Intervju - Jean Beauvoir, Crown of Thorns Jean Beauvoir är en liten del av min tonårstid på 80-talet. Jag minns första gången jag såg hans stora blonda mohawkfrisyr och tyckte han var något av det coolaste som gått i ett par skor. Han släppte det fantastiska soloalbumet "Drums along the mohawk" 1985 och gjorde sig senare även ett namn med Voodoo X. Dessutom dök hans namn upp på skivor med KISS och ett tag bodde han i Stockholm. Långt senare skapade han Crown of Thorns, som nu är tillbaka med ett nytt album efter en tids frånvaro. Jean ringde upp från Florida, mitt under vår fredagsmiddag med goda vänner, och vi kom bl a att snacka om nya plattan med just Crown of Thorns, hans gamla band the Plastmatics, låtskrivandet med Paul Stanley och, visade det sig, ett gammalt projekt med Blackie Lawless. Jean Beauvoir: What´s happening? Well, just drinking some wine and enjoying a Friday evening. JB: Right! Jättebra over there. Exactly! Where are you? In New York? JB: I´m actually in Florida. I´m not drinking wine yet, but I will be joining you in a few hours. Good. Where do you live these days? JB: Well, I live between New York and Florida, because our offices, the company I have with Little Steven, are in New York and then I live in Florida as well. So I actually commute every week, believe it or not. I was wondering about that. What´s that company about? JB: It´s totally a rock and roll company. There are two things. There´s Renegadenation.com and Undergroundgarage.com Right! I do some dj´ing for a radio station right here in Stockholm and we broadcast Underground Garage every Friday. JB: That´s right! That´s one of our shows. So we do the radio show and we have a label and we put bands on tour. It´s like a whole infra structure for trying to keep rock and roll living and breathing out there. So it´s a radio show, label, merchandising, bands on tour, some satellite radio channels over here and we do some tv-shows if we can. That´s it! I run that company with Steven and that´s what I do besides my rock and roll. How did you hook up with Little Steven from the beginning? JB: We go back a long time. I played with Steven... actually I think the first time I ever came to Sweden was with Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, going back to... (laughs) man, I don´t want to say... ´82 or ´83. After I did that with Steven, then I went on to make solo records and all of the rest of the stuff. Then I lived in Sweden for a while and did all the recordings over there at Polar and so on and so forth. I lived the Swedish life. Yeah, I remember. I was an avid reader of a music magazine called OKEJ and I remember there was a huge spread with you because I believe you rented a house somewhere in Stockholm. I knew you from KISS and of course "Drums along the mohawk",which I actually listened to today. JB: Really! I haven´t heard it in a long time. I don´t even have a copy. I´m trying to download it myself. (laughs) Are you kidding? I love that album! It´s a really good album! JB: Thank you so much! I had fun over there. I made that album mostly in Sweden actually. I did a bunch of things over there. I remember I did a band called Treat over there. We did a single together and I did The Ramones over there. Got them to go to Sweden. "It´s cold! We don´t want to go to Sweden!". "Exactly guys, you´re gonna dig it. Come on, get on the plane!". Funny! So tell me about the new Crown of Thorns album! JB: What can I tell you? Have you got it and with the voiceovers and all that stuff? Yeah, I´ve got it, with the voiceovers, yes. JB: You´re still listening to the voiceovers? You don´t have the real deal yet? No, I just get the promos with the voiceovers. That´s the way it is. It´s kind of annoying, but at the same time you understand that it´s part of the deal these days. JB: Ah well... the record is out now, so make sure you get the real deal! I will. JB: What would you like to know? How long did it take to put the album together? JB: It took about a year. Maybe a little bit longer than that, but only because I was doing what I´m doing with Steven as well. It´s a really tight schedule. I was working during the week or running around doing stuff and then I would take just a couple of days a week where I would concentrate just on Crown of Thorns. It´s tough to do, plus the band´s in Los Angeles and San Francisco and I´m in New York and Florida, so we´re kind of flying all over the place to meet up and do things, so that made it take longer than usually a record would take. Usually three months is what it takes me to put a record together, but that means I´m working through the night, 12 hours and not sleeping and all that stuff. We made the recod in a variety of places. I did the initial stuff here in Florida. Kind of laid the base down, start writing the songs and kind of doing a demo form thing, which is usually how I do it and then start bringing the guys in. I sent everything to everybody and they sent in some ideas they had. I put it together and the guys kind of flew in one at the time, so we could just brainstorm, mess around and start playing and then we ended up going to Los Angeles and brought Bob Clearmountain in. He´s got a great studio and I´ve known him for many years and he´s great. And with the last thing we worked on he said "Hey, if you want to do something, I´ve just put up this great new studio and I´d love to try out and do some drums here. It´s just a great drum room that I´ve put together." and I said "That sounds like the move!", so when I knew I was making the recod, I called immediately and went out there and spent some time with him and the whole band. Cut all the drum tracks and put other tracks together there. And then we kind of bounced around from different studios and dis some stuff over at Michael´s place, he´s got a studio in LA. I did the keyboards and vocals at my place and then I used a guy in New York named Mark (Flatty)?. He´s done a lot of Bowie stuff, a producer and I just brought him in to mix the record since I was in New York and running back and forth and that´s it and finally this thing got done. Cool! When you write stuff for an album like this, do you end up with 20-25 songs and then you pick from those or is it just 12 songs and that´s it? JB: No, I over write. I started writing stuff... we were going to release the Crown of Thorns record probably four or five years before. We talked about it and for some reason the timing just wasn´t right and I got busy with some other things and I think there was some frustration with the label and I just said we´d leave it a lone for a minute. I had already written like eight songs, so when it came time to start making this record, I went back and listened to those first of course and only ended up picking two. That was "All in my head" and "Home again". The only two that survives from that batch. But I´m always writing, so even if I´m not making an actual record, like I wrote something on the plane a couple of days ago and it´s in my blackberry, so I compile all this material and I put it in my little tape recorder and on my computer and at one point when we´re getting ready to make an album I start listening to everything. It´s not fully written songs, it´s melodies, riffs and ideas and then I start recording some stuff and I would say there is probably another seven things that I actually brought to the demo stage, but as far as I´m concerned, didn´t cut it. When you write stuff, do you sit around thinking that this is going to be for Crown of Thorns or this is going to be for a future solo release? JB: It kind of happens, since I write do write for different people, so sometimes I get a vision in my mind of what it might be, for example there is a cool metal chick named Doro in Germany. She´s great and I love her and I wrote something with her not too long ago, so there are times when an idea will come in. If I think of somebody that I´m writing with the idea will come. If I start thinking Crown of Thorns I get like a vision in my mind, next stage I see Tommy and I see hawk playing drums and some how automatically it just comes into that category and the solo is the most confusing because that is the one that really has no category, so that´s when you start "What am I gonna do here?". (laughs) Talking about "Drums along the mohawk", it´s funny, I think "Feel the heat" started like that. I had bought this Roland guitar synthesizer. It was when that thing first came out. I loved that thing! "Feel the heat" was completely done on that thing, practically. The keyboard sounds that you think are keyboards are all that thing. So it was kind of like this song was written around this cool thing that I found. When you write songs, do you start off strumming on the guitar or is it keyboards? JB: It´s usually in the head. It works both ways. There are times when I´ll sit in my studio and start laying down something. I´ll put down just a basic drum track and start messing around with chords and then it will come that way. But a lot of the times it´s literally something... I could be walking down the street and I´ll hear the verse chorus, melody, bridge... everything. They usually come fast. The lyrics come last and they take the longest. But usually I´ll hear the song and I can hum it into a tape recorder with all parts. It starts going and immediately the song is there. Touring wise? What´s the plan now for this album? JB: Well, we´d like to play. It´s been a while. I think... we finally decided to make this record and Frontiers approached us and a lot of fans... strangely enough I don´t think we have a lot of Swedish fans (laughs) as I would like. Lot´s of German fans, lot´s of English fans. We haven´t been doing that much in Sweden and I kind of feel bad because that´s the place I´m most passionate about. We really got the urge to make a new record and to play. You miss it after a while. We´re trying to work things out right now. We´re speaking to some promoters and agents and stuff and working everything out. Hopefully, if everything works out, next year will start coming over there. You just have to come here Jean and I´ll bet the people will come. I think so. JB: You think so? I´m sure our agent will reach out to Sweden Rock and see what´s going on. That would be perfect. That´s a great festival and a lot of cool bands have played there. JB: We´ll see, we´ll see. Kind of going back in time. A band like Voodoo X, which I loved, me and my friends had "Drums along the mohawk" and then came Voodoo X. I think "Feel the heat" was the first song we ever heard from you and we saw the pictures with you and the mohawk and we thought you looked really cool. JB: (laughs) And then came Voodoo X and we got the tattoos and everything that came with that album. But how did you end up with... because that band was a bunch of Germans and you right? JB: No, there´s actually only one German, Uwe from Nena, who´s still a great friend of mine and actually Tommy from Crown of Thorns was the guitar player in Voodoo X. Right. It´s been so long. I´ve got the album on vinyl, so I haven´t played it for a long time JB: And then the other two guys were American, Ivan and Ernie (Lake), but we made the record in Germany. Uwe and I had met recently and we said it would be cool to make a great, thematic kind of... really over the top rock and roll band. We´re both kind of dramatic. The whole concept was "Let´s show different cultures around the world and put it into rock and roll!". I have a whole Haiti voodoo background, so we said "let´s start with that!". I got my uncle to allow us to come shoot a real voodoo ceremony in Haiti, so we brought a whole crew down to Haiti and had the wildest week you could possibly imagine. Shooting voodoo ceremonies, chickens flying around and it was out of control (laughs). Our concept was to continue and maybe the next year find another place equally as wild, but unfortunately the record company, when it came to the second record, we got caught up in that... we made the thing so big at the beginning with so much money on the videos and if the thing didn´t sell two million records... like wait a minute, what are we doing, but you´ve probably heard that story a million times. Yeah! Well, me and my friends kept playing that album over and over again. We were really waiting for a second album. JB: Well, you never know. (laughs) I´m still alive! That would be awesome! You´ve been involved in so much. When did you really start out. Was the Plastmatics you´re first band or did you do stuff before that? JB: I started before that. I actually started really young. I started a junior high school rock band when I was 13. I basically had a teacher that loved rock and roll and had a band that once opened for the Who blah blah blah and he wanted to start a program in school where basically anybody who wants to play rock and roll stays after and we´ll get a group of singers, a group of drummers, like a school of rock! So him and I really hit it off at the time and I was a drummer at the time and het old me "Why don´t you help me run this thing?", so that´s when it all started and then the next year I moved from drums to bass and then we started playing and the band got popular, so we started playing around Long Island and New York, which was a scene and I was too young to be in those clubs, but we lied about our ages and we strted getting a following. Then this guy named Gary US Bonds, his manager approached me one day in one of those clubs and said "I like you guys and do you want to go on tour?". I was 14 and it was summer and I was like "Yeah! And how old am I? "I´m 19!" and he said "Ok!", so they literally had me meet this guy Gary US Bonds and he said "Ok, I like you. This is the deal! You´re going on tour and I´ll meet you in Florida and here are the songs. Just bring the band down there and know the songs. I don´t rehearse, I don´t do anything. I just want you to know the shit.". I did that and one of the guys in the band drove the bus down to Florida. And it wasn´t really a bus, it was a camper. So we started and I played with him and he took me to all these Dick Clark shows, so I ended up being the musical director for him and for Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, until he found out that I was lying about my age and I had to go back to school. (laughs) He came to my room one day and he used to call me Bobo and he said "Hey Bobo, I spoke to your mom and you´ve been lying to me and you´ve got to go back to school! You think you just hit the motherload and you´re a rock star now, but you´ve got to go back to school. Go back to school and since all your teachers are all big fans of mine, I´ll call the school and get you out and you can do all these weekends with me.". I did that for three years and then I joined the Plastmatics. Wow! What was Wendy O Williams like? JB: She was pretty wild. She was actually a pretty cool chick and the thing with her was that people thought that she was just a wild and crazy drug addict, but she wasn´t. She was one of the sanest people and she was really passionate about what she did. The band was her thing. That was it and that´s what she believed in. She jogged five miles a day and she was a health freak, believe it or not. It was nothing but tofu and vegetables. Things at that time that I couldn´t dream of eating. She was just really into the Plastmatics and the band was like... we rehearsed every day. It was like a day job. We had a loft down town and every single day we would be there from 10 o´clock in the morning till 5 in the evening just rehearsing and working out ideas and concepts, every day. In the beginning we just went out and did shows on the week ends and then of course the band got bigger and then the story goes on. Were you in touch with her until the end? JB: No, I wasn´t actually. She was pretty heavily protected by the manager, who actually was her boyfriend. I left the band a few years before that and the band continued after me. I had a falling out with the manager and actually David Lee Roth came to one of the shows and he was the one that actually advised me to quit the band, strangely enough. One day we were playing... the band had gotten pretty big, so we were playing at the Santa Monica Civic Center and my security guy comes back to me and says "There´s a band out there, these guys named Van Halen that can´t get into the show and I said "Well, bring them in!" and then David came back and we started hanging out and he was really cool and I had been a fan of his obviously and we went out that night, we hung out and he just kind of told me "God, you must be making a fortune in merchandising!" and I was like "What? No, not exactly." so "Jean, you´ve got to leave!" (laughs) "You´ve got to quit this band! If you´re telling me what´s really going on, you´ve got talent and you´ve got to move on and go do something else.". Good old Dave Lee Roth. When was the first time you met Paul Stanley? JB: I met Paul in New York, actually at a club. There were some local hangs in New York and I believe the club was called Heartbreak. At the time it was where everybody hung out. Nile Rodgers to actors... Drew Barrymoore on the shoulders of her parents when she was a baby (laughs), just a New York kind of hang and Paul just came up to me one day and said "Hey, I´m Paul Stanley from KISS and I know your job from the Plastmatics.! And I was like "Yeah, great" and I´d been a huge fan when I was a kid and I had KISS posters all over the walls and he said "Let´s hang out!". So we just became friends. It was just one of those things. We actually did no music for probably a year or two years since we met. We went out and went to the movies and parties. We just got along and then one day we were sitting in his apartment eating Chinese food and we pulled out a guitar and said "Let´s try and write something!" and that´s how it happened. Do you have any stuff from what you recorded left anywhere? Some vault somewhere? JB: You know, I think I do actually. It´s like you just said, it´s in a vault some place. From me moving around my whole life I have lockers all over the place. I do have some cassette tapes, just a couple of things that we wrote together. He actually wrote something with me for Voodoo X and I wrote with him for KISS and we did a couple of other things. Two or three other things that we did. I just have to go back and find them and see what they sound like. Alright. A new solo album then? Any plans for that? JB: No, not at the moment. I think at this point I´m thinking, at least the way my mind´s working right now, I´d like to keep things a little more focused and I think I might dilute things if I run off and take a year to make a solo record. I think I´d like to concentrate more on Crown of Thorns, so I beleive we´ll see a new Crown of Thorns record before a solo record. Ok. With Frontiers Records now, any plans on releasing future Crown of Thorns albums on Frontiers or is it just this album? JB: We´ll have to see. The deal right now is one album and like always, you kind of see what happens and they´ll see if they´re happy with what happens and if I think they did everything thay should´ve done and then we´ll kind of revaluate and decide if we want to continue. Since you´re so involved in the music industry, what´s your take on the industry and releasing records today? As an artist, do you expect to sell a lot of records? JB: I´d like to sell a respectable amount, I´ll put it that way. But as far as making a living from a Crown of Thorns record, no I would never depend on that. I think it´s become more of a type of promotion for the band and it´s good for people to hear what you sound like now and get the band back out there in the press and it seems to me like things are going more towards live in the music industry. Especially for this kind of music. I think that maybe that´s not a bad thing, because then a band will get a chance to succeed on their real abilities instead of based on how much promotion the label put into the band (laughs). I think it might be an interesting thing, which is what I was telling the guys, that maybe it´s time to go out there and play. If we go out there and play and if we´re great, guess what? People are gonna wanna come see you. But you need to get out there. Right. I was kind of wondering, have you ever come across Paul Sabu? JB: The name sounds familiar, but I haven´t come across him. Ok. I just thought that you and him would make the perfect record together. JB: Really! Yeah! He released a really great record in the 80´s called "Heartbreak" and he´s done remixes for Madonna and written songs for WASP and just all kinds of things. I just think it would make a really cool record. JB: Interesting. I´ll check it out. WASP! Funny! I haven´t seen Blackie in years. There was a time when I and Blackie talked about doing something together, doing a project together. A long time ago when I was living in LA. Nothing ever happened, but we had some meetings about it and talked about it, but our managers didn´t come to terms or soemthing. Does that ever happen, that you meet an artist and you want to do something together and then it doesn´t work out because of managers and stuff? JB: It can. That´s probably the only time that that happened, but it depends on in what capacity. Is it touring together, doing a record together? It can get complicated, but I think in the past it was more difficult because our egos were bigger. (laughs) We actually thought more of ourselves and as you get older and time goes on, you just get more mature. Ok. Well, it´s been great talking to you and I´m looking forward to seeing you here in Sweden soon. JB: Well, good and I hope you enjoyed the record. Great doing this interview with you and I hope to see you soon at one point over there. That would be cool Jean. Thanks so much! Niclas Müller-Hansen

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