Hey Jack, what's happening?

I'm just sitting here waiting for you to call!

I appreciate you taking the call Jack.

I just want to touch on Neverland for a minute. Last time we talked I had it on the way, but it hadn't arrived yet.
It is a bloody fantastic album!
Why thank you.

It is a very mature Night Ranger wasn't it?
Yeah it was. I think this new Night Ranger is more immature Night Ranger. Ha ha!

Great!
Yeah, this one is a lot more fun. I think you are really going to enjoy this one.

Neverland was a pretty serious album.
Yeah, this one is pretty not serious. This is a pretty fun record. The Japanese called me last night. They are flipping out over it.
They are really excited.

I am really pleased, and even surprised to see another album so quickly.
Well, so am I.
Actually we just got off the road, and I started writing a bunch of songs, and we thought well, lets go in and cut them.
And Zero said they would like another record. So we said okay, let's do it right now.

So the band must really be smoking right now.
Actually, if you think about it, we are releasing about one year from the last one. Which is really amazing!

I just wish more bloody bands would do the same these days.
Yeah, it normally takes two, three or four years. It's a joke.

Absolutley. Trends come and go between records.
It's like the old days, where The Beatles put out records every six or so months. Know what I mean?

Even you guys - in the early days '82-'84.
Right, right.

Yeah, a tour an album, a tour, and another album.
Right.

I guess you can burn out on that after half a dozen years or so.
I think so. This time around it was a lot of fun doing it this way.
We got an engineer by the name of Noel Golden, who mixed Sammy Hagar's last album 'Marching To Mars'. That's who we brought in as an engineer, but he did such a good job, we decided to have it a co-production thing.

There is a Rolling Stone interview you did. Brief, but you said press in 'American doesn't give a shit', but you are glad to be doing it anyway.
Yeah, so true.

I didn't recognize the producers name.
Yeah, he is more an engineer. He is from Canada.

And you guys know what you are doing anyway, eh?
Yeah, we've done a few of these before!
It's pretty easy for us to make a record. And we did it up here in my studio.

I was going to ask if you recorded on the Ranch.
Yeah, it turned out pretty nice.

I have a few of the tracks here. The track 'Let Him Run' pops up.
Yeah, yeah. We did 'Let Him Run' with Fitz playing the keyboards.
Instead of Jeff playing the guitars, we had Fitz play the keyboards.
You know, the Japanese love that shit.

They sure do!
They love remaking stuff. It is kind of neat. It turned out really nice. Kelly sang it. It seamed much more like the way we perform it live, which I personally enjoy.
Makes it sound fresh again.

The other thing this Rolling Stone blurb said, was that you wanted to ship 'Panic In Jane' to radio without the band's name on it - to eliminate any pre-conceptions.
Yeah, that would be something interesting.

Cool song?
Very cool song.

Different for Night Ranger?
Different, yet definitely us.

Can you describe the overall sound of the '7' record?
Well the sound of the album is much more rocking than the Neverland CD. It is much more like in your face rock n roll.
The songs like 'Panic In Jane', 'Kong' and 'Mother Mayhem' - those three are probably my favorites.
'The Sign of The Times' is a real, like furious straight ahead rocker, like 'You Can Still Rock In America' type song.
And um, 'Sea Of Love' is a great rockin' tune, straight ahead, a real pounder.
But the album rocks a lot harder. It rocks more than say the 'Neverland' CD, because we simply wanted to make a raw straight ahead, in your face record.
The last album was very precise and perfect, and I enjoyed it, but I also enjoyed making this record.
It was different also having another person at the helm. Like I said, with Noel throwing all this stuff in the works, making this record the way we wanted it to sound.
It kind of wound up really nice.

Ron Nevison is a very technical producer isn't he.
Yes he is, where as this way, you would admire our adherence to low tech! There is no high tech on this record!

Night Ranger has always had the signature vocals, and 'Neverland' in particular had many layers of vocals.
Have you still retained those features?
Oh yes, it is differently Kelly and I singing big choruses.
And you know, we brought up a friend of mine Jack Russell. He sings with Great White.

I am glad you brought that up. I was going to ask you about him.
Yeah, Jack came up for a couple of days and sang backgrounds on the whole album.
You will hear his voice in there a lot.
'Panic In Jane' and 'Kong' especially. He is a good friend, and said 'Yeah. I'll help out'.
Originally it was going to be Tommy Shaw, but then he started doing a solo album - which I have ended up last week in LA playing on six tracks.

Tell me how that came about.
Well, he was making this record, and wanted me to play on it. It was like song after songs and I ended up playing on over half of it.
Playing bass. Unfortunately I didn't get to sing on it, I was too busy and then I had to leave.
He is doing vocals now.

Almost a Shaw/Blades thing!
Almost, yeah! Which is nice, as I love the Shaw/Blades thing.

Who else plays on the record?
We brought in Michael Carabello, the conga player for Santana. He played some conga's and percussion on some of the songs.
That's very cool.
My friend Pat McDonald played some acoustic guitar on 'Mother Mayhem', we co-wrote that song.
He used to be in a band called Timbuk 3.
And Tommy, Mark Hudson and I did the background vocals on 'Kong'.
So it is pretty neat.

And it is out through Zero at the end of March.
Yeah, the album's called '7'.

The name was in question there for a while?
Well in Japan, it is our Seventh studio album, so we thought we would call it '7', and then we were thinking 'Panic In Jane', but he label wanted '7', so that is fine with me.
Maybe people will go in thinking they are buying the Garth Brooks album, and end up with the Night Ranger album. Ha ha.

They will get a culture shock when they get home!
Oh boy will they!

What about a US release?
Probably in the summer time. Early summer.

Looking pretty good to have Legacy get it out?
Well yeah, we are signed to Legacy, that's out Label.

Will they change it around like they did the last one?
It all depends. I gave them a song order.

I got the US version of 'Neverland', and found the running order much better.
It's much better. Much, much better.

I only found it a little strange to have 'Forever All Over Again' kicking off the album.
Well, Legacy wanted to focus on that ballad to take it to radio.

I think it was great adding 'Walk In The Future' to the record.
Yeah, that was on the Japanese EP.

You know 'Neverland' only got released officially in Australia in October of '97.
Oh, my God, really?

Yeah!
Isn't that funny! Here we are getting ready to do another album!

I ran into a mate I hadn't seen for about a year, and was filling him in on Night Ranger, saying you know, you had a record out, and he's going nuts, saying play it to me.
I just said sure, and they have another one out next month!
Ha ha. That's funny! Really!
This album is fun. I don't give a fuck what anyone thinks about this kind of music or that, as long as it's fun, that's what counts.
A good song is a good song, and there are plenty of them on the new album.

Cool Jack, thanks!
Well all right mate! You think you got enough?

Absolutley!
Hey - before you go, there are still rumors of Damn Yankees doing a record. What do you think of that?
Right now, there is a lot of talk between the people. Betwee the band members. We would like to do another.
I would think there is going to be another. I think it will be this year.
We could start work on it as soon as a month or two.
So anyway, I think that could happen!

That would be great.
Yeah, THAT would be FUN!

All right! Bye mate.

 

 

In my opinion Night Ranger is THE American rock band. There are no other bands which typify the hard edged guitar, the anthem rockers, and the soaring ballads like these guys do. Their amazing harmonies stem from the advantage of having two lead vocalists, in bassist Jack Blades and drummer Kelly Keagy. The infamous guitar work is supplied by Brad Gillis and the eight finger tapper himself, Jeff Watson. The ‘man who put it all together’ for them, is keyboard player Alan ‘Fitz’ Fitzgerald. Together they have made some of the best American rock ever. Their classic albums ‘Dawn Patrol’, ‘Midnight Madness’, ‘Seven Wishes’, ‘Big Life’(especially Big Life!), and ‘Man In Motion’ have never been far from my CD player.
I talked to Kelly Keagy earlier in the year, about the ‘Feeding Off The Mojo’ project, and now have the pleasure of talking to Jack Blades, who outside of Night Ranger, has recorded

So what's going on Jack?
Yeah, they’re putting on a guitar part, so I won’t have to worry about it for a couple of minutes. We are in the studio now, I have a studio in my barn, here on my ranch, and we are recording the new Night Ranger record, and were doing overdubs, and so they are putting a guitar part on, so they won’t need me for a few minutes.

The first thing I was going to ask you, is what were you doing up a 7am?
You are obviously a busy guy!
Oh well, yeah, there is no rest for the wicked, Andrew.
I always get up early, I’m an early riser, you know, I just have so much on my mind, and actually, to tell you the truth, it’s very peaceful at seven o’clock. No phones ring, nobody bothers you....

Most of the time no phones ring....
Right, most of the time!!

And you are on a ranch are you?
Yeah, yeah, it’s Northern California, I live up in Sanoma County, up in the wine country of California.

I’ve been as far north as Marin County.
Yeah, I’m the next county up from that.
I’m about, like, 40 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

That’s nice...
Yeah, it’s where they grow all the Californian wines, all the vineyards are all over....

So Night Ranger are recording then?
Yeah, we’re actually recording!

I heard the rumours! Who’s the album for? I heard it was a one off Japanese deal.
Well what happened, was that nobody was doing anything in the summer, and the guys called, you know, everybody started calling everybody up, some of the guys called me and said what are you doing, and I wasn’t doing anything, so we decided to get together and play some Japanese shows.

I saw the reviews, they were really great!
Yeah, yeah we did really, I mean Night Ranger was always a very big band in Japan, and um, it was so fun, and then all these Japanese record companies came and they started bidding for us, and one of them came up, you know, kinda outshined everyone else, they were a good company and all, so we went with Zero.

Know them well.
Yeah, we went with Zero Corporation, and so we actually started recording, last week we cut the basic tracks, we did that in a studio in Salsolido, and then um, on Monday of this week, we moved up to my studio, and we’re doing all the overdubs, and we have my producer, that did all the Damn Yankees records, Ron Nevison.

Great producer!
Yeah, he’s wonderful, so we hired him to produce this record.

He’s also done a few records for Zero
Yeah, the Schenker stuff..

And the UFO.
And um, I did two Damn Yankees albums with him, so I’ve known him since 1989 very well, and so um, I was real excited about the fact he wanted to do it and so we got him involved, so now we are all up here slagging it away.

When would you like to get the album out?
Well we are going to have it finished by the middle of January, and um, it will probably come out sometime in March or April, and we are going to go ahead and get distribution for the rest of the world.

I was going to ask about that.
The thing is I wasn’t sure where this was going to go when we first started it Andrew, and we have all become very excited about it because it’s a real, um, there are some amazing songs, and there is some great playing, and it’s gotten to a different level that none of us expected it to be, and so consequently it has changed the game plan for everyone. We are very excited about it.

There are a lot of people out there who want a new Night Ranger record.
Well I think that’s true, or manager is Miles Copeland, he manages me, so Miles is going to handle the thing, and get everything squared away so we can release it in the States, and throughout the rest of the world.

That will go down well.
I think so too, I think everybody will be very surprised when they hear the music.

Night Ranger is responsible for some classic tunes, there are a lot who have tried to copy your sound.
Well I think that they are going to be pleasantly surprised when they put this CD on, because of the way the songs are and everybody is playing, you know, nobody’s stoned or drunk anymore! You know, I’m not saying that was bad, but you know, everything has it’s place, and now it’s sort of like, everyone has, God, got a lot better! And with the original guys all together it’s kind of really fun.

Did you record any of the Japanese shows? You know they love their live albums!
No we didn’t record any of the shows. Hey here’s Ron Nevison now....Hey Ron, what do you want to say to your Australian fans? I’m doing an interview to Australia right now.
Hello mate!
You can quote Ron Nevison on that!
Ron says that we are carving out some new frontiers right now!

That’s great! I am putting together a web site, which this interview will be on also.
Oh really! Great. Very cool.

Were you aware that you actually have a Jack Blades page on the net?
No!

There is a fan of yours, a lady who has put together her own page with a bunch of photos of you.
You’re joking!!?

I’m not joking! I did a search and that’s what I found! You have a fan out there! There is a photo of her when she met you back in ‘83 or ‘84!
You’re joking! How did you, what did you search? Jack Blades?

Yep, into one of the search engines.
Ha Ha Ha, that’s very funny.

You will have to check it out!
So what’s happening with Damn Yankees? I heard something was going on there also, but I guess that’s on hold now?
Yeah, there’s nothing happening there at all.

Do you still see Tommy at all?
No.

So he’s back with Styx then?
Yes he is.

You guys wrote a lot of songs over the last couple of years for different people?
Yes, we have.

Do you enjoy doing that?
Yeah, from Aerosmith and Alice Cooper to Ozzy and Vince Neil, we’ve written some great songs. Actually the last few months I have written some songs with friends of mine who live in Nashville, that are being covered now by several country stars.

Well the Shaw/Blades songs would lend itself to that format.
Yeah, it kinda would, wouldn’t it! That was kind of like leaning towards that type of format. But it’s fun, you know, I write songs, you know what I’m saying. My manager Miles Copeland has a castle in the south of France, and we go over there like once a year he invites like twenty or twenty-one very well known, like famous song writers from America and Europe and we all converge on the castle, and for ten days we just sit and write songs together, and record them there. We’ve written some amazing things.

Wow! That’d be really hard then!!?
Oh its very cool. I was with Paul Carrack last, um, two months ago, and Carol King and Mark Hudson, some really good songwriters. In fact Mark and I wrote a great song called Neverland that’s on this record.

Any other titles for the album?
Walk In The Future, As Always I Remain, Slap Like Being Born....
That’s a killer song.
Mon Dye Nye, which is Japanese for No Problem, that’s a real killer rockin’ tune.
Sunday Morning, Someday I Will, there’s some great material.

What did you think of the Mojo album?
You know what, can I be real honest with you?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I would have thought from your point of view it would have been strange to see them doing it without you.
Well, let me be very honest with you, and I swear to God, this is the truth, and I’m telling you this because I don’t bullshit my life anymore.

Okay.
I never heard it. I’ve never listened to it!

Oh no, ha ha ha (laughs allround!)
And I think that’s probably terrible and probably Kelly and Brad would hate me for it, but I have not heard one thing from it! And to tell you the truth, I don’t really want to. Because it’s not really....,you know, this is Night Ranger. And they did their thing, and that was kind of a Night Ranger thing, however it’s kinda neat with all five of us together.

And ‘Fitz’ is back also?
Yeah, sure.

I ask because he kind of disappeared off the scene for a while.
Well he was playing keyboards for Van Halen, behind the curtain, you know. He was the keyboard guy for Van Halen over the last five or six years. You know, so when you hear all that Jump stuff, you know duh duh dah dah, that’s Fitz behind the curtain!

So when I saw them live a couple of years back, in Toronto, I really heard Fitz?
Yeah, Yeah!

My fiancee and I saw you in Toronto in ‘93.
Oh, with the Yankees?

Yeah, great show.
Was it that outdoors place?

No the small theatre.
Oh my gosh, that was a fun show! Was that with Jackyl?

It was, yeah, they go off live, eh?
Yeah, Jesse DuPre is a very good friend of mine. Yeah, he and I have become very good friends.

He’s a good laugh.
Oh yeah, he’s a great guy, he’s great to be with, we have a ball together. I just talked to him yesterday infact. Talking of very good friends, my son was over this summer with Ozzy’s, Ozzy Osbourne’s family because my son, Colin, has become very good friends with Ozzy’s son Jack. They invited him to England, he was in England for two weeks.

Cool! How old is your son now?
He’s 14, he had a ball!
Hang on a minute Andrew.....Yeah I’ll be up in a flash.....Yeah I promise! Don’t get me in trouble now Andrew! Ha Ha, I still got a few minutes.

What about Night Ranger albums? Have you got any favourites, looking back, now that it has been a few years?
I think the favourite for me would be, ah....the ah....the first one, you know, cause it was real raw. The first and the second album were my favourite. Although the third album......I like Seven Wishes! Shit I don’t know man!! Oh, hey! I know what I like, I know what my favourite Night Ranger album of all time, my favourite Night Ranger is Night Ranger’s Greatest Hits! hahaha

Oh right, yeah, very diplomatic there!
Hahahahaha.

My favourite from the band is Big Life.
Big life is a very good record.

The Shaw/Blades was a departure for you. Any plans to something like that again?
Yes, it was. It was a fun thing to do. Ted was getting ready to do a solo record, and the label wanted Tommy and I to do something. So they let us do whatever we wanted to, and it was really a fun thing. It was sad in hindsight, as Warner Bros made a big change in their upper personnel, and it caused that CD to kinda get lost.

I thought it did vanish quickly.
Yeah, my friends over there were Mo Austin and Michael Austin, Mo’s son, and when they left, and went over to Dreamworks, the new regime that was in there were a bunch of alternative assholes that didn’t want anything to do with us, and they didn’t want anything to do with Damn Yankees, so they bought us off. They owed us a lot of money, they owed us two albums, so they bought us off of the label.

That’s just typical!
Yeah, I don’t care, I’ve been through all that stuff before, I’d rather not be somewhere where I’m not wanted. There are so many songs in my heart.

Is there anything in the future that you have always wanted to do, that you may get the chance to do?
No, I probably would like to go to the pyramids, though! I’ve never done that! No I’m just enjoying it as it goes, I’m enjoying making this CD with all the guys, I’m really enjoying these songs, I kinda like, wherever I am at the time is where I love to be. I’m very happy.

So Night Ranger could be a permanent re-union then?
Um it’s hard to say. If everyone gets on everybody’s nerves, no! Hahahaha! You know what I mean!?

Yeah, sure!
Right now, we are having a fun time! And as you know, fun is the most important thing to have.

Absolutely.
If it’s not fun, then there is no reason doing it. That’s the way we look at it.

Yeah, definitely. Do you see a Damn Yankees album in the future?
Possibly, sure. I mean, yeah, everybody’s still semi-talking to everybody. You know, I talk to Ted all the time.

He’s a wild man, eh?!
He’s always threatening to want to do another one, and if everybody’s schedules collide at the right time, and if the stars are right, we’ll do something. Who knows.

What about what you are listening to at the moment?
I listen to all kinds of music, you know. I like the Van Halen, the new Greatest Hits, I love the Smashing Pumpkins, you know, Mellon Collie, I love that CD. I think that CD from President Of The United States is pretty cool, that new one.
Ah, the new Alice In Chains out and the new Ozzy record, and I can’t wait for the new Aerosmith CD to come out.

Me neither.
I think I wrote a couple of songs, I don’t know, but I wrote some songs with Steven and Joe for the new album. I’m hoping they’ll be on it.

Great!
Thank you Jack for your time.
Well Andrew once again I absolutely apologise for not, you know, it’s really not, I’m sorry about that, but I’m glad we were able to hook up now, I’m so glad you called me now. I was sitting right by the phone, I was just down here getting a cassette of a song, for Jeff that we gotta figure out a part on or something.
I was just walking by the phone when it rang, so that worked out really well. I am looking forward to reading this interview.

Yeah, I'll get it to you.
I’m in Tasmania, have you heard fo it at all?
I’ve heard of the cartoon!

Yeah, it’s the little island off the south east coast of mainland Australia.
Oh, really?

Yeah, there is 500,000 people here, so it’s not too small or anything.
Yeah, but you’re on Tasmania! That’s very cool!

The home of the Devil.
The home of the Tasmanian Devil. I like it already! I knew I liked you!

Hahahaha.

Okay, maybe we will get the chance to talk again sometime.
Well I’m excited about you getting to hear this new project, it’s awesome stuff.

Can’t wait! Hopefully I’ll be able to see you guys live.
If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to give me a jingle.

Thank you very much.
Allright mate! See you later! Bye.(hangs up)

Right on Jack, yeah I may give you a call when I'm in the area sometime!!!

---

C. 1997 Andrew J McNeice Back To The AOR HARD ROCK HOT SPOT

Despite many of you probably thinking this was going to be another routine Q and A, and considering that Jonathan had already stated there were things he 'Could not discuss', I think the interview you are about to read will surprise you.

Jonathan was quite open and honest with his answers, and I think let a few things slip over the course of the interview. At least, for once, we now know where things stand with one of the great bands of the era.

So how are things!
Oh, pretty good.

Journey is still regarded today as the cornerstone of the AOR genre.
People have said that, and we are flattered that people are still enjoying our music, and it's pretty cool that the records are continuing to do well.

Congratulations on Trial By Fire.
Yeah, we like that very much. It was kinda a labor of love. We just got together and wanted to do it the way we thought we should do it.
We thought there was a kind of a void there.

I think it's a great album.
Thanks.

Something I did notice about the album – everybody gets to shine somewhere.
Yeah, we tried to do that. We really thought about featuring everyone this time.
You know, everyone has played so much on their own, as solo artists, it seemed almost like we had to go that way.
And yeah, I don't think there were too many solos. There was a lot of guitar solos on this record, but Neal had a lot to pay.

They blended in so well. And you had a couple of fantastic keyboard/piano solos.
Thanks, yeah. We had a really good producer this time in Kevin Shirley.
He was stunning. He had a lot to do with the arrangements, and we worked hard with him.
We were done with the basics in about two and a half weeks. It was pretty amazing.
It was all live, we played live at the site. We had these isolation rooms for the drums, and guitars and keyboards even. But we could see each other and played live. Most of the record you hear is live.
The overdubs are just little things here and there. You know, like backing vocals and a lot of the vocals.
Steve kept some of the things we did live.

Disappointed you haven't been able to tour on the back of it?
Yeah, it's been frustrating for us. It's because of unforeseen events. Sort of like the hand of God comes down, and has hit Steve with arthritis in the hip and in the neck.

What actually happened to Steve?
Well, it (the arthritis) just really attacked him. And it has taken his hip and swollen it up and the joints and everything else.
So that's really it. He has gone for therapy to try to get better. To have surgery would really be ideal, but I don't think he's ready for it to go to that extreme.

That is pretty drastic.
Yeah, and you know, it's not getting better. It's like Eddie Van Halen needs it too.
The only way he will go out is with a real hip, so go figure.
If you really want to do it bad enough, you know, you get it done.
It has been over a year now, and he hasn't gone and got it done. And It's his body and we can't say anything about it.
It's frustrating for us, because we were sort of left at the alter with the dress on.

That's what I am hearing.
Yeah, frustrating, but it's an act of God, and what are we going to do.
We are just disappointed that we missed out on some great opportunities.
The album is just part of it. Just a small part of it.
We could have sold four times the amount of records. It came out, then nothing much happened.
We just didn't want to disappoint the fans. I think, number one is that we knew there were a lot of our friends waiting for us to come, and I think that is the most disappointing thing.

A major part of the e-mail and feedback I have received is why hasn't anyone been able to find out what's going on.
Well, he hasn't come forward. You know, we tried to get him to come forward with some television and talk about the problem and what he is going through. Just share it with everybody, tell the fans what's up and come out and sing a little bit. Sit on a stool or something, and tell people what's going on.
We had an opportunity to all these television programs and he passed on all of them, the American Music Awards and everything.
It was really sad.
We all wanted to do these things, but we couldn't. that's the end of that, and I don't know what we are going to do now.

That's the rest of the questions. What's next?
We are in limbo really. That's all I can tell you.
We are all doing solo projects, and you know, everyone is just moving on with their life.

It took me about 6 months just to get that out of Irving Azoff!
Everything has been really secretive.
Well, we have been waiting for something to resolve, and see what Steve should do. But you really can't force somebody to go that way.
There is enough pressure on him as it is. You know, the record company has put the pressure on him. We just leave him alone.
We feel sad for him, but jeez, what are you going to do?
It's his life, his body, his thing.
You go to a certain point, and go what do we do now?
We are going to have some meetings and so forth.
But there has been talk about possibly a live compilation from '81 to '87. Some of that stuff. The stuff the box set didn't get. There was a lot of neat stuff just sitting in the can. People have been asking about live Journey, so we thought we could do that.
Sort of put that out in the interim, and maybe we can come up with a plan.
That's probably what's going to happen next. We are moving towards that.
I don't know what else to tell you. It's frustrating.
I have another album coming out in Spring, that's a new age album.

Is that 'Songs In The Key Of The Heart'?
Yeah, actually we changed it. It's called 'For A Lifetime' and we are just fixing to get the cover ready.
It's a wedding album for lovers and so forth. There is an instrumental version of Open Arms, it's really tender kind of romantic piano music that I have collected over the years, for my friends.
I am playing at a wedding New Years Eve, for a friend of mine. I have been doing this for fun over the years, and have written a bunch of songs, and I thought it would be a lovely kind of souvenir to have out there.
So we are putting that out, that's going to be exciting. Neal's got something coming out, I think it's called 'Piranha Blues'. It is a combination of guys. It's Prairie Prince an Ross Valory and he's got a blues singer from LA.
I have just mixed that here at the studio, and that's going to be on his own label, or an Internet thing. And I am supposed to do another solo vocal album.

Great, I love 'Back To The Innocence'.
Thanks, it will kinda be like that. That is going to be on a little label called Mystic, distributed by BMG.
The Steve Smith is on the road with his new album. I haven't heard it yet, but I know it's probably really good. That's a jazz album. He's touring now with that.
I think that may be out or about to be released.
We have all been pretty busy really.

There sure is some talent in the band isn't there?!
Yea, it's a pretty good band! We just keep busy. I was trying to get a jazz tour together with Smith and Neal. But Neal wants to play the blues, so he is going to do that.
Then I will probably promote my wedding CD.
Actually South Africa wanted me to come and play, so I am not sure if I am going to do that.

That's almost as far away as Australia!
Yeah, that's a ways. I wanted to hit Australia. Maybe one of these days I will get a chance to get there.

Can I throw a big question at you? I have heard you may be looking for a new lead singer.
Is that right? You heard that already?

Yeah, I have.
That is unbelievable. You know, right now, we really can't say, because there is so much stuff up in the balance. And Steve hasn't really signed off yet. So until he really decides that he doesn't want to.
We still want Steve number 1, and we are just giving him a little bit of space here to see what he wants to do.
So that's really the truth, in the interim that's what we are doing.
We owe it to him and ourselves to give him a little space and check it out, and if he's into it, and really wants to come back.
And if he doesn't, we will face those consequences.

You will have to go on maybe?
Well, everybody has worked hard to make this band a success and we feel the music is powerful and has a lot of life left to it. I feel that, the band still feels that.
If the band sounded old and tired, it wouldn't even be a consideration, but the band sounds so darn good. It would be a shame to let it go to waste.
We'll see.
Ultimately, it will be Steve's choice to carry on or not with the band.
We are hoping that's what he decides to do. But it is something you don't want to rush.
That's funny that the rumors are out already.
At this stage in the game, we are hoping he changes his mind.

Okay Jonathan, thanks very much for taking the time out to talk.
Nice talking to you, take care and thanks for calling.

What I haven't printed here was a little side conversation where Jonathan asked if I had seen Kevin Chalfant's web site and did I know where he could find it.
Indeed I did, and have since passed to him Kevin's website and his e-mail address. Interesting!

How are you mate?

Not bad. I haven't been out of bed long, I take a while to run on all cylinders, you know!

How's things?
Okay, not bad. We've done a couple of weeks in Germany. It has taken me a week to get over that, we did a lot of travelling. It has been great.

And you are just resting in between projects right now?
We are going to start the next Heartland record in the studio in mid January. I have just got maybe one more tune to write.
Apart from that I am not flogging it at the moment.

How has the Distance project faired up?
I am really pleased with it actually. It's gone a hell of a lot better than I thought it would. Not that I didn't think the songs were good to begin with, but I was kind of nervous to start a new project.
I hadn't met the guy before.

Really!?
Yeah, I knew very little about Kenny before hand. The thing just came about, because I was half way through writing the next Heartland record with Steve Morris and Steve had to break off for a little while to be in Ian Gillan's solo band.
So I had a kind of dead period, and I didn't want to stop writing because I find it difficult once I have stopped to get started again.
Escape music here wanted to know if I fancied doing a sort of solo record. And I thought that is a little unfair, as I always work with somebody else, and the idea of putting it out as a solo record when it is pretty obvious it is a joint project seemed to me a bit unfair.
I heard the Pokerface record, which I really liked, and I just fancied the change.
To get out of the country for a little while and do something different gave me a new slant on the Heartland stuff as well. It is good to do something else.

I have enjoyed the Heartland records. But as soon as I played this record I was blown away. The power, the guitar. It was a lot more in your face.
Yeah, there was definitely a change. I think it even has a little of the Canadian sound. It is a little bit more basic, and gave me a lot more scope to get a lot more attitude into it.

It is a rocking album!
We are definitely going to do another one.
Apart from everything else, I really enjoyed working with Kenny.
You always hope that everything you work on will be a commercial success, and it seems to be doing well, but when it comes down to it, it's whether you enjoy doing it, and I had a great time.

You sound like you are enjoying it.
Absolutely. I went over (to Vancouver) for 10 days to do the vocals and it was great to walk into the studio and have everything ready for you.
I don't particularly like studio's. For me going into the studio is like going to the dentist!
It is just not a very creative place for me. I like to have everything completely finished before I go in, so I can go strait for it.
Kenny has a nice little ranch up in the hills, so there are no disturbances.

Hard for some I guess!!!
Actually it pissed down most of the week.

Ha ha.
Yeah, it rained something rotten. But I live in Manchester, which is known as the rainy city, but Vancouver can take some beating!

Has the album been received well?
Yeah, I shouldn't really be surprised, but it has.
I took Kenny over to Germany for two weeks; we did an acoustic thing over there.
I went with Steve and Kenny so we could do some of each band acoustically.
It was great to go from one to the other.
We did some TV spots which were good.
I think with AOR, you have to try and keep the standard up. There are a lot of albums kicking about that aren't great, but aren't bad either. It is hard to keep up the standard.

Something I am curious about. You along with fellow UK rockers TEN have been pumping out new material at an awesome rate. Do you keep yourself busy recording all the time?
Yeah, I think a lot of that is that we are working with a smaller label.
With my last deal at A&M, the wheels grind really slowly. It's not that bands don't have enough material, or don't want to put records out, it's more the fact that when you have a major deal - because there is so much investment in each record, things grind forward so slowly.
With an independent record company the whole thing just moves much quicker. You get on the phone and ask for something, and it is done.

That must be enjoyable.
Yeah it's great. Escape have a great deal of enthusiasm.

How about Virginia Wolf?
I always enjoyed working with Nick Bold. He was incredibly prolific.
You would leave him in a room for a couple of hours and come back, and he would have four songs ready for you.
He was one of those guys that didn't seem to sleep.
I miss working with him.
I have not spoken to him for about three years. He was madly keen on learning the piano when I saw him last. He loves a challenge.
I hope he is still in the business.

That first record is one of my all time favourites.
Right, the first album as a good live album also. It was good to play live.
I think if anything, that was one of the problems. When we put the first record out and did some touring, it felt really good.
The record company were right behind us, Atlantic in America.
We put the second album out, and although it was a great studio record, it was hard to put over live. It didn't have the same easy flow as the first record.
I think at that time, what we needed was another really good live record.
We stumbled a bit around then.

What happened after that?
We lost the deal with Atlantic, and that was back I the days when none of us were particularly experienced, we thought once we lost the deal, that that was it.
Which looking back was really stupid!
A band is a band, and you go from deal to deal, you know.
We took it as a bit of a blow and Nick took it bad, as he felt he has worked really hard on the second album, and I think he was just very very disappointed.

And from there, a couple of years later, Heartland was formed.
Yeah, I was friend with a guy for years called Gary Sharpe, and I knew he had a home based studio.
He was one of the first guys into that. We kind of juts naturally drifted together.

It was a pretty soft album. Great soft AOR.
Yeah, I think you have to be critical of it, a lot of people say it is over produced, which is fair enough.
It is difficult to get hold of now, people are now looking for it.
A&M had an open wallet when it came to that one, they really liked the songs, and were looking for a band like us at the time, and went for it.
I actually got a lot of satisfaction at the time when the second record Wide Open came out, which was just working demo's anyway.
People were kind of saying the second album, that had absolutely no money thrown at it, and we were getting the same sort of reviews.
It just taught me that it is the songs that matter.
What I am trying to say is that you can throw as much money at a record, but a bad record is always going to be a bad record, no matter what how much money is involved.

How about Virginia Wolf on disc then?
It is possible. I was asked that in Germany. At the moment Escape are looking into that. I will keep you posted!

And the next Heartland record?
Yeah, I would like the next album to have even more depth to it. It will sound well produced, and I always want to put a little more into the songs. More going on.
That will keep going in the same direction as the last one.

Maybe we can talk again when the next Heartland comes out.
For sure mate. Good luck with the web page.

Thanks Chris for calling.
No worries. Bye.