Intervju - Jack Russel, Great White Great White är ett av all de band från 80-talets Los Angeles som aldrig riktigt nådde den stora massan. Bandet har sålt någonstans mellan sex och tio miljoner skivor och funnits i en oändlig massa olika sättningar. Störst avtryck världen över skedde dock genom den tragiska branden på klubben The Station i Rhode Island i februari 2003. 100 människor fick sätta livet till då bandets pyroteknik satte eld på ljudisoleringsmassan i taket. Förra året beslutade de sig för att återförenas i den "klassiska" sättningen och återigen ge ut ett nytt album, "Back to the rhythm". Kontrakt skrevs med italienska Frontiers Records, som fiskat upp mängder med gamla 80-talsband de senaste åren. Skivan låter inte alls så tokigt som man kanske kunnat tänka sig och nu befinner sig bandet återigen ute på vägarna. Jag fick en pratstund med bandets frontman, Jack Russel, och samtalet kom bl a att handla om svunna tider, nya skivan och hur det hela började. So, how´s the tour been going? Jack Russell: Really, really good! It´s been a lot of fun. When was the last time you played in Sweden? JR: In ´89, I would say. Right. And that was with Alice Cooper? JR: Yeah. What was that like? JR: Like 20 years ago... (laughs) No, it was fun. Alice is great and he was always one of my heroes when I was a kid growing up, so it was wonderful to play with him. I love to go overseas. It´s a whole different thing and that´s one of the perks with this job. You get to see the world. And have people stand in front of you and clap their hands. JR: Yeah, you can´t beat that! What was it like getting the guys back into the studio and working together again? JR: You know, it was just like old times. It wasn´t really anything that was a big strain or stress or anything that took years in the making. It was like a couple of phone calls and everybody said "Yeah, let´s do it!". I think the time was right. We´re coming up on our 25th anniversary and it was feeling like it was time for another record. And doing a record with anybody besides these gentlemen just didn´t seem to make any sense to me. Did everybody bring something to the recording of the album? JR: Oh yeah! It may not be so much per se, let´s say the drummer walks in and says "Here´s some guitar chords I wrote!", but I mean, we all add to the band and make the sound what it is. The primary writers have always been myself and Michael and Mark doing some degree of that and that´s just the way it´s been. But everybody definitely adds their influences and stuff. How much stuff was recorded or did you just cut the album tracks and that was it? JR: That was it! You know, we never really have been a band that would sit back and write fifty songs and pick ten. We just keep writing until we like the songs that we write. You may find yourself writing fifteen songs, but that fourteenth or fifteenth song may never make it pass the first chorus before it gets tossed away. You just write until you feel like you´ve got an album´s worth of material that stands up and sounds good and you put it out and hope the rest of the world likes it too. I know the title track went back a few years. Were there other songs...? JR: Yeah, there was actually. A couple of other songs that we had written for an album that we didn´t end up doing. I still thought that they were valid songs. I didn´t think they sounded like they were written four or five years ago. They still had that feel that we were looking for and I always wanted to express those tunes in a studio format. They were songs that I felt deservedly so, should be heard on a studio album. The album sounds good and I think you´ve come up with a great sound of old and new Great White. Was that a thought you had, that you wouldn´t try to make a modern, hip record? JR: You know, this band has always been that way. We don´t really sit there and try to see what´s in vogue and listen to the radio and go"Oh, we need to write this! We need to be grunge!" or anything. We just write what we like to write and I still like the same kind of music I liked growing up. Great White is what Great White is! Good, bad, like it or don´t like it! It´s just a rock and roll band and we´ve never tried to make anything but that. We just wanna have fun and play the songs I like. If I would go out there and sing rap to make millions of dollars, I would be... like screw it! I would rather work on cars. It´s kind of selfish, but music to me... I have to like it first. I´m the one that´s got to sing it and if I don´t believe in it, what´s the fucking point? What was the thought behind the album cover? JR: Just that it was a friend of mine and he´s been a buddy of mine for a long time and let´s put him on the album and then "Back", "Back to the rhythm" tattooed on his back. Just something different. It was nothing like earth shattering or change the world or make some statement and Venus and Mars are all lining up and the fucking planets... and world peace. I was just"He has a back" and there was a "back" in the title. I was kind of wondering about your background? When did you realise that you wanted to become a singer? JR: I was six years old and my parents had bought me The Beatles "Help" album and I put it on and I remember standing on my bed jumping up and down singing "Help, help". Little did I know how much fucking help I really needed. That was the day in my life when I decided I wanted to be a rockstar and I knew from that day forward that that´s what I was gonna do, no doubt what so ever. Prior to that I wanted to be an archaeologist. Now I´m a fossil. (laughs) What were you up to before Great White? Any other bands? JR: Actually yeah! Audie and I we were in a band together in 1977. I was sixteen. I met Mark in ´78 and we started what became Great White. I was playing in my first band when I was eleven years old. I remember, there was a street behind my street and I heard this guitar being played. Just a guitar, some Bowie stuff, so I walked around the street and would stand on this guy´s driveway listening to the garage door and suddenly the door opens up and I go "Are you playing that?" and he goes "Yeah!". I introduced myself and went "I kind of sing!". He goes "Really?", so I went into his garage and plugged the mic into his guitar amp and we started jamming on some Bowie stuff. One thing led to another and we made ourselves a little band. We didn´t really play anywhere, we just practised... "Alright now", some Bowie stuff, "Ziggy Stardust" and that was my first start and after that I just started growing and that band kind of dissolved and became something else. As years passed I joined different bands and I finally met Mark and when I met him, I knew that was it. That was the guy I was gonna be successful with. I heard his original stuff and as long as I kept that core, I knew that no matter what we did we would achieve our goals and some how we managed to stay together for thirty years now. Did Dante Fox become Great White or...? JR: Yeah, that became Great White, yeah. What was that name? Was it the name of a guy? JR: It was! It was our bass player´s friend, Dante Fox and some how it became the name of the band. Cool! Who picked Great White? JR: That was a nickname I had for Mark. I used to call him Great White because if he goes out into the sun for five minutes he looks like a freakin´... (laughs). So I just called him Great White. I love sharks and one day he was like "Why don´t we call the band that?" and I was like "What? That´s a stupid name for a band!", but when we thought about it longer, it worked. Here we are thirty years later. I read that you played The Troubadour in ´81 with Dante Fox. Was that your first real gig? JR: Yeah, the first show I did with this band was in ´81 at The Troubadour... Any memories? JR: Yeah, I had just gotten out of jail the week before. I had been in for a year and a half. You´re kidding? JR: No, no! It was the first show and we had learned the songs via cassette tapes while I was in jail. I think we rehearsed a couple of times before that, in my parent´s living room and then we went out and did the show. It was really cool. For being locked up and not knowing what was gonna happen with your life and then living across the street from my good friend Mark and playing together, it was... no, I´ll never forget it. I´m totally fascinated by the 80´s and the stuff that happened in LA. Did you constantly come across each other, bands I mean and was it constant partying going on? JR: Oh yeah! That will never happen again. That era is something we unfortunately never will see again. If you missed it you´re fucked. You could walk down Sunset Boulevard or Santa Monica Boulevard any week night and there were thousands of people. Just walking around, putting their flyers up and we were hanging out with Mötley Crüe and Ratt and Dokken and you could see Van Halen any day of the week. It was just, we were all friends and we were just partying together, hanging out together and playing together. I remember when Stephen Pearcy (Ratt) came up to me "Hey man, check this out! Here´s the new Ratt logo, what do you think?" and I went "Yeah, that´s pretty cool!". It was a lot of comraderie and the scene was like electric. You could feel something was gonna happen. You didn´t know what or when, but you just knew something was gonna explode and then all of a sudden it did, man. Bands were just getting signed right and left and the music got fucking huge! Rock and roll was as big as it is ever gonna be. You had bands selling a million records and going off playing arenas and it was sold out every night. Now you´ve got guys that sell three or four million albums and they can´t do a club tour! You know, rock and roll will never ever be that huge and I´m so glad that we were able to see that and be a part of it. Do you have any idea of why LA became this epic centre? JR: You know, a lot of it just have to do with that the labels were based there. A lot of people went "Well, I´m gonna be successful and I´ll either go to New York or LA!" and if I had to choose between New York and LA, I´d go to LA too. It was a hotbed for music back then and every label had its own little office there and the Hollywood scene was pumping. It was the glamour of Hollywood! You´re with Frontiers Records over here and Shrapnel in the US, right? How come you ended up on Frontiers? JR: They offered us a really good deal and they love the music and that to me... We´ve been on a lot of labels over the years. This band has been on like five major labels which has got to be a Guiness world record. (laughs) Just because the labels are big doesn´t necessarily mean they are really into doing what you do. We´ve had some really great luck on some smaller labels and we´ve had some really bad luck on some bigger labels. It´s whether they get the music or not. Nowdays it´s not really that important. I mean, record sales are not what they used to be. If you sell ten thousand records today, it´s like selling ten million in the 80´s. The biggest thing is just to let people know it´s out there, playing the shows and hope they´re buying the record. It´s not like we´re making a living selling records anymore. You don´t count on that. The reason for me to make a record is so I can have something here for posterity. It´s like giving birth. When you make a record it´s almost like having a child. That is your soul and it´s basically a snapshot of where the band is emotionally in that moment in time. Yeah, it´s a statement and it will live forever, hopefully. I will probably never do anything like that. JR: Don´t say that! You´ll never know. I´ve always felt like I never quite achieved what I wanted to do. I never really changed the world with my music and then my wife is telling me "Hey Jack, think about it! Look at all these e-mails you get from all around the world telling you how you saved their life and they quit taking drugs. This one song stopped them, so how can you say you haven´t made an impact?". We all do in a way and music is the vehicle that God has given me to achieve that. Of course it has not all been great and fun and wonderful, but I wouldn´t trade it for anything else. Right. I gotta ask, you toured with KISS, right? What was that like? JR: You know, I don´t like to talk about it about anybody, so I´m just gonna resume comment. (laughs) It was a fun tour. It was good. They´re a really good band. Paul Stanley is a nice guy. Ok. What´s in the future now? After the tour is done, are you gonna make any more albums? JR: Yeah, absolutely! I´m planning on hopefully get back into the studio in 2009 and I´ve got a couple of projects that I want to do. I definitely want to do another solo record. I´ve got a project I´m doing with Michael (Lardie), some 60´s and 70´s stuff, a Beatles thing I´m working on that I´m gonna put out with some other musicians. I´ll probably keep as busy as I can and just sing as much as I can until I can´t sing anymore. I actually read in an interview you did four years ago, that you were gonna play for "another five or six years, tops". That´s like two more years then. JR: Yeah, I don´t know. I didn´t think I was gonna be doing this at fucking forty! Right now I´m at the point in my life, as long as it´s fun and I can enjoy it and I can sing reasonably well and we´re writing songs that make sense... that I feel are better or as good as the ones before, then it makes sense to do it. I don´t want to be one of those bands that doesn´t make anymore records and just keeps going out and playing the same songs. That was really hard, the last number of years to go out and do tours and not have anything new to play. Sure it´s fun to play the old stuff, but if you don´t have anything coming forward currently, then you´re just kind of stagnating. You might as well be a cover of yourself. As long as there´s music flowing and we´re having fun, I think the band will continue. As long as I can keep singing, I´ll keep singing! There´s still a lot of interest in the bands that started out in the 80´s and you have Rocklahoma in the US. People seem to be really into it. JR: Well, here´s the thing. You can´t deny a whole generation! You can´t say every bit of music was shit just because it´s from the 80´s. There were a lot of amazing musicians and sure, of course, like anything else the more it gets popular everybody´s gotta have their version of it. So pretty soon it gets to be diluted and it´s like a carbon copy. The more you copy it, the less clear it becomes. So towards the end of the 80´s you had bands like (covering his mouth, coughing) Danger Danger, that look really good on TV but they had no substance and musically didn´t hold up. So consequently they may have sold a bunch of records, but when it came down to be playing on the radio it was like "What´s this crap? It sounds like that crap that sounds like that crap which sounds like that good stuff!". It happens every year because the record companies get greedy. There can´t be just one Led Zeppelin, there´s gotta be twenty Led Zeppelins! Things get lost in the shuffle. I think what is happening now is that more bands are starting to discover this music again and kind of put their spin on it. I´m not saying rock and roll´s gonna come back. It´s not! It will never ever come back to what it was in the 80´s. The world´s in a different place. The 80´s was more of a carefree, hedonistic, celebratory, wonderful time of life. Parts of that can come back. Musically, I think people are starting to discover "Hey, you know what? There was some good stuff then!" and the people that were coming to our shows, they´ve had kids and their kids are growing up so they come out to the shows. The neat thing about it for me is, instead of just seeing that one group of fans, we´re seeing ont, two, three generations. I´ve seen eleven year old kids out there singing the lyrics to freaking our first album. "How in the hell? You weren´t even a sperm when I wrote that!". They´re just picking it up from their parents or their sisters and brothers and it´s cool because there´s a number of songs that we have written, at least in my opinion, that are timeless. "That was circa 1987!". Songs like "Save your love" that will stand the test of time. I think that´s what makes a band like this last, is the honesty and the integrity. The biggest part of Great White for me is that the music´s honest. Like I said earlier, we´re not trying to be something that we´re not. We´re not gonna be like "Let´s write these lyrics and change the world!". Send this big message, you know. "Let´s just write about rock and roll and having fun and enjoy ourselves!". That´s what I want to hear when I go to a show. I don´t want to hear about how bad the world is, politics, vote for this guy. Screw all that! We´re not politicians, we´re just rock and rollers! That´s good enough. Are some proceeds still going to the Station fund? JR: At this point, no. And that wasn´t by our choice. They decided at one point a while back that they wanted to go corporate and they felt possibly, that anything in affiliation with us hindered their corporate sponsorship. No matter what happens and how much information that go out... you can say this is black, it´s confirmed as dark as night, you´re gonna find one guy that´s gonna say "You know what? It´s not at night. Look!". So, consequently they said "Ok, we appreciate what you guys have done for us and we´re gonna take another direction.". Our doors are always open and they know how to get hold of us and we´re always there for them. We support them in anyway we can. Have you gone back there and played, in Rhode Island? JR: No and I don´t think it will ever happen. Not because it´s a fear thing. There´s always gonna be a couple of people, like I said, no matter what information comes out, forensically or anything else, that are going to blame the band and me per se of what happened and I understand that. It´s hard. It´s difficult for me, but I don´t want to cause anymore bad feelings and I would hate even to go into town and make one person feel bad or be reminded of that night. Consequently, if it´s for us to stay away from there, that´s ok. We have fans... we just played New York and a bunch of people from Rhode Island that were at that show that night, came down just to see the show and they make those trips when we´re close enough. So that´s enough for me. I don´t need to rub it in anybody´s face. It was a horrible night and it was nobody´s fault, everybody´s fault. It was just a horrible, horrible thing. I understand. Any thoughts of coming back this summer when it´s warm and hot and maybe play Sweden Rock Festival? JR: You know what? I actually think we´re supposed to be doing something in the summer of Sweden. There´s been an offer made for that, so... the biggest thing is, for me, and we´ve discussed this at great length... obviously last time was due to circumstances beyond our control and that´s why it took so long to come back here, but we´re gonna try to at least come back once every year. Ok. Well, I think I´m done. JR: I appreciate it. Thanks!
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