Intervju - Kory Clarke, Dirty Rig / ex Warrior Soul Kory Clarke tog ställning i början av 90-talet och visade sitt förakt för det politiska systemet i USA och överhuvudtaget samhällets förfall. Hans band Warrior Soul prånglade ut en hel drös med låtar av synnerligen god kvalitet och med mer punkanda och jävlar anamma, än vad den tidens rockscen kunde prestera sammantaget. Sedan en tid tillbaka återfinns han i Dirty Rig och mycket av ljudbilden från hans tidigare band finns även med här. Det är tungt, smutsigt och skramligt, men visar också att Kory fortfarande är en röst att räkna med. Kory ringde upp Metal Shrine från Brooklyn och berättade vad som händer just nu. How are you? KC: I´m very good! Are you calling from New York? KC: Brooklyn! I actually interviewed you in Stockholm three years ago. KC: Yeah, I remember! Awesome! So what´s up with Kory Clarke? KC: Rock! (laughs) The Rig is rocking! It´s a great album! KC: Thank you! It´s been getting some good reviews and people are starting to wake up to it. It takes a while to get that machine moving, but once it gets moving it´s cool. We´re gonna go over and do a tour and I´m gonna be stopping in Stockholm to do some press at the end of the tour, which will be around September 24th. Everything´s firing on all cylinders right now. Last time I talked to you, you were playing with these Swedish guys, The Lovebanks. What ever happened to that? Are you still in touch with those guys? KC: Oh yeah and I´m gonna be hanging out with them when I come over and we might do a one off gig, I don´t know. But those guys are really cool and they´re doing quite well and I think they´re touring in England when we´re there, so we might do a gig together. It´s all really good. About Dirty Rig. I read that the band got together in 2003, but you were not the original singer. How come you ended up joining these guys? KC: They came down to one of my solos shows and handed me some cd´s. I picked up and listened to them and a couple of songs were really good. The musicianship was really outstanding. These guys are the best musicians I´ve ever worked with. We wrote some songs, "Suck it" and "Drunk again" and that´s what happened. So how many of the songs on the album were written before you joined them? KC: One! We wrote the rest together. I brought "Cities, scenes and thieves" from my career and "Just a star" was written by a friend of mine in Detroit and the rest is a collaboration. There´s a quite a lot of, at least I think, a Warrior Soul sound and stuff you´ve done before in, Dirty Rig´s sound. I was listening to "Drunk again" today and there´s quite a few similarities with one of my favorite Warrior Soul songs "Punk and belligerent". KC: Yeah, it´s about drinking (laughs). There´s definetely a theme there and having fun, really. I mean, that is a funny song. And I think that Warrior Soul also had sort of that sense of humour. It seems to fit quite well with this band and that´s probably why they wanted me to sing with them. They knew that was what they were gonna get. You get a lot of stuff when you put Kory Clarke in your band. Lot of crappy stuff. What about the rest of the guys. Have they been doing anything, like major stuff, before Dirty Rig or? KC: As far as big bands, definetely local heroes. Chas is an unbelievable guitar player. They´re looking at him to be the next big guitar player. And the drummer is probably gonna be the next big drummer. The guy´s vicious! They´re absolutely off the hook! I don´t know how large their success was, but I don´t wanna play with like ex-guys. That just bores the crap out of me. But I´ll tell you, having great players that were virtually unknown to the world is great and I have an oppertunity to come in and be new. Unfortunately I´m not in the position that some other artists I know, that were out in the 90´s, that are so well known from their other bands that they can`t really do anything else. I´m more like an underground guy. The way Stiv Bators did it. I think I´m very fortunous to be working with those type of players. Sounds great! I was checking out your website and there were some really great reviews and everybody seems to really like it. KC: Yeah, it´s pretty neat man. I´m really having a pretty good time right now. Have you played a lot in the US? KC: We´ve been playing. We haven´t done any full length tours, but were targeting a couple of markets and we wanna break them before we go anywhere else. That´s kind of important. If you just go running around there´s no concentration and it´s not gonna happen. Sure. And all the Warrior Soul albums have been rereleased with bonus tracks. How do you look upon those albums today? The first album goes back 15-16 years ago. KC: I think they hold up pretty well. For what I can tell, I think I can compete with anybody that´s out there. It´s hard to judge yor own stuff. I was listening to Aerosmith the other day and I finally said "How crappy am I?". And then I took my records out and "I´m not that bad!" (laughs). Not at all! It´s funny because some of the lyrics about the society back then still work today and these days it´s George Bush jr and back then it was Bush sr. KC: I never mentioned Bush by name, but it´s just the same group of assholes. So nothing has really changed. KC: No! We´re becoming more and more aware of who´s really running everything. All these live bonus tracks...were there any unreleased real songs? What was the reason for all these live songs? KC: The record company definetely wanted a bunch of bonus tracks and I had some tracks laying around that were recorded during the time when the records were released and I thought this might be a cool thing to dop ut out songs live from that era when they were released and show how the crowd reacted and what the scene was. And you start to realize how big that band really was. That´s why they went on. It´s interesting and hearing alternate studio tracks is so boring. It´s kind of interesting because a lot of those live tracks have a real bootleg feel to them. KC: We never recorded a live album so that´s kind of what we have to go on. When I talked to you last time you mentioned the Warrior Soul albums coming out and you were talking about a dvd as well. What about that? Is it out or...? KC: I´m working on it right now and I´m actually putting together a five minute trailer for the record company, so they can see what they´re buying. And once they se that I´m going into production. But I gotta get going on it. Is that going to be a live dvd? KC: There will be live stuff, like bootleg live videos and an interview I did last year and just kind of giving the whole history of Warrior Soul. Lots of videos and stuff from the studio and shit like that. About Warrior Soul, is that a band that will see the light of day again or...? KC: Well, considering that I own the name, I would say...probably. But definetely the members will be different. It´s too dificult to work with the other members of the band. One doesn´t answer his phone and the other is a Lear jet pilot. I seem to be the one who´s still rocking. There´s been a lot of members of Warrior Soul already and if I come out again, it´ll be serious. Do you have any other projects or bands going on? Are you writing stuff? KC: Millions of projects. Actually my main side project, is a band called The Stoned, which is a...I don´t know what kind of music it is (laughs). Detroit music! I´m playing drums and producing it. It´s really cool actually. I have the director of Beastie Boys´ "Fight for your right..." video on rhythm guitar and I´ve got a guy from Detroit singing, Scottie G Dimebagger (?), a guy I pulled out of Detroit and we´ve got this other guy, Sebastian from Chile, on bass. He´s an ex marine. It´s fucking nuts! We´re doing a live four camera shoot at CBGB´s and it´ll be the last show we do at CBGB´s, on Friday night. So that´s gonna exist and the album´s almost done and it´s gonna be really cool man. I´m not sure who´s gonna put it out. I´m not gonna always be in the band, but I´m gonna get this thing released and there´s gonna be a lot of video action on it too. And it has nothing to do with Dirty Rig, Warrior Soul or anything! It´s a totally different thing and my other project is...let´s see...I´ve actually started a Bad Company tribute band and I´m playing drums, for now. It´s just like a side project with friends. And I´ve got another thing that´s going to corporate events, but I don´t want to discuss it right now. Bad Company? Is that the kind of stuff you grew up listening to? KC: Sure! That´s the deal, man. The new Dirty Rig record is gonna be more towards an acoustic type of record. I´m not sure how we´re gonna release it. If we´re gonna do an acoustic record first and then another rock record, but the acoustic record is gonna have more of that Aerosmith bluesy type swagger to it. I think that´s the direction I want to go in. Less metal more blues! Have you ever thought about writing books and stuff? KC: Yeah, I´ve tried and it´s really hard. I don´t know what I would write about and I only read biographies and history and I´m not a novel writer. I can´t write crap like that! Everything I write comes from my life. Even fiction writers do the same thing, but I just don´t know how to do it. But reading about your life should be interesting. You´ve been places, seen things. KC: Oh yeah, there will be a book on me sometime. I think we can write it in maybe a few years. How would you compare the 90´s, when the first Warrior Soul albums came out, to 2006 and everything with downloading, less records being sold, few major labels? Is it more difficult today, getting across? KC: The most difficult thing, that I find, is the drinking age being so high. It really affects your touring capabilities and kids should start off at 19, going into the bars and checking out bands. That´s what we did! Now it´s 21 and it forces them to stay in the street. You can´t go into a bar and listen to rock. At the same time, I´m still playing , still making records, still touring. In England rock is coming back big time and, as you know, in Sweden it´s never gone away. I´m really looking forward to coming and see you in Stockholm. You should give me your number...oh, this is your number! It is. KC: I´ll give you a call! I´m gonna stay in a house down by the boats there. I like it down there! Cool! KC: It doesn´t start snowing in September does it? No, but you´ll never know with Swedish weather. KC: (laughs) Yeah! But listen, I appreciate talking to you a lot. Well, I do to. Thanks! / Niclas Müller-Hansen Dirty Rig - Official website
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