jack and I and Jimmy cutting the track. And that's another song that was written for that Rock Star movie. Or was being written specifically for like the soundtrack for that.
And I don't think anybody ever heard that song. I really don't know the background on if Jimmy ever sent that or if it ever got sent out to the record company. I'm pretty sure it did, because when we were traveling I know that Jimmy and him got together and wrote two songs. And then I offered my services because they didn't have a drummer. And they were just writing together on guitars. So I offered my services and I cut the drums. And then Jimmy sent me the track just like about three months ago and I put it together. I put Brian on there, playing, Brian does a trade off guitars with Mike Aquino.
He's the guy that plays on Jimmy's stuff.

That's cool.
But that was one of those tracks that was kind of cool and I got a chance to play on. Not really thinking it was going to go anywhere, you know, as far as me.
I didn't get a chance to add to the writing, it was already written, so that was cool. I didn't mind, I just wanted to come in and play. It was cool how it turned out because I got a chance to actually put my stamp on it. Produce it, sing it. It was really pretty fun.

A very cool vocal you've got there.
Yeah, there was another guy singing on the track originally. So I just decided to use the song. Sarafino liked the song and you know, there you go! I just kind of went in there and cut away at it. It happened. It was really fun. Especially with Brian. Got a chance to do a little trading guitars with Mike Aquino.

Oh, sure, sure, yeah.
Yeah, he played on Jimmy's stuff and he's doing the Mecca thing.
Joe Banner. So he's like a local guy in Chicago. It was nice to have him come in and play on that. He also played on "The Journey" and he played on some of the tracks that didn't make the album. I don't know if you got any of those demos I sent you. I don't know if you got any of those songs like "Ear for Thunder."

I've got "Ear for Thunder", I think I've tracked down about three I don't have.
Yeah, so "Ear for Thunder", there was another song called "Faith", "Torch of Faith".

Yeah, that's the other one I've got I think.
So Mike and Brian Bart both played on that. Brian and I put them together in the studio.

Now that you mention it they are both similar to "Acid Rain" so that's why. OK, yeah, I've heard those two tracks, they were great, again.
Now, "Time Passes" has to be one of my favorite tracks off the album.
I love what you've done with the track from the original demo. You've kind of hollowed out the first verse there, haven't you?
I just stripped it down. I played the intro guitar on it, and played the... the whole intro was basically just me by myself in the studio. As it starts to build, I added Brian. When the track kicks in with the drums and stuff, that's when Brain enters with me. So I basically played. It was fun.
When I was putting this stuff together, I never thought, ever, that my stuff that I was recording was ever going to be used. It had a feel about it, intros, you know, this and that. Like on 'Time Passes" especially, it just had a feel about it that I didn't think that I wanted to replace. It just felt so good.
Then once the track gets into it, then Brian's there and you know, he's a really good guitar player so he could fill in what I wouldn't really be able to play. I'm a very simple guy. Just play simple chords. I can manage. As long as I'm not out there by myself too long (laughs). But it was really fun actually being able to use some of these tracks. I thought I was going to end up replacing them all. That's what you do when you're a songwriter. You just put the basic thing down and you go, here's the song. And you bring in guys and you have good players fix it up. You know some of the stuff really worked. So that was kind of like my decision.
I was hoping I was making the right one. It did turn out good.

Absolutely. I tell you something that is throughout the whole album, but an example of it, is when you do the pass through the first verse and go into the chorus you've got a spanking drum sound.
That was really fun to record because we got a chance to record over at the school of music here in Minneapolis where Brian is a part-time teacher there. And so we had a chance to go into this like unbelievable studio to record drum, and using all this great equipment and stuff. It was really, really a great experience. That was really fun. We kept wondering if we were over-processing the drums a little bit but they sounded so good in that room that we just wanted to keep it like it was. Big and giant.

Is there a particular sentiment behind the song, the lyrics?
You know what's fun is that originally I was writing it kind of like somebody's search for spiritualism or looking for... I'm not terribly religious but at the time I was trying to be a little bit more spiritual. I think this song came out of that. Because the lyrics kind of seem like you're talking about a woman. But at the same time, when I was originally writing it, I wasn't feeling like I was writing about a woman. I was actually kind of talking about a Supreme Being, or God. So that's what I was thinking about. Then I put in a couple of funny lines in there about the car. In the second verse, I just kind of wanted to have some sense of humor in there because it's kind of a dark song.

It is, it is. In fact, the first thing I heard from you, when you first made contact, you sent me a five-track demo which "Time Passes", "Bottled Up" and "The Moon" were part of. And I just remember finishing the fifth song going, Wow, that was one dark, segment of music. The whole all five songs.
I know, I know. There's definitely that side of me. And I'm glad I got to explore it a little bit but not make the whole record that way. Because I mean that was the original five songs, was really the first inspiration for the album.

It was intense.
Pretty weird. Yeah. I mean you know, like when I listen to it even now, I try and space it out so I don't listen to it too often. I'm not absorbed with my own music but I listen to it just to kind of go back and kind of reflect. That song is definitely pretty dark. I know Bottled Up is kind of an angry song (laughs). I just hope people don't get depressed and like jump out the window when they hear it.

Let's jump to that song now. If you don't mind me getting personal, maybe it's not even personal, I don't know, but where did the inspiration for that song come from? Who were you angry at in the song?
On "Bottled Up"? Actually, I wrote it with Bruce Gaitsch who's a really good friend of mine who's written with Richard Marx and people like that. Yeah he was in that band that I was in.

King of Hearts...
Yeah, Timothy Schmidt was kind of a part of that band in the beginning. He never actually stayed in the project because everything about the Eagles and all that, going to get back together. Bruce was going through a divorce and I was kind of having some problems in my personal life.
He was going through a divorce, well that was kind of the whole thing, it was like, man, I don't care about the money. I don't care. Just like, you can have everything. I just want to go. Kind of like, there's a new song out, kind of the same thing, it says that same kind of thing. You know, just like, go away.
I mean, you know when you get hurt in a relationship, you just want to move on. That's kind of what it is. It's just like a moving on song. It's kind of angry but, that's the way it goes.

I can remember listening to it going, Ah man, Kelly's in a really bad place.
I hope he's OK!
(laughing). You know, sometimes writing songs like that is a really good thing because it's cleansing. You're releasing it. So it's a good thing. I just hope that people just don't go, "Ah shit!" (laughs). But that's how I felt at the time. And there's a lot of other positive stuff on the album.

Oh there is. It's very well balanced, I must say.
That's what I was trying to do. You know, I'm really glad, again, that's another reason why I had a lot of time to get into it. You know, a lot of times bands don't have enough time to think out their material and sometimes it doesn't turn out good. That's why I probably won't make another record for ten years.
Just kidding!

I hope it's not that long! OK, what about, "Before Anybody Else Knows"? I love this, it's another great rocker isn't it?
Yeah, you know what, this one was written totally over, through mail.
I had met Jim Peterik and I was talking with him about this song and I said, I'm going to send this thing to you. It was the first thing we ever wrote together.
And I sent it to him on a cassette. I had all the melodies and a lot of the music done. And I just hummed this melody to him. Because you know, for a while I was just kind of like, didn't have anything to say. So it was nice that Jimmy came along because he's always got great things to say. And he's always really positive about it, coming up with great titles and stuff. So that was like, Jimmy wrote all the lyrics to this song. And came up with a title and everything. And he was just like, within a week, he sent it back to me. He goes, thanks man for making me a part of this song because it just came out. It was amazing to me that he came up with this idea about Icarus, the melting wax and the wings thing. It was such a great touch. Just a really great story. So I really got behind it. And the tape he sent back was just like him playing it on piano. Which was so unlike what the song was. But that was the way that he wanted to..., so I could hear the lyrics. So he sent it back to me that way. That was a really great track. I was like the first thing that we got going on, and then I knew I wanted to write the rest of the album with him.

I'll sort of digress a little bit, but you and he have great respect for each other don't you?
It was so amazing. I remember when Jimmy first sent me the stuff to do a World Stage show with about three years ago and the first track was that song "Vehicle". I know this is kind of his stamp, him individually.
But he's written so many other great songs since then, of course everybody knows. But when I heard that first track, It reminded me of...the first time I heard it was like in high school. And he was just barely out of high school.
Which is so incredible. And I just thought to myself, God man, this guy has got so much soul. I want to work with this guy. I really want to get serious with this. So that's when I sent him "Before Anybody Knows".
And then we started writing "Too Close to the Sun" and a lot of good things came out. You know what? I think I kind of overlapped didn't I, a little bit. I was talking about one song, I was talking about "Icarus". That wasn't in "Before Anybody Knows". Sorry, I'm getting mixed up on my own music.

That was "Too Close to the Sun" wasn't it?
Yeah. That whole thing about Icarus was "Too Close to the Sun". But "Before Anybody Knows I'm Gone" was like a song written about riding a motorcycle. That's one of my passions, is riding a bike. And Jim, I don't know if he ever has ridden a motorcycle but I think that I was telling him about it. That's where he came up with the idea for the lyrics for that song. You know, we were talking about riding and stuff like that, riding motorcycles, that was that one. I'm sorry I kind of got mixed up.

No, that's all..., we'll edit this, don't worry [Sorry Kelly....I decided not to edit it!!]
Are you recording this?

Yeah.
So you can sift through it...[Maybe :0]

Tell me about the last ninety seconds of this song "Before Anybody Knows".
Oh yeah, you mean all that train wreck stuff? That's what it is, it's like a train wreck isn't it? Well basically all that stuff got kept in there from the demo.
When I brought the track to Brian I had played guitar and some bass and had all this stuff on there. So I was going to cut all that out. That was just like an out-take thing, I was going to fade the song out. But it was so exciting; it was so weird.
I had never done anything like that in a band. Have a big fan at the end and have it just go on and on. And I remember the days of Grand Funk Railroad, where they used to do shit like that for five minutes (laughs). So I cut it down to about one and a half or two minutes. I just remember, that's one of the things I really like about Grand Funk Railroad, is get to the end of a song and they'd just go (guitar sound) and they'd hold it for like five minutes. And just annoy the shit out of everybody. So when I said that to Serafino like that, I knew he was just going to go 'Well we definitely have to cut the end off'. But he didn't. So I said, you know what? I like it too or something and just leave it in there because it sounds like we're in there jamming, which was what we were doing.

It's good fun. I love the ending. You just start spanking the drums and there's this little mini solo in there, there's like this noise.
Yeah, and all this like everybody's like doing like you know (whirring noise). You know like, doing the eighties, you know pull the bar up and....That was one reason I wanted to keep it in too, is because the drumming aspect of it.
I thought well this kind of features me, you know, getting to flail away a little bit. And so I said you know, let's just keep that in there.

Yeah. Good stuff. I mean it's a drummer's record. You're a drummer; it's your record. You should be able to play on it.
You know, I didn't want to do a solo or anything like that, but I just figured well this is the closest thing, the closest I can get to the solo.

The first ballad on the album is track five, "Too Much to Ask".
Right. What a great track that is. That was written during the original sessions that I got together with Kevin Chalfant and Jimmy.
I went over for about three days, over to Chicago in the summertime when Night Ranger had a break from touring and got together with those two. And when you get those two guys in the room together, I'm telling you, boy, stuff starts flying out. Images and great, you know, insight on life and stuff like that. That's where that song came from, is we wanted to write something about..., not so much a love song. We wanted it to be a humanitarian song. You know, and asking that question about... Is it too much to ask? Did I want a better life for my fellow man and my kids, friends? That's where that came from.

Great sentiment.
Yeah, that was fun too. We recorded that at Jimmy's house too, which was really fun to record at Jimmy's house and the Pro Tool system.

I think I've heard that mentioned in the last three interviews I've done.
Pro Tools? Yeah, everybody's getting on that. I didn't want to do that on this record too much though, you know? I was kind of skeptical when we did that at his house. I was like, well, you know, I don't know if I can really get the sound I want and everything like that. But it turned out to be great. Especially when we got to the latter tracks which is like, "The Journey" and some of those other tracks where I got to mess around with the drum sound a bit more and stuff.
So it was fun.

Cool. Now I saw you guys all in action, you and Kevin, of all the places, in the back of a taxi-bus on the way to Liverpool that day. [The day after last year's Gods Festival].
On the back of the bus you guys just started writing a song, and Jimmy's got his recorder in his pocket, then suddenly he's out recording everything....
You know, that was the beginnings of a song that didn't make the record. We didn't actually get to finish it. Actually "The Journey" was one of those songs we wrote over there. Jim had this idea, he was fiddling around with it in church across the street from the hotel we were staying in London.
He brought his tapes with him of course down from Liverpool and brought it out. I thing you're probably going to find some songs on the next Kevin Chalfant record on there too. They were doing a lot of that too. I think "The Journey" was one of those songs, and there was another song. What was it? A song called "You're Everything I Need in a Woman". But that didn't make it on the record. We wrote about three different ideas that turned out to be..., they're going to be songs on future records.

Just to see you guys at work was a privilege. It was just fantastic to see you guys, you know, take any opportunity. Again while we were waiting for a taxi at the Liverpool Docks building in the rain...
People must think like we were like stoned or something!!
Because we were like oblivious to anybody around us. We didn't give a shit, it was like, I've got this idea! Hey it goes (sings some notes).
We were getting goofy with this recorder out in the middle of...I mean sometimes I'd just laugh. I would just laugh because I'd look over at somebody and they'd be like going 'Huh'? Like, what's wrong with these guys? Ah, these bloody Americans. So it was really funny. But at the same time it was energizing.

I was sitting back there in awe, I was just going, I'm in another world.
Wasn't that fun to go to Liverpool, man?

It was a blast. It was really fun, yeah, one of the best days out I have ever had.
Jim's a funny man, isn't he?
Isn't he great?

OK, so "Too Close to the Sun", we're done with "Bottled Up". "Too Close to the Sun", you were referring to the lyrics there before.
Yeah, I was talking about the lyrics. About, Jimmy wrote some really fantastic story ideas on Icarus. I always thought that was such a great story about him flying too high. And it's just kind of, it's so true, you know, how that works in life. We're all trying to get somewhere and sometimes we might take the wrong path. Who knows. Or it might be the right path. But society thinks it's the wrong path. So, I always thought that that was such a great lyric, and that was a song I wrote...another one I was writing in my studio on guitar and ended up keeping the bass tracks and guitar tracks that I originally had done. And it worked out great. And the song didn't change a whole lot from what I had done in the studio. And the melody, the melody was pretty much sound when I sent it to Jim and he tweaked it with lyric and stuff like that. That was another one that Jim wrote all the lyrics to that one and "Before Anyone Knows I'm Gone". He just had such a handle on it there wasn't a thing that I could change. It was so perfect.

Oh, that's cool. I think that musically it sounds a bit like Man in Motion.
Really!? The song "Man in Motion"?

The album, the album.
Oh that's great. I always liked that album. I thought that was a great record. And it never got it's just, fair play. That's when things were changing; at the end of the '80s everybody was like 'well we don't want to play you guys anymore'.
Or whatever was going on. I don't know if it was that. It was just, you know, hey, music changes. That's what I like about pop music, it's always changing and it's very positive. You know, hey, that's what happens.

Now another big rocker. One that keeps turning out to be one of my favorite tracks because it's one of the new ones I'm sort of living with now and that's "Wrong Again".
"Wrong Again"?

Yeah.
That one originally was written by Brad and myself and Gary Moon, when we were writing for the 'Mojo' album. And for some reason when we went to cut the track for the 'Mojo' album, the song just didn't work. Or something, or the producer didn't think it was working because a lot of the new material that we had written, it was kind of, I don't know, it was getting passed up. And I always loved this song.

It's a great song.
And I kept it. I kept it close to me because I just think it's a great song. There's a lot of inspiration in there. And even though it's just a simple little pop lyric in there, there's something in it. There was a great fiery performance in it, with Gary and Brad. So I took the original tracks that we did at Brad's studio in like 1993. Something ridiculously far away like that. See, that's one thing I like doing. I like taking something that was originally good, and building on it. And I think I did that on some of the songs on this record.

Absolutely.
So that one, I kept the original vocals. I kept Brad's performance. And I put new drums on there and I mixed it. I'm kind of weird about that. If I like..., if something sounds good. I don't want to re-record it just because it's like five or six years old. The performances were good. I analyzed it. I sat there for hours and just went 'Is this any good'? And then Brian and I, we had to really work to make the drums work with the old tracks. Because we had cut the track live in Brad's studio so there was no metronome to follow. Nowadays the drummer will cut tracks to a metronome track so that everything will be smooth throughout. Well there was no metronome track on this. So this is where the computer really came into play. Really made that song happen. Because the timing was all over the place. And so when I cut my drums, I had to speed up and slow down and speed up to what was going on like a live performance.
When I got back into the studio it didn't sound good like that. So I made it, we basically..., Brian pulled his genius and made that thing. We sat there and said, OK, this verse is rushing, OK, stop. What can we do. We had to take every single track, individually into the computer and splice it together and made that track groove.

Wow!
I mean it was like..., it was something that took about twelve hours to do. It was like, when we got done with that, we were like looking at each other going (growling noise). Just growling because it was so frustrating. That song would have been done a long time ago. I was kind of, one of those things, like it would have been done in an hour. But just for the fact that we didn't have a metronome, trying to cut to it, just made it really hard. I loved the song so much I really wanted to work and make it happen.

And Gary's vocal sounds great in there.
Doesn't he kick ass!?

Oh, he's awesome.
Gary's always impressed me with his range, his vocal range. Because on some other things that we had written together a long time ago, he can sing down low too. So he's not always singing up in his higher register. So that's something about Gary. He's just a tremendous singer.

In fact he showed us just how low he can sing on the bus on the way back to Liverpool didn't he (laughs)? Do you remember that?
(laughing). I know. Him and Josh singing together, doing that low stuff. Oh my God. I thought they were going to break the windows.

Did you get that on tape?
You know, I think he got some of that. Because throughout Josh was doing that. So I think that they probably recorded it.

Great stuff! All right, "When There is a Woman".
Now that's a song that Jimmy wrote totally by himself. And I had a demo tape of all these songs that Jimmy had written. Like twenty songs. And that one just jumped out at me. I thought, God, if there's any song that I would like to put on my record that I haven't written or that I didn't have any part of in writing, that would be one song I would love to do. And so I just felt an emotional bond with the song. So it was great, going back over there and re-cutting all the tracks with everybody. Using Mike again on guitar and of course Jimmy played keyboards and basses on some of these songs. I'm not sure which one's he played on, I'll have to look at the credits here to see what he played on. But of course working with Jimmy as a producer is really fun. Because he's got so many ideas it's just unbelievable. That was great. That was really fun.

The big anthem of the album, "The Journey".
Yeah, "The Journey". Now getting to that one, that's the one that we wrote in the church over there in London. That was a great little inspiration to have Jim say come on let's go to this church. And he saw this piano back there, well he kind of felt like he was being driven by you know, like I've got to get to a piano and we've got to work on this thing. So we asked the church manager there if we could go and sit down at the piano. And we apologized up and down. Can we do this? He kind of like was looking at us funny because you know, here we are, Americans all dressed in leather or whatever we were wearing. Jim was wearing a leather jacket, I was wearing some jeans or whatever. And he was like OK, but just five minutes. So we went over there and he brought his little recorder and we got the very inspiration, beginning of inspiration for that song down. So we started to get the melodies and all of the chord changes down. Jimmy had a lot of it going already before I came in. So that was really a great, great little thing, was being able to go into that church. Then we actually went back the next day and said, after we had worked on it in the hotel, and said back in there, and the same guy again, 'Oh you guys again!' Are you back again? But he was really nice enough to let us go back in there and do that. Got it down. That was cool.

Some great vocals on that album, but also on that song.
Oh, thank you, thank you. Yeah that was with Jimmy at the helm.
It's really nice to have Jimmy out there listening to you sing because he's such a great singer himself.
Very smooth. Your voice is very smooth on that track.
Yeah, Joe Vana joined us on backgrounds on that.

OK, awesome. That will make a good live track. I hope.
Yeah, we were thinking about doing it for this show, this upcoming show for World's Stage coming up. You know, it's kind of like we're going to have people returning from that last show, which know Jimmy's material off the World's Stage record. So I think it would be better to keep it just to that. So we decided not to do it here. But we are going to do that song "Long Road Home".

Yeah, now that's a great track, isn't it?
I wish you could come to that.

Don't tease me.
Last year was so fun. It was so fun you know, meeting Kevin again. You know I've know Kevin for a long time. But seeing Kevin again and having him come out and do a song. And the audience was so into it and Jimmy's got so many great songs.

Yeah. Hasn't he!?
You know, it was just amazing.

I'll make it my ambition to see the show one day.
I think he's going to be doing this for a while because he's kind of like an icon there in Chicago.

It's just so hard to get anywhere from down here.
I understand. I'd sure love to come down there.

Look, the last track is one I particularly..., now you wrote this all on your own and I'm really envious of the lyrics. I think they're awesome. I think it's a very personal and very sentimental, touching song. I love it.
Which song are we talking?

“The Moon”.
The moon song. Now that song. That was just like one of those kind of songs where I'm just sitting around with my acoustic guitar and strumming and I just started to hum this melody and pretty soon the lyric came and I just..., it's kind of an endearing song. It's a nice song, you know? It's got a beautiful melody to it. And then having that kind of heartbreak lyric in it. But it still has hope to it. It's not totally like loss. That's what I like about the song. It's got both.

It's like a positive song in the face of something, like event that's incredibly negative or whatever.
And then one of my favorite parts to that song is that bass. The bass that plays the melody. The bass guitar, I went to Brian's house and we were trying to make something different out of the song other than just like an acoustic song. I wanted it to be something special. So by having that bass play the melody, which is kind of unusual, I thought that that was a really a nice touch. So we messed around with it in the studio and then I just said, and Brian was going to play, and it was a frett-less bass. And I just said, why don't you just play the melody. What about playing the (hums the melody). So he started messing around with it and so he incorporated his idea in also the melody of the song. So that's how that part came about. Really a great song, and when we put that together with the break in the bridge where the strings come in. A little string quartet comes in and plays. Isn't that great?

I hadn't heard that over the demo and I was like, hang on! What's this!?
I know. Definitely it's nice to be able to take time. I'm going to come back to that. You know because then something special comes out of it. And I'm going to make sure that I do that on any other records that I do in the future. Because you really need to put more of yourself into it, and I think that's what I've done on this record. And I just wanted to really give my all and I'm thankful that I got a chance to do that.

Definitely. It comes through, believe me.
The labels hate me doing stuff like this but I'm going to anyway.
Tell me about the couple of tracks that didn't make it. Particularly the Japan bonus track, "I'm Still Here".
I was disappointed. I had an argument with them about this for not putting it on the album.
No kidding. You know what? You don't know how much I argued about songs.
I tried to get "Here for Thunder", I mean every other day I was like driving them nuts sending an e-mail saying, I really think you should take a look at....
And after a while it was like, don't ask about that song again. Fuck that.
You guys are missing the point here, you know. Get it together. I would get mad at them. You know, we had some arguments. So that was "Here for Thunder", but "I'm Still Here", I don't know why they decided to leave it off.

Yeah, it's off the European. It's a bonus track for Japan.
You know what, they might use it somewhere else. I'm not sure what they have planned. The album they put out last year, they had "Goes" as a demo. They might release it that way or something. I haven't heard them say that but I'm just thinking that they might.

It deserves to be heard by a wide audience.
That's a song that I've had around for a long time. And it just never worked with Night Ranger. I brought it in, you know it just never really worked until I actually got a chance to tear it apart and really make it sound better, and make the parts fit together better. You know I think when I brought it to Night Ranger it really wasn't finished.

Right, OK. It does sound like a Night Ranger tune, that's what I first thought when I heard it.
Yeah, I think it does. I really think it sounds like an earlier Night Ranger song. But at the time when we were writing like Neverland and some of those other songs we were trying to be a little more newer and more current. It's too bad, there's some really good songs on those albums. It's just too bad that we felt like we had to be a ..., to maybe change our style a little bit. I think I'm trying to say, be too hip. I mean even though the albums are great, I think that we should have just did what we did and not worried about it. But, you know, I don't think it would do any good anyway the way radio is. They wouldn't have played anything that we did.

I thought Neverland was extraordinary.
I thought Neverland was a great record. And I thought Seven was great because it had great rock songs. That song "Kong".
I means it's such a tongue-in-cheek song but it's such a fun song. If I ever get the chance to play...

Yeah, I've never heard you sing like that before!
I know. I know, that's kind of what I like. It's cause I got a chance to be, you know..., Paul McCartney used to do that all the time. he used to put on another personality to do what was right for the song. And that song just needed this like, guy that looks like his throat was going to explode out of his chest (laughs).

Tell me. How long did it take you to recover after singing that?
Oh yeah, I definitely couldn't talk very well. But you know who sang with me on there right? You knew that it was Jack Russell.
That was singing with me on that track. That wasn't all me. Jack Russell sang with me on the choruses.

Yeah, that's right.
So that's what gave it that sound. Both of us were like going 'Don't want no...' Pretty fun. But I want to do that song live. If I go over to the Gods festival, I'm going to do some of these songs I've been wanting to do off of...you know, I'm going to take one song off of Neverland, one song off of Seven, and some old Night Ranger songs and then do some Kelly Keagy songs.

Very cool.
It would kill. You better make us headline baby. Because we'll kill. You know what I'm saying!? And then I'll bring Jimmy Peterik along just to like smile, looking at me and go, yeah you think that was good, huh? Check this out. Jimmy's got a few songs in his back pocket he'd like to play for you. It's like shit, man. Stack the deck here.

That was pretty funny wasn't it?
Oh, wasn't it great? I mean they love Jimmy over there.

They loved all of him. The crowd. The Two Fires set brought the night down. It was just awesome.
It was really fun. It was fun seeing Serafino dancing (laughs). I was like looking over and Serafino was dancing and I was like 'Holy Shit'! We must be good (laughs). I don't think that was the best performance that that band had ever done but I think it was a fun performance.

It was a lot of fun.
Plus in the situation, Kevin was just like so sick. His back was so out of it. That's too bad. Hopefully he'll get to come back this year and do it again.

Fantastic. Look I could pretty much go on talking to you all day about Night Ranger and stuff but this is actually a Kelly Keagy interview so we should stick that.
I know. Keep breaking off to that band.

I mean I've been a fan of Night Ranger since, I think the first track I ever heard was "Interstate Love Affair".
Oh yeah. No kidding! A movie soundtrack right?

It was. It was on the Teachers wasn't it? Or something like that?
I think it was on Teachers, yeah.

It's the first time I ever heard you, that's what got me into you guys.
That's funny you mention that song because we had just been toying with adding about five new songs in the set for the summer tour and that was one of them on the list.

Absolutely. You know, like I said, I'm side tracking again but my favorite Night Ranger album is Big Life.
Big Life, yeah. I like that record.

That had a unique sound.
I really liked that record. I liked working with David Foster, was really fun. Such a great producer. He got to get in there and play with us a little bit too on keyboards and stuff. That was really fun.

This is a funny thing. I've never heard any song from Big Life live.
When we toured on that album we played "Rain Comes Crashing Down", we played, I think it was on there. We played "Big Life". The song "Big Life" live. What else did we play? Oh we definitely played "The Secret of My Success".

I'd love to hear that live. It's one of my favorites.
That song, we're going to rework that song for live this summer.

Awesome. And the other one I love is "Color of Your Smile".
Oh, yeah. You know we did a video on that song.

Did you?
Yeah, it never got released. When Night Ranger..., when I was just out two weeks ago doing a show in California, this old friend of ours came up and had all of our videos on a VHS. And he goes, here. I looked at it and I was like 'Oh my God!' There's this song, "Color of Your Smile". I was like flipped out. I was like 'Holy Shit', I can't believe that I remember that.

You guys have never done a VHS of clips. Never did a video of clips did you? Just a couple of live ones.
Yeah. We did that, what is the name of it, it was like Seven Wishes Live.

Yeah. That's right.
Is that what you're talking about?

Yeah.
And there was another. There was some other live performance that we did in Japan. And then somebody filmed a show we did in our hometown in San Francisco on New Years Eve on the Seven Wishes tour. It was like the last show on New Years Eve.

I'd love to see some video clips one day. I'll have to see if anyone's got them over there.
Do you know how to convert over to...

Yeah a buddy of mine's got a player that plays both.
No kidding. Because I want to put some of those things on my site.

Oh yeah, he's doing that for me. Because I'm doing video clips online.
Yeah, really? Well maybe if you can convert some of those things over we'll coordinate it and put it on both of our sites.

Absolutely.
Any thing else you want to add Kelly?
Nah, I think that we pretty much covered it. I think this was a real fun interview to do.

Yeah, me too! Thank you!
No, I think that I spewed my mouth off enough. I think I'm done (laughs).

Fantastic. On that note I'll leave it.
It was good to talk to you man.

 

Thanks for calling, great to talk to you again.
Yeah, Rindell gave me a heads up yesterday, said we were going to finally do this, you know. I've been putting this off because I thought it would be better to do like sometime before the record was coming out...it kept on getting pushed back.

Is there any way I can get a little more volume out of your phone?

Possibly. You can't hear me real well?
Not that well.

OK. Now I can hear you pretty well. Maybe its just a case of redialing or...
<break>
That's definitely what it is, it's a bit of my tinitus.

So the years of standing next to an amplifier have taken there toll?
That and a lot of the symbols, you know, symbols are like really loud when you get drummers up on risers, you know, the sound comes right down directly at your ears. And, you know, loud motorcycles <laugh>, loud guitars and loud motorcycles.

You ride do you?
Yeah

Where about, just around your home there?
Yeah, well, you know, I go for a longer ride sometimes with friends, you know, we'll go...I've driven to LA before and back, you know, up to Lake Tahoe, and you know, just down to Hollister, CA, I mean it just depends. I can go scootin' around here just to get some air or I can take a longer ride.

Nice and relaxing.
Yeah, very relaxing .

Absolutely. So Arrival is now actually getting released in America. How amazing is that?
Well, its been a long time coming. I mean I think we've been done with this thing, besides the two extra tracks that we recorded just a bit ago, we've been done with it close to a year now.

Really? That long?
Well, not quite, but it feels like it is.

Yeah, I reckon. I mean it's been 6 months since Japan got it isn't it? How do you feel finally about that now?
Well, you know what, I think it's a good record and we're ready to go tour and we're ready to support it and, you know, that's about it, that's all I can really feel right now. It's not even out over here yet and, you know, there's quite a few fans that have bought the Japanese version of it and they seem to like the material live in Japan when we just played there so we're looking forward to just touring and having some fun with it.

Yeah, It's a great album. I think people will re-buy the American version.
Yeah. Well you haven't heard the other two tracks.

No, no.
I wanted to get it to you. I remember the fax that you had...the e-mail that you had sent me and, you know, I don't even have a copy of the songs.

Really?
We like said to each other, OK, when we finish those two songs we're not...none of us are getting copies, and no one at the label are getting a copy. Nobody's getting it until it comes out.

That's cool. Therefore no one gets an advanced preview right?
Yeah, well, I felt like after all the Napster, you know, the thing that happened with the record, that's the least we could do is have a couple of surprises for people that didn't buy the record yet.

Napster's just about shut down, what's your whole take on it looking back now?
Well, you know what, I have to say that, you know the whole ordeal with us with Napster was pretty shocking in the beginning, that they had gotten it from, you know, one of the execs at Sony, and it was passed on through somebody in Europe and, you know, we were all shocked. I mean, the record was just done it wasn't going to be out for months and here it was all over Napster. I mean I knew that once the record would come out it would be all over Napster like everything else is, and then I had my feelings about that too. I felt that it wasn't a bad thing but the artists do need to receive a residual and so do the companies, you know? I mean its just like, you just can't get stuff for free like that when there's artists involved; this is how we make our living. So, you know, I think until they come up with something, you know, I've been reading about it everyday in the paper, it seems they've appointed like a mediator to come in between the companies and Napster to try to come up with some sort of solution and I think that's going to be difficult to come up with, you know, the exact solution. They'll come up with maybe some basic solution and something to work immediately but then I think its going to have to be modified as time goes on. But I think that they, you know, the attorneys have spent enough money, the companies have spent enough money that they will definitely think about that before they close the books on the first mediation sessions.

As a band, did you guys do anything to try to get the tracks removed off of Napster or try and limit the damage?
You know, there wasn't much that we could do. Once they have it, they have it. You know, the label was upset about it. I was initially upset about it then I just said well, you know what, there's nothing you can do about it, and then I just started reading, like you and I have correlated before, I started reading the reviews on the record and it was something that actually worked in our favor I feel at this point.
We got to read the pre-reviews from our fans and what they thought of the record and, you know, a lot of them said the same thing that I was saying when we were in the studio, that, you know, it was a great record but it would've been greater with another couple of rock tracks. Or just more evened out as a record, you know, with ballads vs. rockers. And so, I think that all-in-all in the end that it worked for us.

Yeah, I think it might have as well. I certainly feel the same way, I mean it's a fantastic album and I think it's your best sounding album, but yeah, a couple of rock tracks is great.
What did the band feel, what were you talking about when you gathered again in the studio? Were you all in favor of re-recording a couple of tracks?
Well you know what, it all started from me. I started the whole fire. You know, I went on our web site and I started talking about, you know, everybody was asking what ever happened to "World Gone Wild" and this other song "Good Times" that we were playing live and then all of a sudden we weren't playing it, and then it wasn't on the record because John Kalodner didn't OK it and Kevin had never heard it and so everybody was asking about the song, "Why is this not on the record, I can't believe it didn't go on the record." So I started a fire basically on the web site and I said, "How many people would like to hear this and how many people would like to hear this sort of a song and what do you think if we added it to the record" and everybody came back almost like 100%, yeah do it. And so once I got the fire started then I got on the phone with management, then I talked to everybody in the band and basically twisted arms real good and then we went back in the studio and did it.

Lets start with the recording of the album. When you first got to the studio for the first time, did you have the songs written or did you right before you went to the studio?
No, we wrote the songs, we were prepared before we went to the studio. We actually wrote for like two years.

Yeah, it's been a while hasn't it?
Yeah, we had been writing for some time, you know. It was like, quite a bit of material was sitting there before we went into the studio. Actually, there was enough for another record, and then everything went down to our A&R guy, John Kalodner. He listened to it all and he picked his favorite tunes and then he sent his favorite tunes to Kevin Shirley and that's what we recorded at that time.

How do you feel about, you know, do you have to go through Kalodner to get the budget approved or whatever?
I think that's the way business works these days. I would love it to be more amicable between the band and our A&R guy though, and John, you know, in the future - if there is a future - you know, that we can sit down at a table and we can talk about what our needs are and what his needs are. I mean obviously they want to have some stuff that they can get played on the radio, and so do we. It's not like we've never paid attention to that.

Exactly. You're a very commercial band.
When Herbie was managing us everything's changed quite a bit. In the beginning, you know, we pretty much wrote all of our own material, and we orchestrated all of our own material and we went into the studio and we played live and then we gave it to the record company. They never really heard it before it was done. And that was a clause that Herbie had put into our old contract with the label, that we would have total artistic control. And somehow when the new contract came about, that clause was not, you know, in there any longer. And so we had to go through different channels and this is just the way business is right now.

Well, you'd think with a band with your track record, they would be a little more trustworthy don't you think?
I would like to hope so, yes. I think they were very worried though because it's a new record, you know, with a new lineup and they wanted to make sure. But I think that also we wanted to make sure as well, so I wasn't really worried about it.

How did you go towards picking a producer? Was Kevin Shirley just such a success from Trial By Fire that you thought, we'll do it again?
You know, we got along really well with Kevin during Trial By Fire and I really think he was a big fan of the band, and we became very close just friend-wise as well as musically, and he became a good friend of the band and it just felt like a natural thing to do.

Was the feeling the same during the recording of Arrival?
Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I mean, the only thing that I kept saying that everybody got sick of was like, you know, we can't have all of these ballads on this record. And then Kevin will turn around and he'll say well, you know, look whose names are on the ballads. And yeah, I did write a lot of music on this album with Jon and everybody else this time, a lot of ballads and a lot of rock too, but I had no idea that, you know, they'd pick every ballad that all of us wrote, you know what I'm saying? Actually I was figuring, like, if I wrote three ballads or co-wrote on three ballads that, you know, maybe one or two would make it or one would make it and the other two wouldn't, so I mean I felt like overwriting like having more than enough material was better than just having enough.
Then you could pick the best stuff and leave the other stuff behind.

There's quite a different sound on Arrival than there was to Trial By Fire. I actually thinks it's one of the best produced albums you've ever recorded, what do you think?
I think it sounds really great myself. It definitely sounds like the band and it sounds like us live, and that's basically what we did do. We went back to playing live like we always have. Journey has never really gone into the studio, with the exception of a few songs, and ever cut like rhythm tracks, or like laid down the drums and a bass and a rhythm guitar and then go back and overdub. We always just go in and play live, and I play live solos and then I go back and put rhythm guitars on later. Or if I need to clean up the rhythm guitars, I'll do that later, as opposed to, you know, a lot of different producers like to work different ways but I know for myself it's better to catch me live as far as soloing and stuff like that and actually jamming with the band.

Well the record certainly does sound live.
Well it is.

I just think the sound of the album overall is just fantastic, are you happy with the way it turned out?
Oh yeah. Yeah I think it sounds great.

Lets maybe go through the tracks on the album and just get your thoughts on it now that you've had a bit of time to live with them. "Higher Place"?
"Higher Place" was something that I had written a long time ago, I mean actually the music and, you know, we hadn't really done anything with it. I had the music sitting up at Jonathan's and we hadn't really worked on it. And we were running out of time and he was busy doing some other things and so at the last minute I had grabbed the remainder of my rock stuff that we didn't get to and I went up to Jack Blade's house and it was really the first time that Jack and I had ever written together and worked together and, you know, that was what came out of our first day of working together.

That's pretty incredible for a first day's work.
Yeah. I had all the music basically then, you know, I mean we tossed around a few melodies and he wrote most of the lyrics and then, there it was, you know?

Amazing. You two make a great partnership if I do say so.
Thank you.

Yeah. I want to see some more work.
Well, you know, we have a natural thing going on you know, Jack and I. I mean every time we get together and we write something… we actually just co-wrote something for Ozzy Osbourne.

Oh great.
I have no idea what it sounds like now because he's re-recorded it, but the initial demo that I sent, or that we sent, I thought was awesome.

Fantastic. Ozzy Osbourne heavy, that's what I like the sound of.
Well its funny, you know, I don't get a chance to play that type of heavy guitar all the time so I was hoping he was going to leave it on the record, and then at the last minute, I think Sharon came in. He loved it apparently. Jack told me that Ozzy loved it and he loved my playing on the actual demo, and, you know, Jack for a week straight, Jack was calling me, and he kept saying "He loves this and I think he's going to use the demo and re-do the drums and bass or something."
I said wow that's cool. And then at the last minute I think Sharon came in and it was going to be a...I think he wanted to add it to his record as well, this was for some interactive game he has coming out.

Who was that that wanted to add the track?
Sharon his wife.

OK, Sharon, yeah, sorry - sure.
Yeah, she I guess got involved because she manages him, you know that.

Yes...
And wanted to add it to the record as well I heard. But who knows, I mean this is just hearsay from me. I don't know the real bottom line of the deal… what it's gonna be, but Zakk Wylde came in and I think he replaced almost every guitar that I did. She had him re-do everything, and so, I haven't heard it yet.
But I think that he's a great guitar player and so I'm sure he did it justice.

Sure. What about "All The Way"? You described it earlier as a bubblegum song.
Well, you know, this is no mystery for anybody who knows me and has known me for a long time, that I'm more in to... I'm not a pop meister. You know what I mean? I mean we do play pop music but, I mean, always my role in Journey, except for on a few little occasions here and there, is to play like a really melodic solo over Jonathan Cain's songs, like "Faithfully" or "Who's Crying Now".
My role in the band is always to bring in the ass kickin' rock. And, so, this is what I do naturally and this is what I love to do naturally, even though I do melodic work very well and I realize that now, and it's something that I just added to my, you know, overall picture of everything, of how I look at music and what I like to play on, and so this was one of the more popier songs on our record and, you know, I mean I co-wrote it with the guys, but still in the end, I wasn't certain about it, you know?
But I think it's a good song though, I think that Kevin, you know, twisted it up a bit and he had me play some mandolins on it and some different instrumentation like that, that really made it come from a little bit different place.
Before the mandolins were on it, I really was not sure about it. But now when I hear it, I think it's a good song.

Oh it is. It's a great ballad. Absolutely. "Signs of Life" is one of my favorite tracks on the album.
That was actually one of the first tracks that Jon and I worked on when we got back together. We started writing for a new record when we didn't know if we were going to have a band or not.

This is after the Perry departure?
This was after we were just in, you know, we didn't know what we were going to do. The band was basically in hiatus, he had hurt himself, and we didn't know what was up. You know, I had nothing to do at the time and Jon didn't know what to do, and I said why don't we just start writing.

Actually, I think that's about the time that I interviewed Jon last time, yeah.
I said, why don't we start writing, I mean, you know, maybe Steve will decide that he wants to come back, maybe he won't, but at least when we decide what we're going to do, and we figure out what's going on, we won't be starting right at the beginning again. So I felt that we used the time wisely and we just started writing right away and we started compiling material.

Any other songs of that era that made the record?
Yeah. There is actually. "All the Things" was one of the earlier tracks that I worked on with Jon. "Signs of Life", "All the Things"...

Yeah. Absolutely, we'll run down them. On "All the Things", that is just a wicked guitar solo you've got going there.
Actually, you know what, it's a good guitar solo but the one that I played on the demo, I thought was even better.

Really?
Yeah. I just - it was like, you know, off the cuff and I always play the best when I'm not thinking and it's like usually the first take for me when I'm completely blind with what I'm going to do. And then I have to go back and try to copy it, you know, or reproduce it, you know what I'm saying, after that. And it never comes out quite as good. I thought definitely in that song, that was the case.

It's a wonderfully heavy, basic blues riff isn't it?
Yeah. I wasn't really sure about that song.

Really?
You know, when we did it, I mean, I liked it, but I wasn't sure that it was a Journey song, you know? You know, it's sort of like, that's been the consensus of people now that I've heard the record too, from what I can gather, I think it's really more of a live song, than it is a record song.

It sounds like a Hardline song, actually.
Yeah. Easily. You know, those are a lot of my riffs and ideas as well as on all the Hardline stuff. You know, I wrote a lot of those heavy riffs.

And it shows a great side of Steve's voice doesn't it on the record?
Yeah, definitely. He's a chameleon, Mr. Augeri has a lot of different things he can do and personally I think one of the best songs for him vocally on a record is like "Kiss Me Softly". I really like his R&B inflection.

Yeah. Let's talk about that track. Another Jack Blades track. You and him?
This was, you know, Jack and I were sort of on a roll at this point and we had written like four or five tunes, and, you know, I just went up to his house and we were writing every day. And I didn't really have anything in mind, and I started playing this riff that I was messin' around with, for months and I actually pictured it much heavier, the same guitar riff that it opens up with, you know, but it was much faster, and it was heavier.
And so I was explaining it to Jack and he just went back and he hit like this loop that he had, this R&B loop that sort of sounded almost like a seal R&B loop on a drum. And then, you know, he goes, "Try playing that against this". And so I played the riff, and then all of a sudden, I was playing really clean Stratty like guitar, sort of like "Walks Like a Lady" type clean Strat tones, and we just went with it that way.
And, you know, by the end of the day, we had a completed song, and we sent the DAT out to Steve, and then Steve messed with it a bit more and he changed a few of the melodies on the front. He actually sang everything in a lower register.
I had written different melodies originally and he used pretty much the same phrasing, and he lowered everything and he sang it sort of in this low sexy type thing, you know? I was really happy with what I heard when it came back; I thought that he did a really great job on it.

It's really a neat song. It's a real change of sort of angle isn't it? While remaining flowing with the rest of the album, it's just a little something different.
Well, you know, I think it's important that we move in different directions. In the future I would like to even, you know, be more experimental like, you know, I love the time period in the band when we were doing Frontiers and Escape; I mean we were really experimenting a lot. I think now is not the time to be really, really safe all the time. You know what I mean? Everybody knew we needed to get our foot in the door with this record and just make people aware that we are working, we've got a working entity here, we are gonna tour, and that we can make music again, you know? I'm just hoping that the next stuff we work on, everybody's got an open mind to be a bit more experimental and try to go in to some new directions.

Talking of something like that, I love, I think "Living To Do" could've come off of Late Night.
Thank you. Yeah. It was something that my father and I had written a lot of the chords before he passed away. It was a couple of years before he passed away, and it was one of the last things that him and I sat down on a piano and we were playing together and I've got a couple still in my head that we wrote that I've never done anything with yet and they're probably going to pop out somewhere. I was like…I woke up one morning and I remembered all the stuff that we were doing in that song, and I was going up to Jonathan's to write and Kim Tribble was out, the lyricist that we worked with, on that song, and went up to Jon's and I just started playing it. I said I've got this bluesy idea and before the day was out, that song was sitting there. We really didn't change much at all in the studio on that one from the demo.

It's the first time I've heard that guitar sound I think since Late Night, it was great.
Well it's more of a blues inflection for me, you know?

Absolutely, Absolutely. It's a great track.
"I'm Not That Way" got left off of the American release...
Yeah, this is another one of the songs that I brought into the band.
You know, I brought in all the chords and originally I was playing it on acoustic guitar and it had more of a Sting feel to it. And in the end it ended up sounding more like a Backstreet Boys thing to me, I don't know. I think that we missed it a little bit on that song. Even though it turned out well, I think that we missed the boat on that one a bit. And, I think it's a good song; I still think it's a great song, but I would've preferred it to be done a different way and I think that it was smart, you know, removing that one from the record at this point.

To me, it sounded a little bit like, "It's Just the Rain" from Trial by Fire.
Yeah. I mean we needed some uplifting stuff, you know what I mean. We didn't need another slow song. I'm talkin' tempo, I'm going, you know, we've got a lot of same tempos here, we need some up tempo, up tempo, you know?
I think that we made the wise move there.

Now the record goes out on a great song with "We Will Meet Again". I really liked the drum sound. Where did the drum rhythm come from?
Well, you know, it started a long time ago. I came up with the drum riff and Deen changed it. He changed it into his own thing. Then we changed the whole song around, with the addition of the piano to it and Steve's melodies that he put on it.
It just blossomed into a very cool song. We were playing it live in Japan and it was just a great song to play live. It actually jams a bit more live than it does on the record.

How are you finding working again with Deen?
I love Deen. Besides being a phenomenal drummer he's a phenomenal singer and he really adds a lot vocally in this band.

Awesome. And how do you find the lineup on stage these days compared to the old lineup?
Well, you know, it's different, it feels different, but if feels great. It's a bit more rocky, everything seems to rock a little more with Deen. You know, you can't take anything away from Steve Smith, he's an amazing drummer, and Deen will be the first guy to tell you that. It feels different, but it feels good.

Steve Augeri, really, I don't think you could've picked a better singer.
Yeah, I think...you know what...<laugh> I've got a friend over here that's delivering a Buddha right now, in my garden <laugh>. That's awesome. Hold on one second Andrew.

Sure, sure.
<talking to another person> He's like, come down here.

Where's he from?
It's Michael Carabello, my friend the conga player from Santana. He's getting me a birthday present, a concrete Buddha in my garden.

Lovely! A Buddha! When's your birthday Neal?
It's February 27. There's a bunch of birthdays in this last month. Jonathan's is the 26th, I believe his wife's is the 22nd or 23rd, and Rindell, our tour manager, was at the beginning of the month, Steve Augeri's was at the beginning of the month. February was full of birthdays.

Well happy birthday for the other week!
Well thank you.

All right. Tell me, what songs didn't make the album then? How many have you got left over that you actually recorded?
You know what, I really haven't counted, but there's quite a few.

That many? <laughs> Not two or three or anything?
Yeah, and some really good stuff as well.

OK. Any plans for it?
You know what, when it gets around time and we get done with the tour, when we start thinking about putting another record together, we'll have to go back through and decipher that and sort of skim through everything and see what lives and what doesn't. But I think it's good stuff even if it doesn't end up being Journey material I think that it does have life somewhere else.

About a year or two years ago you shopped a demo with Steve Augeri and you gave it to your friends to listen to. Was that right?
Oh yeah, we let people listen to it and they thought it sounded great.

How many tracks was on that?
We had recorded "Remember Me" and it was a few others. There was about four or five songs.

OK. I just wondered if there were any songs on there that didn't make the album?
Yeah, there was probably...I can't remember exactly what was on there, to tell you the truth, it's been a while. Jonathan might be able to tell you, he would probably remember.

OK. So what are the chances of you and Jack Blades doing a record?
Well you know what, we've got some really great material that I actually wrote for Journey that we didn't end up using that I was dumbfounded at, actually I thought it was really a lot of the stuff we were missing elements of, you know.
And Kevin, I guess, didn't hear it, the material, he didn't think it was what we needed. Although I thought it was what we needed and what I wanted to do, you know. So there's some great stuff sitting there and I think I'm going to sit on it a while more cause Steve Augeri has added to it and he's actually co-written some of the stuff with us now and he put vocals on it and it sounds wonderful.
So I'm going to sit on it for a bit and wait and see what happens when we go back in to do another record. If it doesn't make it at that point, then I'd have to say, yeah, that Jack and I are going to do something with it. Obviously we'll get a different singer to sing it.

Maybe Jack? Or maybe you and Jack?
Well, you know, I was thinking actually, if we were going to do something like that, Jack can sing, I can sing, and, you know, we can use Deen on drums and he can sing all the high stuff.

That'd be cool. I want to see that recorded.
Yeah, well it's not going to sit there forever I can tell you that because I think the stuff is smokin'.

Awesome. But there's no immediate plans?
I want to sit on it for a little bit. It sounds like it's the type of material that's not going to get old really fast.

Yeah. Now you're an all right singer, when are we going to get to hear you on lead vocals again?
You know what, I'm ready to open my mouth again and start singing. I really am. I'm just completing two records right now.

What are you working on?
I've got two solo projects that I've been finishing, and they're both instrumental records. One is, of all things, this is for Higher Octave, so I came up with this idea a while ago because I was well overdue to give them another record and they started calling and said, "We'd really like to get another record, you were supposed to have one like a year ago, or two years ago, you know, we haven't gotten one since Electric World", and I'm like, Oh man I'm so busy, what can I do? And so the first thing that popped into my head, I was like so what if I do a record of all, the biggest hit ballads of all time.

Really?
Yeah. And so they ran it by everyone at the company and they ran it by Virgin because Virgin distributes them and they all loved the idea.

What kind of tracks do you have on there?
I did "Caruso" by Andrea Bocelli, and it's a great version of it. I did "Hero" by Mariah Carey and it's rippin' guitar, it's not a little jazz record. It's not supermarket music or K-Mart music, or elevator music, is what I'm trying to say. It's actually very bold, screamin', singin' guitar. "Hero" sounds amazing I think. I think they all sound really good. I've got "Hero", and then I did Roberta Flack, "Killing Me Softly", and I did Bryan Adams, "Everything I Do, I Do it For You", I did Shania Twain, "From this Moment", I just did "Our Love Goes On (The Titanic Theme)", which is like ripping. And these were all very challenging songs to do, if you can imagine, because they've got amazing vocals on them, first of all; so I have to sort of simulate this vocal without sounding like elevator music, so you can't really just play the melody on the guitar. You have to dig into the melody, find the melody, and then you have to do your own thing to it. For the most part I'm really happy with the way everything has turned out. Now I only have one song left to do and I'm doing a Leon Russell song, "Your Song", but I'm doing a Ray Charles version of it.

Ray Charles, great stuff.
Yeah, Ray Charles does an amazing version of this with orchestration, so it's a really well orchestrated record and its actually just myself and Gary Siramelli and he is like this amazing programmer and he basically did all the strings, he did everything, the drums, the bass, everything, on the computer. And I could just not believe how good they sounded when I heard it back. What was the other song the Andrea Bocelli had that was a big single?

I don't recall the name.
It has an Italian title. I can't remember the name of the song, but I did that one as well.

Hey, I need some music for my...actually, I've got to congratulate you here in a minute, but I'm getting married in January, so I need some music and this sounds ideal.
Wow! Cool! This record will be out by then.

When's it due?
It's going to be done very shortly. They're going to stick it out pretty quick here. The going title I have for this record right now is called, Voice. It's basically, my guitar is the voice on all these songs. And then the other one that I'm just finishing right now too, is more of a techno fusion type record, and it's very cool. I've got Omar Akeem flying out here next week to put on drums, and this one is a bit more jammin', you know, there's like some jammin' guitar on this record. I don't really know what the title of this record is going to be yet. I'm thinking of calling it Playground.

What label is that for?
That's for Higher Octave as well. I had some time off here and I owe them three more records, so I figured I'd knock out a couple while I had some time off and that's what I've done.

Nice to have the talent around to do that.
Well, you know what, it was a lot of work. My playing is the least work out of everything, I mean I have to sit there and mess with it and end up being happy with it until I'm happy, I'm not going to let it slide. Igor Lynn did this record, so what I did, I found two of the greatest guys that do this sort of work where they build the tracks and everything, which takes a lot of time, and I hired them both at the same time and got them working on two separate projects. Then at the end, they're both getting done about the same time and I just come in and I play on everything. Then we move things around if things are not working. It's a great way to work man, I love Pro Tools.

Yeah, everyone raves about that program.
It's a really wonderful way of thinking and working. One of the records I made right downstairs at my house in a bedroom. It's amazing and it sounds huge.

You're getting married very shortly? Congratulations.
Yeah. I'm getting married this month (April) on the 28th.

Great stuff. Congratulations.
Thank you.

Where are you getting married?
In Minneapolis. I've got Prince's old band The Power Generation, most of the people from that are playing at it.

That's nice. A nice wedding band! <laughs>
Yeah, Michael Bland and his band.

Hey, can I hire you guys to play at mine?
I'd love to say yes, but I really don't want to start playing weddings <laughs>

I could never afford it.
You can use our records though.

You guys did play a wedding though last year didn't you? Whose was that?
Oh man, I can't even remember. I tried to forget about that, because I couldn't believe that I was doing it. It was for quite a bit of money and this guy was this big, you know...

I heard he had some money.
He had a lot of money. I mean he flew us down in Lear Jets and flew us back in Lear Jets, it was all pretty incredible.

I couldn't offer you that.
Actually, Rod Stewart played at it, we played at it, REO played at it, and I think one other guy...I can't remember his name...a guitar player/songwriter.

Have you got the support of Sony for this? Are you pretty happy with their support, do you think?
We're going to find out here. I think they've got a lot to work with and I hope they don't blow it.

Me too.
I know they won't blow it and I'm really not worried about it because I'll tell you what's going to happen. As soon as we hit the road, that's when it's going to start picking up, I really believe that. And "Behind the Music" has helped already.

Really? I heard it was a great show. People are saying it's one of the best ever.
It was a good show...I would've liked to have seen more of some of the other members of the band in it. I thought it was mostly the Steve Perry story. But I think that in the end, it was all a very positive thing for everyone, and the ratings of the show were very high. As soon as the show came out, our catalog just went nuts.

Really? That's great. Steve Perry's last words on the show left everyone shaking their head, what was up with that?
You know what, I have no idea what was up with that, and that's what everybody said on the show. I said it on the show, I said I don't know how you can not feel a part of something that you're completely controlling.

Tell me this. You guys were out on the road on the Raised On Radio tour and you were playing two Steve Perry solo tracks in your set. How is that not being a part of the band?
Yeah, I'd like to know that myself, I don't know.

How did you feel about playing "Strung Out" and "Oh Sherry" in the set?
You know what, to be quite honest about it, I did it because we had played one of my songs off of the record I did with Jan Hammer; we were playing "No More Lies". So I very well couldn't say, "No I don't want to play something from your solo record", because I had already done the same thing.

I didn't know that.
But I would've preferred to have just played Journey material.

This time around there are so many songs to choose from, are you just going with the hits and the best tracks off the new album?
Actually, no. We're digging back into a lot of our old material as well.
Before we went to Japan, we rehearsed for a couple of weeks, and we worked up all kinds of stuff. Sort of wiped the webs off everything and refreshed it and brought it up to date. We're digging back into the past and then we're digging into more of our obscure rock songs, and we're updating them. You know, when we played in Japan, we played a different set every night.

Yeah, I heard that. Rindell said that.
We're going to be doing that more in the States and we're even going to be mixing it up more so.

Great. What about playing outside the states? Have you go any plans at all at this point?
Well, you know what, we need to get offers. We definitely...we played Japan, we played Central America, and we had a blast doing both of those. We would love to come to Europe, we'd love to come to Australia, but we need to get offers from promoters.
Before we can do something like that, and preferably what I'd love to do...I mean I've been to Europe before and I've played the little theaters tour, and that would be all right to do that, there's nothing wrong with playing smaller places and that's not where I'm coming from, that I don't want to do that, but you end up losing your ass, money-wise, doing that. I'd prefer if there's some big festival, like rock festivals going on, where there's a lot of bands...I want to get in front of a lot of people. If we come over, I would love to get in front of a lot of people and just do an ass-kicking set, and not play a bunch of small venues.

What about a club/pub tour - something on a smaller scale?
The only thing, the only problem is, there's not much money in it, and it gets very expensive to load all the equipment, and road crew, it's just expensive bringing everybody like that when you're playing very small places and you're not big.
You end up losing a lot of money. Which, at this point, we really can't afford to do as a band.

What about doing a stripped down tour, just you guys and your guitars and jut picking up stuff there.
Well that's a possibility, you know, I've been talking with everyone about that, there's definitely...I don't need to bring all my stuff. I can rent gear and I can still get away with that, there's no big problem.. I think we can all do that. But we have to get an offer on the table so we can all look at it, so management can look at it and we can say yeah or nay.

You guys would love to play the UK, I guess? Have you got any firm plans, other than the US at this point?
No. Not really, we've got like about close to three months worth of dates I just saw yesterday in the US and that's it for right now. The tour is now is with John Waite, Peter Frampton, and us.

Tell me, you've just jumped into my next question, John Waite, what's happening there? Is he going to join the tour?
Yeah.

That's awesome I think.
Yeah, he's decided that he's in.

Too cool...
You know, I kind of started a rumor on our web site to see what kind of excitement it would generate from our fans. I'd have to say most of them were very excited about it. So a lot of them weren't crazy about my idea, I had an idea about John Waite opens the show, Peter Frampton plays, we play, and then John comes back on and plays with us at the end of the night and we play some Bad English songs, and our fans went, "No, I think that Journey should close the show, Waite should not close the show with you guys, but it would be great to see you guys play with him in his set, at the end of his set." So I went, that's a pretty cool idea.
So once again, using our web site and the Internet you can get it first hand from what your fans think you know.

It's a great medium isn't it.
I love it.

Yeah. I remember, I think I was the first one, I was talking to Jonathon, I was talking to Rindell, I was the first one to put online that Steve Perry was officially out, and I got absolutely abused and shit-canned for it.
Yeah, well that's a touchy subject. Ever since "Behind the Music" came out, I mean all kinds of people have different feelings about that show. All I can tell you is that it is just the topping of the ice burg, that show.

Really?
I mean, they didn't want to make a big controversial show even though it was sitting there. You know, they had interviewed Herbie Herbert, they had interviewed Irving Azoff, a lot of us, you know, were tied and gagged and were not able to talk because of contracts we had signed with each other. But I'd have to say that a lot of this stuff, they could easily do a Part 2, and a lot of it got left on the floor, a lot of the real stuff people want to know about.

Really? Was there more to the Steve departure than just his hip then?
Well, no, I'm not going to say that, I mean who knows what the real reason was, but there were a whole lot of logistics that were not gotten into, and pros and cons about a lot of things.

Yeah. But I think you guys have picked up and done the right thing, you know, you can't sit around so long and wait. I think you've got a wonderful singer working for you now.
Well, you know, that was one thing in the show that caused a lot of controversy, in one section it said we waited months for him. And I called up the producer and I said months? Are you kidding? We waited years. We waited ten years and then we got back together and then it was close to two years.
We asked for a commitment from him, we just said, "Do you want to do this or do you not want to do it, we'll wait for you if you do want to do it, if you'll commit to it", "No, I can't commit to it, and I can't commit to doing my operation", and so at one point Jon and I turned around to each other and just said, look, we could be sitting here forever, I mean, do you want to move on, or do you not? And I said, we've got nothing to lose at this point. We had already rebuilt this thing somewhat, and I want to continue doing it.

You guys auditioned, or thought about a couple of singers - you only auditioned a couple - one of which was a bigger name. I really couldn't see it working, but you must tell me, describe how it sounded, with Geoff Tate from Queensryche?
Yeah, he was a really great guy, a super nice guy, we got along really well.
We ended up writing a song, but it sounded nothing like Journey.
You know, and a lot of people are like, you know, I'm reading...I haven't posting anything on our site because there's so much heat and commotion going on there right now, and everybody's feelings about Perry being gone and the new singer Steve Augeri and how he's just a copy of Perry and blah, blah, blah.
Naturally, we had to get someone, because most of our music was based around Steve's vocals. It was not like Van Halen where everything was based around my guitar playing. It would've been much easier had it been like that, just to pick up somebody completely new that didn't sound anything like Perry.
But years ago when I heard Steve Augeri's voice when he was in Tall Stories, I said, this is when I was in Bad English years ago, and I heard him on the radio and I go, man if we ever wanted to put Journey back together, and Steve Perry didn't want to do it, I would call this guy, because I know we could make it sound like Journey.
It's nothing verbatim you're trying to copy everything this guy has done, but you need to have someone that has similarities to be able to pull off the old material.

Of course.
Because basically, that's what our fans want to hear, all the greatest hits, and then they want to hear everything up and above that. And how would you do it with someone that can't even sing that stuff? So that's the whole reasoning.
I mean people are like, some people are pissed off that we got someone that sounds like Steve, but I just know that there was no other way.

Yeah. I think if you go back and look over history, most bands that have had a successful replacement vocalist have done the same thing.
Plus, I know we made the right decision because this man is a great guy.

Yeah, I keep hearing that.
He's got his feet firmly planted in the mud, and he's a Brooklyn, New York guy. He comes off that way, you know I've never seen him act different, he's just a very cool guy, he's a very gracious guy, he's got the ultimate respect for Steve Perry, and our fans. He's trying to do as much justice as he can do to the older material.

Yeah, I heard a little bit of the live stuff, I'm looking forward to seeing the DVD come out, when's that due out?
No, not the DVD, but the live TV. There's a free TV thing that Irving has worked out, Irving Azoff has worked out where people that have dishes, satellite dishes, are going to get an hour free show of that, and it'll be running the whole month of April, I think.

Cool. And what about the DVD release?
We don't know when we're going to put it out. We're still talking with them, it's already finished, and it's very good, I actually haven't heard the 5.1 yet, but Kevin did.
My company Nocturn, my company with Herbie Herbert, is going to be going out with this this time, so we're going to be using the brand new screens we got in back of the band, so we'll be having cameramen on stage with us every night. There's a zillion different ways you can record the band every night with hard disk recorders that are out there, and I'm just saying, we've go the cameras, technology is here to be able to record the band every night. I said, "Lets record every night", you know what I mean? And then we're going to capture one of these shows is going to be pure magic. It always happens. But it never happens when you only set up one date to record. It always turns out to be good, but it's always not your best show. So how can you do it unless you record every show?

So you might do a live record down the track?
Well, who knows? If we go out and we end up recording every one of our shows, that would be easy to do. I could see us doing a double live record.

Yeah, please don't cut it to just 15 tracks, let's do a double.
Especially, we'll be switching setup every night, we'll have so much material that by the end of the tour we'll have covered, like, you know, 40 or 50 songs.

Describe to me with one word, or one sentence, your last live album, Greatest Hits Live.
I don't know. <laugh> That's my word, "I don't know".

I heard you weren't happy.
I wasn't happy with the choice of....everything that was picked, once again, I had no control over. Steve had picked the material and Kevin mixed it, and I thought the performances that were picked, were definitely not some of the better ones that I had heard that we had done.

Is it a little bit studio fixed?
No. It was not fixed at all.

Completely live?
Completely live.

OK.
Although some of it needed to be fixed. That's what I'm saying, I mean, it seemed like all of the tracks that were picked were tracks that I had out of tune guitars in, or Jonathan had glitches in the keyboard. Usually the band is right on, but you do have nights where people make mistakes and it seemed like all the tracks that were picked were guitar mistakes and keyboard mistakes and not sounding that great and, I don't know, I just did not care for the sound.
If you listen to Captured and then you listen to that, it's very weak.

Well hopefully, you'll get a chance to make it up. Let me ask you about a couple of songs quickly if I can. One of my favorite tracks, I don't think I've asked you this before, is a track called, "I Can't Stop the Fire".
Oh, with Eric Martin. Yeah, I wrote that years ago for that movie "Teachers".

You played on that though didn't you?
Yeah.

Because I've never read the credits on who played on it.
That's me on guitar. Actually, I wrote the song with Eric.

Yeah, I though so. And who else is in the band there?
I can't remember who played drums on that or bass. That's a very long time ago.

Did you record anything else, or just the one track?
No, I remember I did that track, I did "Just One Night", that was off of one of Eric's first records.

Of course, his first solo record, yeah.
I think that was it I'm not sure, there might have been one other track I can't remember.

So it wasn't like an album project or anything
No, we just got together and wrote a few tracks.

OK, because I'm a huge fan of Eric Martin, I must interview him soon here one of these days, but I thought he'd be a good person to do a project with.
Oh absolutely. We haven't actually been talking about that, but it's funny I run into him every once in a while and him and I definitely had some chemistry when we worked together. That would be interesting to toss around again, actually.

I actually think it's one of his best vocals he ever did.
Yeah, he can sing, man.

He's awesome. Another guy I know you're a bit of a friend of and I'm a big, big fan of and one day I'll get a chance to speak to is Sammy Hagar.
Yeah. Actually I just spoke to Sammy.

Oh did you really?
Yeah, and so I talked to him about...I'm going to be going over to his house in the next few weeks. I'm going to go over there and I think him and I are going to sit down and write a few songs.

Fantastic. You two guys have to make a record together.
Well I told him that, you know, the Piranha Blues release we did I said man, he goes, I'm talking to him and he's in Mexico and he said, "What's this record you stuck out Piranha Blues?", and I said, "Man, I played some of it for you" and he didn't seem to like much of it when I played if for him, it was in the rough stages, and he says, "Man, my cousin called me and he says this record just kicks ass", and I said, "Well, yeah, it does kick ass and I would've loved to have you singing on it". Richard Martin did a great job, but I would've loved to have Sammy Hagar, you know?

Yeah, cause you did the HSAS didn't you, that still sounds great today.
Yeah, I know, I love that record.

Oh God, it's so good. Did you get the re-mastered CD?
Yeah, I have the CD.

Oh it's fantastic.
We rehearsed for two weeks, wrote like 20 songs, in two weeks, rehearsed for two weeks, and then went and recorded live, and then we went back into the studio and I added a lot of overdubs on some songs, but basically all the end tracks were live, like all the lead guitar solos, and the bass and drums and vocals.
And then I just enhanced it on some tracks, I put more rhythm guitars, whatever.

I was in San Francisco in '92 and saw Hardline with Mr. Big. That must've been like a San Francisco rock reunion or something, because you had Eric Martin there, but you brought Sammy Hagar out to do "Top of the Rock" at the end of the Hardline set.
Yeah. Then you heard some real lungs <laughs>. That guy has got some serious lungs, I'm mean full out volume. Him and Jimmy Barnes, man.

Oh Barnes, yeah.
Him and Jimmy Barnes, have got sirens.

Did you know, it's an absolute fact, to this day - they still regard Freight Train Heart across the world, and definitely here in Australia, as his best record.
Really?

Absolutely, without a doubt. He's singing some absolutely appalling shit these days.
Really?

Oh yeah, he's doing these cover records and these horrible soul blues records, even his rock albums don't really hit the spot, he needs good song writers with him. Working Class Man and Freight Train Heart were just wonderful records.
Well that's the only time period that I paid much attention to him because you don't hear much of him in the States.

I should send you what he does these days, I mean he's still a great vocalist, but, you know. You guys were going to do a band thing with him permanently weren't you?
With Jimmy?

Yeah.
I don't know, I don't recall talking about a band. I mean, I had played a few shows with him and played on the record, that's about it.

Yeah, OK. You didn't think of a more permanent thing to do with him in the States?
Well at the time I was still in Journey, I mean, we still had some stuff going on and I wasn't about to leave that, and really I had not gotten an offer from him to play in a band permanently. He had another guitar player, Johnny Diesel, and he was a great guitar player.

Yeah, he still is, he's good. I'm sorry I diverse on the subject a bit...Sammy Hagar, what are you going to write with him for, just anything?
Who knows until we get together, it's been a while since him and I sat down and tried to write anything so who knows what it's going to turn out to be, it's going to be very interesting.

Fantastic. I'd love to see you guys do a record.
I'd like to write him a really classic heavy ballad, like a heavy power ballad, something that's just classic though. You know, it's easy to write rock with Sammy, you know, it's so easy for me to write rock and roll with the guy.

Yeah. I like his softer stuff actually, so that'd be good if you could. I like it when Sammy slows down. Have you heard any of the craziness of what Van Halen are up to?
I haven't heard anything and I have no idea. I'm just like whatever man, I can't tell what's up.

Do you think Journey could get away with going 18 months without even a press release?
Well we went along for 10 years without a press release!!
We never broke up and we never had a press release. Steve just didn't want to work and we were on a hiatus. Hiatus for ten years you know.

That is a shocker isn't it?!!
OK, tell me, to wrap up Neal, I sent you that cover CDR of bands doing Journey songs.
Oh you sent me that tape, right.

What do you think of bands going out and doing Journey stuff. What do you think of the material?
I was not that impressed to tell you the truth. I thought "Edge of the Blade" was interesting....

Actually I thought that was probably one of the better ones.
Well I thought it was one of the better ones of all of them but there were really some not so good ones.

Yeah, I know, there were a couple of shockers.
But it's flattering that somebody even wants to do your material.

I thought the last track, "Separate Ways" wasn't great. (James LaBrie version on the Rock Superstars Vol. 3 CD)
It was not that great.

I think probably the best track on there was actually the acoustic, "Send Her My Love".
Yeah, I recall that.

But I did like "Edge of the Blade" (Jorn Lande), I thought that was pretty good and I thought "Stone in Love" (House Of Shakira) was pretty good too. Do you get a laugh out of bands doing that?
Well I wasn't laughing, no...well actually I was laughing a little bit inside, it was funny to hear someone else doing your stuff. I've never actually heard a Journey cover band. I know there's a lot of different cover bands in different parts of the States that do Journey material, one in Chicago, and one in...I can't remember, there's a band called Escape that does our stuff, I don't know if they're Cleveland or Chicago, or something like that. There was one in LA a while ago, and I've never heard any of them, so I don't know, you know, so it was strange to see or hear anybody doing our material.

One last question to wrap up. I'm actually doing a second web site to run in conjunction with my current one. It's going to be based on classics, all of the old stuff that people have missed, because that's what I get asked all the time, you know.
Oh, I think that's a great idea. Records that sort of went by the wayside.

Yeah, exactly. The most common question I get asked is, "I love all this stuff that you've got on your site, I've just come back into the fold after 10 years in the wilderness because of MTV and all that. What have I missed in the mean time?" So this is what the site is going to concentrate on.
One of the things I'm going ask different artists is "What do you consider the best rock albums out there"? Have you got favorite records that you really admire?
Yeah, absolutely. They're all really old records. Any one of the three Jimi Hendrix records, the first three. I love all of Led Zeppelin's stuff, but I really like the first record. I love all of Jeff Beck's stuff, but I really love that first record Truth. For rock records with vocalists, I think that him and Stewart were really great in that time era. And I love the first Small Faces record with Rod Stewart.
I thought that was a great party band. There's so much good stuff man, but I loved all the Cream stuff. I particularly loved Wheels of Fire, because that was the record that really sort of took me and stuck me in the improvisation world of guitar. Listening to that record I sort of figured out how I could move around on the guitar. And then you know, that's just rock, but I have my favorite Blues records and Jazz records and all different genres.

What do you think of Mr. Santana making a good comeback in the last year or so?
I'm really happy for him. I'm especially happy for him that he's a guitar player <laughs> and, you know, that I play with him and I'm glad to see someone that's a bit older than me that had a big comeback like that. It's exciting, you think to yourself, "Well, the same thing could happen to anyone, you know."
You come with the right record at the right time.

It could even happen to Journey.
Absolutely, I definitely think we're a contender.

Lets hope it starts with Arrival!
Lets hope man I'm keeping my fingers crossed. We're going to give it our all. We're going to pull out all the stops and we're going to give it our all.

Fantastic, fantastic. Well, I think you and John Waite on tour together is the most marvelous idea, I hope that comes off.
Well it's funny, you know, John and I had talked about a while ago, and I was saying to Jon, "We couldn't find anybody that we liked that was available to go out with us."

I thought Jonathan wanted to beat John Waite up.
No, no. I mean the past is the past. I heard that Waite thought that we both hated him. You know, maybe at the time when the band broke up we were not fond of each other.

Things just got frustrating?
Yeah, things got very frustrating and twisted up, but I mean so many years have gone by, I don't hold grudges against anyone. I don't hold grudges against Perry, I don't hold grudges against anyone. It's just, time moves on, people change and this is what you have to go with.

Actually, I've got one last question. Everything's going so well with you now, the record is fantastic, it's one of my favorites, I think it's better that Trial By Fire, etc. Steve Perry comes back to you now and says, "I'm ready to come back to the band. I'd like to." What do you say to him?
I think that we've got a solid band right now and there's no going back. Like he said in the interview on TV, he said, you know, when Jon called him and talked to him and said, "Well we'd like to move on", and Steve said to him, "Well there's no coming back", and Jon said, "We realize that."

I think that's the right thing to do, have some consistency. Lets hope there's many more Augeri fronted records to come.
You know what man? This is our first record in a lot of sense to me, it's almost like, I'm looking at it like we don't have any other records out there. Sure, we're playing the greatest hits and we're able to pull that off with Augeri, but really it's our first record, and so I think we're going to acquire a lot of new fans as well as take some old fans with us. We'll lose some of our old fans which is natural when you change the front man. But I think all and all, all we have to do is stick with it and keep pumping out great music and we're going to be fine.

I agree. Fantastic. OK Neal.
All right Andrew.

I think that's about it. I think I've covered everything.
That should hold us over for a while.

Absolutely. Great stuff. OK well we'll talk via e-mail.
OK.

Thanks for you time man
You're welcome.

Thanks buddy, I appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you. G'Day now!

Thanks Neal. Bye, bye.

 

I can not tell you how long I've been bugging Rindell to set this up for me, and hoping that it would come together. Because I am a huge fan of your work, let me say.
I'm flattered, I truly am. I've read your reviews and the kind words that you've said about me. I'm thankful, I truly am.

You have some big shoes to fill. I think you've done it with ease.
For me, although I've been at this for nearly three years now, it still seems, for this first record, I still feel like we got a ways to go as far as finding the right niche. But I think we're on the right track. I think every time we play together whether it's rehearsal, recording or shows, we still get a little closer to our final destination. And I think as time goes by, I think by the next record, I think we're going to get it. If you like it this time out, I hope to think you'll really like it next time, cause I think it will be that much more where it should be.
We did a lot of experimenting through the past three years. We were fearless. We tried a lot of different styles, a lot of different directions and we figured hey, you know, we've got time. Let's break down the barriers, let's not be this or that, let's try it all. After Kevin picked his songs, it became Arrival.
But before Arrival, we were all over the place. That was a lot of fun. We learned a lot about each other, we learned a lot about each other's musical influences and backgrounds, we dabbled in a little of this and a little of that. It was a lot of fun.
I'll tell you, it was a great deal of fun.

I've got some questions regarding the songs. What I think is very cool, and somewhat ironic, is the first line you sing on the whole album - 'So I think I've got it all in place now'. What do you think, does that just about sum it up?
You know, it's funny how that just happened to be the opening lines. Sort of like when we do our shows, when I sing "Separate Ways" its like 'here I stand' kind of a thing. It just worked out that way. Yeah. I mean, I have Jack Blades to thank for that lyric (laughs).

It just seemed very fitting. Your voice sounds immaculate. It's a fabulous line and it just sounds great.
I appreciate it. I first heard a batch of songs. That was a batch of, I think, three that Neal had sent me that he had written with Jack. And each and every one of them was better than the last. One after the other knocked my socks off. That one was absolutely wonderful. In fact, there were a handful of others that I couldn't believe didn't make the record. I personally think you would have absolutely flipped out because they were really melodic, really in vain of classic melodic rock. One song in particular, that we hope to see on the next record.

This is your first recording in several years as a singer. You've been with the band nearly three years. I can't believe how quickly that's gone. On the eve of the U.S. release, what emotions are you feeling now?
Well I'll tell you, just now I'm getting a little excited. The record could have easily been out a year ago, as far as I remember. My memory isn't as good as it should be. After age 40 , I kind of lost it (laughs).
Right now, everything is starting to come together. We've released two singles out through American Radio here in the states. And they are slowly but very, very surely gaining chart position. I just checked the charts yesterday. It's a nice sure movement. They are jumping up about 10 spots a week. If we continue this gradual climb up the charts, by the time the record gets released, in about a month's time, I think we're going to have some really great chart position.
And by then, hopefully the record company will feel very confident in promoting the record as they should. We all have our fingers crossed. There are no guarantees in life. No matter who you are. Especially not for Journey. Especially in the position we are here, right now. But I think, I take a look at the charts, and things seem to be taking shape very nicely and we're feeling very confident.

What support to you feel from the label. Do you have the feeling that they are behind you?
I'll put it to you this way. I've heard from their mouth, that we're going to get wonderful support. That they love the material and they are going to give us the support. But seeing is believing. The truth of the matter is, you can only have faith. We are all going to put our faith in the music and in the band. As long as we have faith in ourselves, we're going to make this thing happen.
I have all the faith in the world in these guys. With that alone, I feel very confident.

That's a great attitude for sure. I don't think I've seen any interviews with you thus far, or not many at least, a couple in Japan obviously. For those who don't really know the story, I just wanted to cover how you got hooked up with the band in the first place. You've got a mutual friend in Joe...
His name is Cefalu. I'll try to make it brief. Because it's long distance. I don't know, what time is it over there?

It's eight in the morning.
Ah, good morning! Have your coffee? I'm making a cup of coffee right now, how about yourself?

I just make one for my fiancée actually.
Congratulations. Good luck to you.

Thank you.
Well, I'll make this short and sweet, or as short as I can.
Joe was a fellow Brooklynite who since moved to Neal's neck of the woods in San Francisco. It seems he was a Journey fan as a child. Neal was basically one of his idols growing up. Anyway, he turned out to be quite some guitarist. Before he moved out there, I had made his acquaintance and I actually sang on a few of his demos. Just brilliant. Along the lines of Satriani and Steve Vai.
This was after Tall Story's first record. And we were just getting ready to do the second album, more writing for our second album, and we befriended each other. Anyway, I did some demos with him. Off he goes to San Francisco.
Hadn't heard from him in quite some time until one day I get a phone call from him and by the time I speak to him, I had sung with Tyketto for a short time and basically went into retirement.
To put it as simply as possible, I had a great deal more success in my career than a great deal of other musicians, especially people that I know. I was able to release a couple of records. I toured some of the world. I made a lot of friends along the way. I was able to perform my music in front of thousands of people and I felt myself very fortunate. But at the time, success hadn't come my way. And the fact is, I have a family, I had a child. I guess I was doubting myself perhaps. I guess that's reality. I had to take care of business, so I took myself a nine-to-five with The Gap.
Actually, I did 2 years of construction here in New York. I became a manager. I was a maintenance manager for thirty stores in Manhattan. So when they would fall apart, I'd have to fix them. Everything from broken plumbing to electrical and painting, you name it.
So a year goes by and Joe Cefalu, this wonderful guitarist gives me a call. He says listen, Steve, I'm friendly with Neal and I was speaking with Neal the other day and he tells me that Steve Perry is no longer with the band and they're starting to look for vocalists. They are wanting to reform Journey and go on with another singer. It had been a year since I was working at The Gap and it was two years since I even sang a note in public. So I was like, that's really great but, regardless of whether I was singing or not, I thought it was just crazy. Out of my reach. It was a wonderful, flattering thing but I thought he was just bonkers.

I love this story, I love it (laughing).
Seriously. Put yourself in my position. You're talking about Journey, you're not talking about a baby band. You're not taking about amateurs. You're not talking about the little leagues. You're talking about the major leagues. Yankees, World Series.

I really do love this story, I'm enjoying this.
That's the truth. I was yeah, yeah, yeah. He said look Steve, you can do it.
Send me a tape. Tall Stories records at the time, or CDs were very scarce and rare. He said please send me a CD and I'll give it to Neal.
I told him yeah, OK, I'll do that. And a week went by. We're calling on weekends and after certain hours because we're both poor. So he takes a whole week until the rates drop like after nine o'clock. He calls me and says, Steve what happened? I'm waiting a whole week for this tape. I said look Joe, to be honest with you, I was never going to send the tape. I said I just don't think so, I really appreciate it, but you're crackers.
He said listen, I'm going to put it together. What three songs do you want me to put together on the tape? I said Joe, I don't even know. He said, I'll tell you what, I'll put this tape together. I'll pick the three songs, you leave it to me.
I did exactly that. We hung up. I thought he was out of his mind and I didn't think anything of it, truly, until I get a phone call three days later from Neal, or at least someone who said it was Neal. I wasn't quite sure if someone was putting me on or perhaps it was truly Neal. I didn't acknowledge that it was him, nor did I blow him off totally. I waited until we got off the phone.
I called Joe back immediately and he said Steve, you might want to sit down because what I'm going to tell you is going to blow you away. I spoke to Neal and I gave him a tape and it seems as though Neal knew of me from my Tall Story days. He was aware of the band. He and Jon both, when they were in Bad English, he was living in Los Angeles at the time and heard a Tall Stories record on the radio out there all the time. When Joe handed him the CD, he said we were already thinking about this guy. So it was just one of those synergy things, it was synchronicity, things just seem to come into place.
The only thing I needed to do was I begged Neal and Jon to give me a couple of weeks to prepare. Because after two years of not singing, I was basically like... nothing was really there. I auditioned; I had a weeks worth of singing with them. On the last day of the auditioning process, which was a writing and a get to know each other as well as a singing audition.
Things seemed to come into place in the clutch. Just at the right moment, the last day, down at the final wire. I guess I pulled it out of my hat. It's incredible. Sometimes I still don't believe it. But on the other hand, this is something I've dreamed of all my life. As crazy as it sounds, I was just telling somebody this today, this is what I've wanted to do all my life. I've just expected to do...not with Journey, it's still ridiculous. I always wanted to sing for people ever since I saw the Beatles on national television on the Ed Sullivan show here in the states. It just took me a little longer than everybody else (laughs).

Good luck to you. Good luck. I just think that's fantastic. And what does your wife think of this?
Well you know, she couldn't be any more happy. You know, obviously the pitfalls are for a touring musician, when you have a family. The hardest part is leaving them every so often for a couple of months at a time. How do say goodbye to your wife and children? Except thank goodness for long distance bills and cell phones. So you're constantly on the phone and you fly them out as often as you can whenever the schedules allow. We've done that the last two tours and we'll do it again this summer.

That's wonderful. This may be too broad of a question but is there any song you auditioned on for the guys? Like your first song.
Absolutely. The three main songs were "Don't Stop Believing", "Faithfully" and "Separate Ways". Here's the beauty of the story, at least for me.
As I said, I hadn't sang for two years and when I first got in there, it was pretty rusty, the pipes were real rusty. It took about a week to get them warmed up and I was a little intimidated at first sitting down with the guys. By the last day I said this is a do or die situation. Things seemed to be going my way that particular day. We recorded these three songs. After the recording they were going to send it off to John Kalodner at the record company to get his opinion. After the third song, the guys were pretty happy and Neal was kind of high-fiving Jon.
I was feeling pretty cocky and pretty proud of myself. And I had one foot out the door, I was on my way back on an airplane to New York City and I turned around and I said listen, there's one song I really, really would love to sing. All the while to myself I thinking, if I blow this, I very well could be blowing the audition.
But I turned around and said listen, can we just try "Open Arms"? I don't know what came over me, I was just crazy. But I did it, and I guess it turned out OK, because here I am, speaking with you. But it could have went the other way.

I doubt it!
I've never been much of a gambler. I'll tell you what's funny too. I was working at this day job and I told my boss over at The Gap, I said listen, I need a week off, a leave of absence. Which they were good enough to give me. But is was a gamble, going out there and doing this thing. Chasing that dream, that lifelong dream. Because I'd never been a gambler. I mentioned to somebody else, I've never been very ambitious. In fact I'm what I call an under achiever. You can give me that title. This was something..., there is a wonderful song by Ricky Lee Jones called "Last Chance Texaco". Basically it's about that last gas station before you hit the desert. This was my last chance Texaco. This was my last shot at my dream. That's the way I looked at it. And well, it worked out.

Fantastic. I did hear it once said that you used a vocal coach, is that correct?
Oh absolutely.

Just to train it up - to get fit again?
Well, for sure. I saw the coach immediately after I left the guys in San Francisco.
I flew to Los Angeles to see one of the finer coaches in the Los Angeles area. And this guy got me on track real fast. And then I saw a couple of people here in New York. And quite frankly, I truly needed one.
Whether or not I hadn't sang for two years or not because I kind of grew up singing just the way I wanted to and never had any true guidance. Going out on the road for months at a time you've got to be in amazing...you've got to be an animal to be able to last five shows, two hours a night during the week and go a few months at a time.
When I was younger, when you're younger, period, you have the muscle stamina, you have the muscle tone. But once you hit a certain age, this goes for female vocalists as well, just like your body, just like the biceps kind of wither away if you let them, if you're Charles Atlas.
Do you guys know Charles Atlas over there? I mean, Arnold Schwarzenegger works twice as hard now than he did when he was a kid. That's just biology. Long story short, you really have to whip yourself back into shape and I just couldn't do it, what I used to be able to do when I was twenty out of pure adrenaline and pure youth. So I had to go and see somebody that would teach me the finer techniques of singing and think of something that would get me over those long two, three month tours. And low and behold, I've had some great teachers along the way, and it's still a work in progress. Just like anything else in a profession or any kind of educational area you can always keep learning.
Different people can teach you different things. I'm happy to say that I'm studying with a couple of different people for the different reasons and it's great fun to be honest with you.

Are you conscious at all of your natural vocal comparison to Steve Perry? Or is it something that's just there?
Yeah, you know I wasn't aware of it so much until people kept approaching me and I kept on hearing it more and more and more.
Within the last 15 years or so, especially with Tall Stories. Obviously there are similarities in timbre and even style wise. But honestly, it was a subconscious thing initially. Then when we did the Tall Stories record, as much as Jack Morrow, the guitarist would deny it, he was the first one to keep telling me Steve, you got to lay off of the Perryism. That was the word he used. The Perryism.
That was the little joke, and I was like, I don't get it. I don't understand what you're talking about. Perhaps I was in denial at the time. I just didn't see it.
He was a wonderful writer and he wrote wonderful songs that were not unlike Journey songs. He was very similar in his guitar approach, they're both really great, wonderful guitarists and they have a lot of similarities too. So I think that also added to the Journeyisms, not just the Perryisms.
But was I aware of it. Initially no, until it was brought up to me.
Before Tall Stories, I worked with a band, in fact three members of Tall Stories other than myself were originally three Brazilian musicians. And one by one, they were replaced by an American musician in New York City. Before that, we shot the tape to Columbia and they actually said this sounds like Journey meets Sade (laughs). That was the very first time anyone compared me to Steve Perry. And then it opened the flood gates after that.
But I'll tell you one thing, I'm getting more comparisons now to Kenny G lately. The visual thing. I can't walk down the street without people saying hello Kenny!!

That's funny (laughing).
You should try it someday (laughing).

I'll jump forward a little. I'm a big fan of the Tall Stories album and I had that long before you were in Journey. It took me a long time to find it on CD as you were saying. But I have it, thankfully. And I think half the album you're yes, Journey-Steve Perryish, but the other half you sound more your own person obviously but there's a little bit of another favorite lead singer of mine called Glenn Hughes in there.
Way back when, I was watching television here at home, and this is going back in the seventies, and I saw...put it this way, Burn, I was just crazy about that particular record, and Stormbringer. Glenn just absolutely blew me out of the water. I had the pleasure of meeting him during the recordings of Arrival. He was in town writing with Pat Thrall. Those two, that Hughes/Thrall record just slays me. That record kicks.

'I Got Your Number'... ah yeah...
Cover to cover, from the coolest, grooviest stuff to the two heaviest tracks you ever heard. "Muscle and Blood" and ... anyway, huge fan. Just absolutely huge fan. That dude, what he does with his voice. He takes it from a whisper to a scream. He takes it from..., the dynamics that that cat has, I truly aspire to sing with his kind of passion and his kind of control. Never mind the technical side is the emotion. Just beautiful what he does. He's my kind of guy. He's my kind of vocalist.

Really pleased to hear you say that.
Oh forget about it. Forget about it. But before him, my very first concert was a Humble Pie concert. Steve Marriott was my truly, very, very first..., aside from the Beetles which everybody liked. I was fifteen when I saw Steve Marriott and Humble Pie here in New York I was first row, my brother had taken me for my birthday. And that's when I knew, I've got to do this. I really have to do this.
I connected with Steve. It's a funny thing, we share the same birthday.

Oh, do you really?
I could swear, I'm telling you there was some connection that particular night and I said that's what it's all about. I mean I'm a bigger fan that I am...that's why I'm so charged about music today, because I'm such a huge fan.
When I got back to music, after coming back to sing with Journey, after I left the guys, when I turned around I said listen: this is kind of a far fetched thing, me coming out here and auditioning for you guys. I told them, one thing I have to thank you for is this could go one way, it could work out, it may not.
But I have to thank you guys so much for just having me out here and getting me back in touch with my love of music. Because I actually lost it. Because when I turned my back, you kind of, sort of try to bury the past because it was very painful. They unearthed it and they gave it back to me. I said if this thing doesn't work out, that's cool because I got a chance to meet you and have a little fun.
But I said you really did give me a gift in just singing again. And I said the one thing I'll do, I'll go back and I'm going to sing again. You got me back into it and you gave me back my music. I thanked them. So I've actually had this kind of rebirth thing and I've been getting in touch with my old records that I grew up and was inspired from and influenced way back when.
That's one of them, those early Glenn Hughes records and Coverdale. Those two guys were brilliant together. What a team.

I'd love to see them on a record together. There was some word that someone was trying to do that.
Yeah, I don't know. You know Tall Stories, we had another great vocalist in the band that never really got a chance to sing as much as he probably should have, and that was our bassist Kevin Dutorian. Looking back in hindsight, I would have loved to have done something like the Coverdale/Hughes thing. I'm sure there would have been some tension between the two but boy, did it make great records. Don't you think?

Yeah, oh absolutely, absolutely. Magic.
Those guys were just better. One guy was just better than the next every song you put on. Holy man.

Two enormous egos and both really going at it.
I imagined, I imagined. But the talent was there so you got to give it to them.

Oh absolutely. Look, I've interviewed both of them and it was an absolute joy talking to them, it really was. They're really nice.
Yeah Glenn was really a sweetheart, he was great. And Pat Thrall, he's wonderful.

Looking forward to their new record.
Oh, same here. It's got to be great.

I'll jump to Tall Stories still while we're on that. I actually had an e-mail from Jack a little while ago, your guitarist.
You're joking, no kidding!

Yeah! I don't know if you two are still in contact, or do you see each other do you?
It's funny, the last I saw him was at that fellow who got me that Journey audition, Joe Cefalu. He invited me to his wedding and my wife and I arrived at the reception and there was Jack sitting next to me. So it was wonderful.
It was a great re-union of sorts and we just laughed and had a few. Actually we didn't have any cocktails. Not that we don't drink or anything but we just happened to stay sober that particular day. That same night I was flying to San Francisco to meet with the guys so I was minding my P's and Q's. We had a great reunion and we talked over old times. So how was he doing? What was the e-mail about?

He was good. I actually mentioned him on the site that the Tall Stories CD was getting re-released in Japan in conjunction with the Journey back catalogue. And he emailed me going, What!!?
Oh how cool is that?

I'll have to forward his e-mail address to you.
You know, in fact, I think he had given it to me but I misplaced it. I would love it. I understand, did he mention, right now he's on tour with a Broadway show?

He didn't tell me what he is doing.
Yeah he's doing a show out here called Swing. And he's on tour with them throughout the states and he's back on the road. In a different capacity. Let me tell you, Jack, he's a guitarist's guitarist.
He went to school at a very high level music college down in Florida, University. And he can play inside out. He knows that thing inside out, upside down.
He'll play anything from Wes Montgomery to Django Reinhardt and then Jimi Hendrix. And his boy was really Eric Clapton. Boy he could whip out any Cream song at the drop of a hat. And then he had his own thing, which was wonderful.

Did you guys ever start recording or finish recording any extra tracks other than the original?
We did tons of demos. In fact, this is the crazy thing about, unfortunately, what the demise of Tall Stories was this; we were demoing and demoing and demoing and at that time we got the record out, very similar to the Journey record, about a year after it had been finished and should have been released already.
It had been, I wouldn't say shelved, but it was definitely postponed, the release date. So by the time it had come out, the timing was so wrong, it coincided with Pearl Jam's release. The writing was on the wall. The music industry in the states was going to change, was going to push this new sound. Which is very healthy, I guess, to business. Not very healthy to Tall Stories.
Wonderfully for us, we happened to go out on the road for two months with Mr. Big and that was great. It got us some exposure. We did some gigs. We did two months of touring with them, which was wonderful. They were very inspiring. The history was, this music right now was starting to get ignored by the record company. Although you'd never know it because we rolled into Seattle, the home of grunge, back in '92 and we thought it was going to be the worst gig ever.
But it was the best response that we got out of the whole tour. It was ridiculous. That was the irony thing. The irony was that the folks, the rock and rollers that were truly into melodic and hard rock were...maybe they just didn't want to hear another grunge song. They really wanted to hear something fresh for a change. Which is kind of what's happening now I think, here in the states.
You know things are kind of cycular. I think this sound, just good melodic rock and roll is coming around again. It'd be played at least commercially on radio stations that is. I think we're at a good time, here right now. Things are starting to look good right now. As far as the Arrival CD is concerned.

So you've got a whole bunch of Tall Stories demos lying around.
Oh yeah, bunch of demos. And what happened was, we were playing them this, we were playing them that. And basically they were telling us that this sound was over. Steve, you sound like Steve Perry.
They sound like Journey tracks. That's when the Journey comparisons were really heavy. Basically the demise of Tall Stories was that we were getting compared to Journey a great deal at the time.
So it got to the point that we were starting to do songs that were absolutely out of my style, vocally. And I was trying, I was experimenting you know. I was brave, I was courageous. I'd give anything a shot, but it wasn't me. And as much as we tried, I was just going to feel like I wasn't true to myself any longer.
So quite some time passed by and I got a phone call from Brooke St. James of Tyketto. And Brook tells me, he says, you know what? We're writing a new record and I was wondering if you had some time. Won't you come down and we'll play some guitars together, try to write a couple songs.
So we had been friends together, Tyketto and Tall Stories. We were mutual friends. We'd go see each others shows here in the New York area. They're a great bunch of guys. I really like Brook a lot, and I said sure. At the time he never mentioned anything about Danny not being present.
So I took a drive out to the next state, to Jersey and started writing some songs. And as a week or two go by I start getting the vibe that Danny is no longer in the picture. I'm now three weeks into the writing sessions and their drummer lays on the deal that Danny is no longer with the band and would I consider, instead of just writing, would I consider singing with the band.
Actually, at the time, it wasn't even a Tyketto thing. They said, would you like to form a band? We were just jelling, and it was a lot of great energy and a lot of positive vibes happening. So much that, it hadn't felt like that with Tall Stories in quite some time. We were just getting a lot of negative responses from record company and management. As mush as we loved each other's music and music ideas, the thrill was starting to leave. The thrill was starting to go, and it was starting to emerge within the Tyketto camp. So it only felt natural, it felt like the right thing to do at the time, to join up with the guys.
And I said I had learned that Danny Vaughn was no longer with the band and I really enjoyed working with them so we gave it a shot. We started writing the record and I tell you we must have wrote it in a month. And we recorded it in even less time. We must have recorded it in two weeks. It seemed like that, everything went down that fast. Just before the record was going to be released, we had another name picked out, we were going to do music that we felt like doing. We just felt, stylistically, it was just the thing that happened. We didn't try to do this or that or the other thing. It's just what came out. Just before the release of the record, the record company gets back to the guys in the band and says listen, we are not going to release the record unless you release it as Tyketto.

Typical.
And it was the worst thing for us because it really stiffed the fans. It kind of limited our chances of any kind of success because everyone that expected the record out really was waiting for a Tyketto record.
Not a rhythm and bluesy, we were kind of doing 70's influence in a lot of the songs and it was just not as melodic as the Tyketto stuff was. Unfortunately we turned off a lot of their old fan base. We wound up winning back a couple of them and making some new fans along the way but I tell you, no regrets.
Great guys. We really had great times. We went over to Europe a couple of times. Traveling with a rock and roll band is always a lot of fun and we really enjoyed each other's company. Made a lot of friends.
Again, as I said, just going out and playing music for people. You don't have to go out and make a million dollars. You get into this business initially because you love the art form. The music. And that's what we did. We had a good time. And like I said, no regrets. We went our separate ways.
But that, replacing Danny Vaughn in Tyketto, was a very huge learning experience for me. Because, when I got the opportunity to work with Journey, I had learned a lot of lessons and I knew I made quite a few mistakes. Well, not so much mistakes, I knew some things to do and some things not to do. Again, I think it was meant to be.

Obviously on your first tour, maybe even your second tour, a lot people didn't know that Steve Perry was out of the band. Did you feel a lot of pressure to pull off the best performance you could?
Whether or not you're replacing such a heavyweight of a vocalist in the first place, you always go out with that...you always want to give two hundred percent. Then you add the Steve Perry factor, and the replacement factor. Ask Gary Cherone and ask Sammy Hagar. Although, obviously both those guys were established. They had one up on me. Getting somebody who's an unknown, actually maybe it worked a lot in my favor also, it's hard to say.
Because it might have actually helped. But yeah sure, I felt the pressure. But as I learned early on, you just have to do your best. Because the minute you start thinking about it, that's when the slope gets slippery. You just do your best, as with anything. If you're a shoemaker, you just try to make the best pair of shoes you can. Same thing with singing.

Were you happy with the fan reaction?
Absolutely. I mean really. I didn't expect the response that we had gotten. We didn't expect to get everybody back, all the Journey fans. But I can honestly say that I think that we got the majority of the old fan base back. It's hard to believe. And I never thought it would happen, but they were open-minded and open-hearted enough to give it a shot. To give it a chance. And for that I'll be forever thankful.

The response to, the feedback I've got from people emailing me about the shows and any reaction to the album has been absolutely, unanimously positive.
I couldn't be more thankful. Not to say anything negative but you really can't expect..., and there are some folks. Neal and I laugh about it.
Every once in a while, there'll be a show and there will be one person out there in the audience. And for some reason, there's a beacon on them. They'll have their arms crossed and they won't have a happy face, a very sad face.
And you know, you have to respect it because they had the love enough for the band to come to see the band, and hear the music. I have to respect it. One of my most favorite bands also of all time was Led Zeppelin. And as much as I love David Coverdale, now they didn't try to reform Zeppelin, but I don't know if I would have been able to see Led Zeppelin formed with anybody else but Robert Plant singing. So I understand it, I respect it, and that's exactly how I approached singing with Journey. I'm not a cocky guy, although, maybe come talk to me a year from now. I've never had much of an ego (laughs). I hope it doesn't change.

I doubt it (laughing).
I mean that's just the way it is. I'm a pretty blessed guy. I'm just happy with my life. I've got a good life. No complaints.

Nervous heading into the studio to record Arrival?
Yeah, big time. Definitely big time. As much as I was telling myself, no.
The fact of the matter was, yes. In fact, just before the recording, we happened to get into this rehearsal studio. And do you think, after all this state of the art technology that you have, you get a world class band, get some rehearsals a week before, of pre-production, before a major recording.
And there's a less than adequate P.A. system, and monitor system. So for a week, I'm singing into the equivalent of, pick a Deep Purple concert, the loudest band in the world. I'm singing out of a, what do they call it, a vocal master. Which was a couple of ten inch speakers. My voice was toast. And here we are going in to record a Journey record (laughs). So I had to take two weeks off.

Really?
Absolutely. And I was frightened to death. I thought, oh my God, what did I do to myself? That's part of the game. You learn as you go. I was never experienced enough, never had I been in this situation where I would have known any better. I'll tell you now, next time I'll be a great deal more careful. You'll know to ask, look, I have to have this, I have to have that. I can't sing unless I can hear myself a little. Now I have that information. I'm programmed now, so I'll know that next time I go in to do the record. Everything turned out all right in the long run.
It gave me a little more grit, a little more gravel. Probably would have preferred to have been a little sweeter at times but that's all right, I was always a big Rod Stewart fan.

Rod's awesome but I think you sound sweet enough, believe me.
You know that was actually, my very first single, record actually, that I ever owned was "Maggie May". He was also one of my very, very early influences.

He's got a great voice.
Rod could do no wrong.

He's got an energy, hasn't he?
The best. He's got it all. The voice, the attitude, the look. He always did. And he still has it. He's still out there, just released a record, he's still on the radio. You turn on the radio and they'll play his new single and they'll play, you know, "Maggie May" back to back. And I'll say, That's my man.         

Yeah, I've got several of his records. I like them a lot. I was pleased to see that you're involved in the writing process on the album. You've got five songs that made the album. I thought that was great.
Yeah, I think in fact, I'm not a hundred percent sure but, I think with the American release there's seven. But none the less, whether it was a hundred percent of the record or no involvement, the fact was when I was getting into the situation it was enough to sing. Just singing. That was enough of a case load, enough of a work load to deal with. The great thing about being with the guys in this band is that they gave me the opportunity to get involved in the writing process.
A part of the audition in fact when I first met them was, as I said, was not only to the singing part, as well as seeing if we were actually compatible. If we could stay in the same room for like an hour and not end up at each other's throat. You know, any fist fights. Which is very important. But they also wanted to see if I had any kind of input as far as creativity. Coming from them, to be able to do that to a novice, or an unknown, was very generous and they certainly didn't have to. So, as I said, they were gracious to offer that to me and I couldn't tell you how happy I am that they did.

How may songs did you demo for the album? I mean there's like fourteen on there.
I would say a minimum of thirty. There had to be at least forty.

Oh wow! So there's that many demos sitting out there.
And if I may say so, there were some songs that were left off the record that I really wish had gotten onto the record. In fact, there's a song that the guys wrote with Geoff Tate.

Oh really!?
Yeah. That was absolutely amazing. Just amazing. The week that I went out to audition, we recorded four Journey songs and we recorded about four new songs. And one of them was a song they had written with Geoff and one other was "Signs of Life". In fact that was the very first song out of the bag as a Journey song. And it wound up making the record. So it has some staying power.

That's one of my favorite tracks on the album.
Yeah, I'm glad. Thank you. It didn't change much from the very first day. So it was a keeper from the beginning. And the Geoff Tate song was spectacular. Stellar. And it was just brilliant. And it didn't make the record and I swore it would. It had a great ethereal, great moody vibe to it. It was very Pink Floydish. It had that dark thing going on. And I hope perhaps a soundtrack. I think it would be definitely suited for a soundtrack or something like that. "Walking Away From the Edge" it's called.

I would love to hear some of this stuff.
You know what, if we meet up, I'll make sure we have a tape.

That would be great.
I should hope that we make it your way.

I don't think so (laughs).
Oh I think we're going to get there. We'll get to Australia.

I hope so!
I only hope so.

But if not, I'm going to try to make it to the States because I've got to see you guys.
That'd be great.

Favorite songs off the album, that did make the album?
I swear it changes. In fact, I'll tell you what, going in to the recording I felt exactly the way Neal did. We wanted to make a rock and roll record. And then after everything was recorded, I found myself listening to ballads, or at least the less up-tempo, and the less mid-tempo. I jump depending on the mood that I'm in, I play the music that I can relate to. And so if I feel like jumping into the car and I've got to get to an appointment that I'm late for already a half hour, I'll throw on "Higher Place". And it gets me there. It makes that hour drive turn into twenty minutes, and a speeding ticket.

I play it on the way to work to, believe me.
You know, I think one of my favorites is "We'll Meet Again". It's one of my favorites and I'll tell you, it turned out a great deal different than the initial conception of the song. I especially like it because the inspiration to writing it was...after coming off tour on the first record, I was so impressed, getting back to the fans and the fans reaction. I was so impressed with their reaction.
And it was so difficult at the end of the night, after a two hour and fifteen minute set, to leave these audiences that went from skeptical to just charged and happy and elated that they had been to a Journey concert. And I was equally as elated that they were enjoying us, that when we came off the road I had this idea of just trying to express how I felt about how I can't wait to get back on our next tour. And how we would meet again. And that was kind of the general idea of the song. And the funny thing was, Neal had written a song years ago and laid a demo on it of a couple of really incredible rock and roll tracks, and that was one of them. In fact if you ever heard it, it was a guitar song. It was a major, major guitar song. It was a huge guitar song with like the guitar, rock and roll song. And it turned out to be quite less than that, but still I think it turned out to be one of my favorite tracks.

Yea, it's a real moody track, isn't it?
What Jon turned it into was beautiful, and I'm happy it made the record. I love that.

It's a great track to end the album, isn't it?
I think so, yeah. I'll tell you what I like, getting back to the up-beat thing.
What I do like about the record is that, and probably what I'd like about Journey or what I've always liked about them is they are...there's always room for negativity in life. And one thing that these guys have always been able to do for me, is lift me up a little bit when I'm down. Or put a smile on my face, or make me feel a little more hope than there may actually be. Or hopeful for tomorrow.
And I think that's what I really like about this record is that it seems to have a common thread. Although the songs may be diverse, stylistically, there seems to be a common thread in positively. It's not for everybody, and not for all times because sometimes I like to put on a Black Sabbath record, especially with Dio, like Heaven and Hell or Mob Rules. My point being, I like to turn a Marshall up on eleven just like the next guy, and play hard and heavy and dark stuff.
But then you have to have the other side, and I think the other side, a perfect example of that is a Journey record. I think that although it may not be the Journey of yesterday, I think it still carries on that positive direction that the band always had before.

I think it picks up perfectly where you left off. I think it carries on perfectly.
We've been torn about the balance of the record, whether a slow, up-tempo, hard, heavy or this or that. But in the long run, at the end of the day, I was happy with the integrity of the music and definitely, definitely satisfied with that.

Tell me about the two new tracks you went in and recorded.
Here's the thing about the two new tracks, Neal is a rock and roll animal. This is what makes this band, or for that matter, many bands very special. This is what fuels them. You have two definite and dynamic personalities in the writing team. That being Jon Cain and Neal Schon. Jon can rock like the rest of them but his forte in my opinion....

He's the mellower one, isn't he?
I will be opinionated now. He can write a ballad or love song, whatever you want to call it better than anybody. And then Neal can write a rock and roll track better than anybody's business. So to me, in my opinion, again this is not factual, this is just my observation.

I tend to agree with you.
I think these guys have their fortes. So that being said, you got the best of both worlds. Somewhere along the line, I hope, somewhere down the line I want to find my place somewhere in the middle (laughs). But I like being the middle man right now. Where was my point?

Two new tracks...
The two new tracks, OK. I think one of them, to me, is absolutely stellar. And that would be "World Gone Wild". I think it's on the level of "Higher Place".

I can't wait to hear it.
To me, it's on that level. It's got a real musical and lyrical level of integrity. That's what I'm saying. The other track is definitely more of a party rocker. You know it's kind of, I'm not going to say it's a throw away. But it's definitely a party song. Every record needs to have a good time and it's like a no brainer.
It's a rock and roll song.

Something like "I've got a Reason" maybe.
Yeah, precisely like "I've got a Reason". So you know, it's like put on your jeans, let's have a good time, let's have a party or get a six pack and let's have our friends over and let's dance, kind of thing. Where the other one's a great deal more deeper. That's my view on them.

Fantastic. When are you off on tour again?
It sounds like we're going to be starting in the first week of June, it looks like. They haven't got everything one hundred percent confirmed yet. I'm still waiting for the actual schedule. It looks like something around June, first week of June.

And you've got my other vocal hero out on the road with you opening, John Waite.
Oh, you know, that's another crazy thing. I've had the Baby's Greatest Hits, or is it The Best Of? I think they call it The Best Of. The one with the bronze baby shoes on the cover. I've had it in my glove compartment box for a year before Jon and Neal called me. I used to go and I'd play that all the time. When I was stuck in traffic or something.
So I've always been a fan, I've always loved John's voice. And I've always loved their music. And it's funny how things come full circle. It's silly. It's really crazy. Honestly, I was as big a Babys fan as I was a Journey fan. It's going to be interesting to say the least. To have all these guys on the same stage and the same backstage area.

That's why I'm going to get over and see it. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'm going to get over and see the show.
It's going to be a rock and roll circus I assure you (laughs). They've got some great John Waite stories and they always amuse me with them. So I want to make our own stories for 2001. If we don't tell you in person, I'm going to make sure I have a couple of stories for you next year. Or at least after the tour.

That sounds pretty good. That sounds like a date.
Yeah, please make sure you come out first. That would be wonderful. If you come out, you could come see a couple shows.

Well, that's the only problem, you have to sell your third born, or first born to be able to afford the airfare out to the states.
I bet. And that flight's a bitch too.

And it's a shocker. It's not something you can do and just come over for the weekend. It takes a weekend to get there.
I hear that. Well you know what's crazy, it's just the time difference is wacky. That's what really knocks you out.

It is, it is. Like It's Sunday morning here, 9am. And it's the end of summer.
Yeah, and your toilets flush opposite.

Exactly.
When I went to Brazil I found that out, and I thought, that's amazing! Then I wondered, why do I even know this (laughs).

One of those things.
It's scary.

Look, it's been a real joy talking to you. And one of the things I've really picked up on while speaking to you, and I'm really pleased with, is that you're a fan of great music along the way as well.
I've got a young son, he's twelve. And I look at him and I think... wonder where he's going to be in ten, fifteen, twenty years. Where his life and his path will take him. And you can't choose for your children, just like my parents couldn't choose for me. Somewhere along the line, you see something that inspires you or you gravitate towards. And somewhere as a child I gravitated towards music as many of us do, whether as a listener or a performer.
It's such a wonderful part of life that should never be ignored. It's funny that I actually did it one short time, and I promise you I'll never do it again. It shines sun where there's been absolutely none, there's been a void for a long time. Puts a lot of smiles on a lot of faces where there normally wouldn't be. I'm in a kind of feel-good business and I'm glad to be doing it.

Well, you're certainly doing that now for a lot of Journey fans I can tell you that.
Well, I appreciate it. Andrew it's a pleasure to speak to you man, especially after all this time. I enjoy your website very, very much.

I appreciate the comments back. Thank you.
I'm curious, in addition to your website, do you publish a magazine as well? Or is it strictly the website?

No, it's strictly the website.
It's great. Because it's international. It's great to be on board.

Absolute pleasure. And you're helping me out by just doing this interview. Like I said it's great to speak to you finally. I can't wait to get it on line basically and see the reaction.
Cool! Well that makes two of us.

PONTUS NORGREN
xx

Pontus, you have been involved in just about every aspect of the rock scene in Sweden. What part do you enjoy most - producer, engineer, guitarist, live performer, song writer...?
- I have to say everything! Guitar playing I have to say is still closest to my heart, but what can you say when you get offered to do sound for bands like Thin Lizzy, Y.J. Malmsteen etc. Also traveling around the world gets you to meet a lot of people in the same business.

The last few years have seen you release several projects under several different names, including a solo release, how do you see Humanimal fitting into all of that?
- I see Humanimal as a good opportunity to take my guitar playing/song writhing to a different level, and I think I can back it up with just saying, Listen to the album!

I guess what I mean is will Humanimal be an ongoing concern - more records and maybe some live appearances?
-There will for sure be a second Humanimal album! We are more than ready to play live, but it depends on the backup from our label if they think it's worth it. As we all know it is very expensive to tour, and for that you need tour support.

Let's go to the album itself - congratulations on a bloody marvelous hard rocking album!
- I'm taking my hat off!

Where did the idea for the album come from?
- I came up with the idea, and asked Marcel if we could write an album together. We meet up around Christmas last year, I had a couple of days of from the Lizzy tour. We wrote the whole album in only 12 days.

And the line up - did you have to give it much thought, or was it a natural decision to involved Thomas & Marcel?
-Actually, I knew Tomas would be the perfect drummer when Marcel and me started to write the songs. And also, he's the best drummer you can find!

Did you always have Jeff in mind to do all the vocals, I recall there was some confusion first up as to whether he would sing all tracks etc.
-No, from the beginning we planed to do a theme album with different singers. But after we recorded the first couple songs we heard that it would sound better with only one front man, so we contacted Jeff and he said yes.
And what can you say, it came out to be fantastic.

I am glad he did, as this for me is one of the best examples of Jeff's hard rock vocal ability. We all know he can sing anything, but this is the hardest and toughest I have heard his vocals in years!
Over what period did you write the songs for the album?
- The hole idea came up when Marcel and I met up for mixing some old Human Clay sons, that he wanted me to remix. I asked him, shouldn¹t we do an album together. This was early summer 2000. I went on tour with Thin Lizzy, and stayed out to late December. When we where about to finish the European tour Marcel called and said, we have to write an album now. so when I got back home for Christmas I had 12 days of, and you know the rest.

Was there ever a choice to call the band Talisman again, or in this case, with you as the man behind the project, was it better to start fresh?
- I wanted to try to do something new with some one I've never worked with before, and Marcel and I had never written together. So why use a name that's not related to a project.

I found the production style and song quality and especially the very strong harmony vocals with this album to be even better than Talisman!
- I think that can be because I'm a huge fan of strong harmonies as you can hear on that Great King Rat albums.
I arranged all the backing vocals on both GKR albums, and also on all Jekyll 'n Hyde albums.
So I think it came natural this time, and working with Jeff is so easy.

Any live appearances planned yet?
-No, we have to wait for the release first.

And any plans for another album on the drawing board yet?
- Not right now, we have to finish the Talisman Live album mix first. They recorded us at Sweden Rock Festival last summer, and we want to get it out in the stores a.s.a.p. Check it out!

What are your personal favourite songs on this album Pontus?
-I think it's too early to say, you have to be away from it when you have produced it.

I enjoyed your solo album from last year, Mats Levin is one hell of a singer!!!
Any plans to perhaps work with him again?
-Sure!!! But I'm to busy for the moment with all this, but it in my schedule. I hope it'll be out early 2003.

Great King Rat was of course your first release back in 1992 and with an album of unreleased tunes in 99...is there any discussion to record an album of all new material with the original line up?
-Yes it is, but you'll have to wait.

And then there is Jekyll & Hyde!
I enjoyed both releases, there was some interesting songs on both albums, but I feel that the general public didn't accept this band as much as others you have been involved in.
Would you agree/disagree and do you have any thoughts on that?
- Jake and me has been friends sins 1984, and he asked me to join the band cause they wanted more guitar based sound. I recorded the "Heavenly Creatures" album long before it got released, so my involvement in J 'n H was more or less as a backup guitarplayer/ producer, cause I was never a big part of the song writing.


Tell us (for those that don't know!) what albums you have produced/mixed in the last few years...

-House Of Shakira's three albums except the new live album
-Human Clay " U 4 I a"
-Pontus Norgren "Damage Done"
-Southpaw "Southpaw"
-Jekyll 'n Hyde "Heavenly Creatures"
-Great King Rat "Out Of The Can"
-Gallery "Still here"
-Four Sticks "Electric Celebration"
-Also involved in Clockwise, Lion Share etc.

Any of those stand out as particular favourites?
-Don't know right now, but ask me in about ten years.:-)

Now I know that you will have other things on the go - can you tell us what projects you are working on right now and coming up next?
-I'm just about to start mix the Talisman Live album, and after that I'll start writing with Marcel for the forthcoming Humanimal . And then my solo one, and then, and then.....................:-D

Anything you would like to add to the fans out there in Net land?
BE WHERE OF THE HUMANIMAL, IT'LL KICK YOUR ASS!!

Thanks Pontus for taking the time to answer these questions.
All the best!

xx

To the outsider, it seemed Fair Warning were on a roll in recent years, with both Japanese and European deals in place, plus some successful recordings behind you. At what point did it seem there was some unhappiness within the band?
We started out in 1990 as a five piece band. In 1995 Andy became seriously ill and it took him more than two years to recover. During that time Andy didn't have much input in FW.
Even after Andy got better, his interest in FW seemed to have ceased. After the recordings for "Go", the original drummer CC left. In 1997 we toured to promote the "Go" album. Due to his physical condition Andy could not play all of the set and we had a guest guitarist (Henny Wolter).
Most of the set was played by Henny and Andy joined for the last three songs of the concerts. On top of this we had a new drummer (Phillippe Candas) who, even though being a great drummer, proved to be not the perfect match for FW because of personal animosities after a second tour in 1998. With this line up we recorded the live part of "Live And More".
While recording the "More" part of "Live And More", in fact already during the recordings of "Go" and for the recordings of "Four", FW had minimised to a three piece band (Tommy, Ule and me). The tour for "Four" saw yet another line-up.
By then Andy had left for good and we played with another guest guitarist (Kai Reuter) and yet again with another drummer (Zacky).
Having lost the original "Family" feeling over the years was something which Tommy didn't like at all.
My personal view was different from Tommy's because we kept on making good records, even with a reduced line-up.
For Tommy it is a definite necessity to have a strong band feeling on the personal level as well. This fact we could understand but obviously underestimated it.

Another weak point of FW was touring in Europe. With the exception of the very first tour our management had big difficulties to get the right tours for us.
The discrepancy of success in Japan and in Europe increased over the years.
There was major success in Japan with two gold selling disks and in Europe we were stuck being on tour as opener for Giant, Jimmy Barns, Saga, Blue Oyster Cult and CCR.

Further, musical taste seemed to drift apart. While Tommy got more interested in what I would call "basic rock 'n' roll", Ule got more interested in pop oriented music. When you listen to Tommy's "Soul Doctor" debut and to "Dreamtide's" debut, the differences in taste become quite obvious.

Ok, considering that, was departure then of singer Tommy surprise you all?
For all these reasons I was not very surprised when Tommy told us about his intention to leave FW.

Was there any possibility of continuing the Fair Warning band name with a new singer? Why did you decide not to?
After Tommy left in summer of 2000, all that was left of FW was Ule and me. Ule said he wanted to have a break from music. In this situation it was clear to me immediately that the time had come to start something new. For me it didn't feel appropriate to continue with the name of FW because Tommy was gone and Ule who wrote most of the songs didn't want to go on.

Dreamtide is of course, the new band. Where did the name come from?
Well, imagine you have five persons in a room trying to find a band name. You have a suggestion, 30 seconds of silence and after these 30 seconds, 30 million reasons why to not take the suggestion.
Finding a name was quite a task. We were really brilliant in finding silly names like "Eat Willy" (think about it), "Hamsters From Outer Space", "German Herman", "Last Exit To Stardom" and so on. I skipped the nasty German ones here!!
After a lot of discussion it became clear that dreams sometimes do the same things as music does. Dreams, as well as music, inspire people. So the more dreams the better. A flood or high tide of dreams. Dreamtide made sense to us. I knew that it is an non-existing word and because I am not a native English speaker I checked with several English natives:).
All of them seemed to like the name and it seemed to make sense to them as well. That was how the name Dreamtide was born.

And new singer Olaf is a sensation!! Where did you find him and how did he
get to know you?
My first goal was to find a singer. When writing songs and recording demos, songs are sung by me. Well, I was not only looking for a singer who could simply sing my songs. I was looking for a singer who could add something to the songs and could color the songs with his style of singing. I contacted several singers and listened to a lot of demos.
Someday an acquaintance of mine told me of a singer called Olaf Senkbeil. I had never heard of him before, but called him.
Now something funny happened. Even though we never met or talked before, we had a quite long telephone conversation. Of course we were talking about music. At a certain point we were talking about a singer or band (I don't remember exactly) and Olaf said: "I like this because they have good melodies and still have the power of rock". I thought: "oops, this sentence you could have said yourself." So I sent Olaf a demo of my songs and the day after he called me to tell me that he really likes it. Again two days later he came to my place and we recorded a song. This song was "Dreamers" and most of what you can hear on the record was recorded that day. Later when we were working on the record we often had funny situations where we found out that we share the same taste in many respects.
At one of this occasions we were talking about "old bands". By the point we came to "Deep Purple" the following conversation took place:
Helge: "Do you know what my favourite Deep Purple song is?"
Olaf : "Hmm, let me guess"
Helge: "No, you never will guess. It's a quite unknown song from a quite
unknown record"
At that point Olaf started singing: "Sometimes I fight here with my fists....." Nobody could ever be more surprised than I was at this moment. I didn't hum the melody, I didn't say the title of the song, I didn't name the record and still Olaf sang the song I meant. The song is "Wild Dogs" from "Last Concert In Japan" sung by Tommy Bolin.
The more songs we recorded, the bigger was my surprise that I found the singer I had been looking for: Someone who adds a lot to the songs.

What is his background?
Olaf used to sing in a band called "Jack's Hammer" and did a lot of studio work.

I found his voice very smooth and certainly a great fit for your musical style....was that your intention?
When you are looking for a singer, intentions are not worth much. All I can say is that finding Olaf was far beyond my expectations. He was simply the perfect match. His singing fits to my songs as "arse on bucket" as we say in German.

Were there any others that you considered for the vocalist position?
I listened to some demos. I talked to some singers on the phone. But Olaf was head and shoulders above the other ones.

How long did it take to write and record the debut Dreamtide record?
I started writing and working on the songs in September of 2000.
In March of 2001 I started to look for musicians for the band and we started recordings in the end of April. The mixing and mastering was finished by the 12th of August.

Do you think that with the departure of Tommy, you have better musical control over this project, or did the rest of the band still have input?
At a certain point, while writing songs, I realised that this new situation could add something to my creativity. I was free from chains and never had to think of things like "how would the other band-members think of this or that". This lead to some influences which I hadn't have before. I was enjoying this.

Later when we actually recorded the songs there was a lot of input from all the others. From helping in recording and mixing to forcing me changing arrangements. For example I was using a sampled vocal choir in the middle-part
of "Moment Of Truth", which I quite liked. When Torsten heard this part he said:
"well, nice part but forget about this sound, this has to be sung".
The advantage of knowing each other for a long time is, you don't hesitate to
criticise. After all we replaced this part by our vocals and the help of a
female singer. The part got much better. Torsten was right.
Another example, in the middle of the song "Dreamers" I had a drumfill which I sampled from a Jimi Hendrix CD. CC heard this and said: "Oh, come on this is really odd. Let me do it." I was quite proud of the idea of having something
strange for this drum fill and I was not easy to convince. But CC's idea was to record this part with just one microphone for all of the drumset to create a special atmosphere and after he played it I had to admit that his idea was the better one.

These are just two minor examples, but the band really added a lot.

It certainly rocks like Fair Warning, but I have to say that I enjoyed it
more than some of those Fair Warning albums!!
Thank you. Give me more! In FW we sometimes had songs which were somewhat too
light for my personal taste. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed playing these songs
but still...I think in Dreamtide we skipped the too light vein.

Could you use your own words to describe the band's sound and style?
The idea is to combine European based melody with the energy of hard rock and
interesting influences and sounds..........Well, that was the plan. But while
recording and working on the songs it was more like the songs taking over
command and talking to us. Almost like permanently saying: "Give me something
better".

Despite a common theme, there is also a lot of diversity in the songs isn't there? Is that a reflection of your personal tastes?
Maybe. I like it colourful. I like to have various influences combined with rock, like the surf guitar in "Your life", the ethnic influences in "Sundance" or the sound of an orchestra in "Heaven knows"

I can hear some Queen, some Scorpions, Fair Warning obviously, some new instrumental influences, some blues and some ballads....
Oops, where did you find the blues? I consider myself the probably worst blues player on this planet. Even though I love listening to B.B. King or Stevie Ray Vaughn. The blues must come from the other guys.
Queen I liked a lot and growing up in Hanover/Germany there is no way of not being influenced by the Scorpions.

What would you say your favourite tracks are and why?
For me it is too early to say. I might have an answer in five years from now.
Now it still changes one day I think a certain track is the strongest one and then the next day it's another one.

And what is next for Dreamtide? What is the band's masterplan?
Right now we are having daily meetings to pray for 6 or 7 hours for the success of the album. No, but seriously, we are trying to set up some touring for spring of 2001. There are no fixed dates yet but as it looks now, we will tour in Europe and Japan.

On a side note - what are your favourite bands/artists over the years?
The very first big impression I had concerning rock was Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love", later Yes, Rainbow, 70's and 80's Scorpions, Eagles, Journey, AC/DC, some classical pieces.

And what are you listening to these days?
The latest records I bought were Train, Melissa Etheridge, Rammstein.

Anything you would like to add to anyone reading and your fans?
If you have the chance to check out the album: listen and give it a chance.

Best regards,
Helge