any growing pains in the studio while doing this record? Richie: It went surprisingly smooth and I honestly thought there would have been some hiccups here and there but there weren’t. There were a few times where one of the guys was excited and trying to convey an idea and one of the other guys was trying to get his idea through but that shit is normal in that environment. There were no problems, everybody gave the right amount of space. Those guys trust that I am the singer and guitar player and although the door is open for ideas eventually you have to let someone do their job. If I write a song I am going to suggest a certain drumbeat because a song is written around a drumbeat but it’s your job and I am not going to tell you how to do your job. I dont want to do that, I don’t want to tell you how to play because I do not want someone to dictate how I play.
way it was written about. Its comical to me because if I was a screen writer and I wrote a movie about a serial killer it does not necessarily mean I am a serial killer. That is a serious kind of silly. The reality is is that you do write from personal experiences but you also write from other people’s experiences.
Metal Exiles: What did you go into the studio with to record the album? Richie: I took mostly Fender amps in, three different ones as well as a few Marshall amps. Sometimes I would tie them together. I also have this Marshall head that’s 20 Watts with two knobs and when you turn it all the way up you get a great tone. I was plugging my signature Artist Series Fender Model into them. It is now available to the world market after only previously being available in Japan. It’s a brown telecaster with a tobacco sunburst Metal Exiles: It seems as if your lyrics, especially on this record, finish. It has custom Dimarzio pickups and the wood choices are are so dark and personal. Where do you go mentally to come up very specific. It’s a great instrument and if someone goes to the with this material? store they are buying my guitar, not some substitute instrument. Richie: There are multiple formulas, and I hate the word formula We did not make entry level guitars for this line. because its ridiculous and I Metal Exiles: You put together a always talk against formulas, massive tone together for Debut for lack of a better word, sire. the best writing is the writing Richie: For Desire it is interestthat happens naturally so there ing because we start out with is no real formula. You can sit one guitar and one amp for the down at a piano, hear the muintro but as the song builds the sic or the lyric and within 15 guitar layers build. By the time minutes you have a song. That the chorus hits there are multihas happened to me a few ple amps and it just makes it times and some of my favorite sound bigger. songs are the ones that wrote themselves because I sit down Metal Exiles: The album is out at the piano and suddenly I and it did really well the first have a song. Damaged was week. Do you think it did well written that way but then you because of the names on the have songs that require more work, like I’m No Angel. I wrote album or the music itself or a combo? that before this project existed but that song did not have a cho- Richie: I think it was combinations of that but remember they rus. The chorus that lived there now resides in Elevate. I realized had plenty of time to hear the music because the record was out that the song went from half time to double time and it sounded a month and a half in advance in Japan. People have followed ridiculous to me so I abandoned it but a few months later I came the band on YouTube because we have three videos out and then up with the chorus so then I had the Elevate chorus looming so you have the elements of the names because they know who we Portnoy suggested I take that chorus and merge it with another are and they are curious. They want to know what we are going verse I had and suddenly you had another song. So you see to do, are we going to make a record where I can listen to the there are a few different ways to write a song. To address the songs or is it going to be chaos. Let’s be honest, people were lyrics they sometimes come at the same time like the song Dam- wondering what it was going to be like. In the end, when you aged or you have a riff that has such an energy to it that it will hear the record you say “cool, these guys made a musical record dictate the kind of lyrics you write. If you listen to the song One where you can hear some crazy playing but then you have songs More Time, its happy and bouncy so I did not want to write some you can listen to and remember. creepy End Of Days kind of lyrics so I took the “trying getting back together” approach to it. Metal Exiles: Billy Sheehan is all over the place but he is not doing anything to destroy the track, its all within the context of the Metal Exiles: Do you ever put yourself through any of this or is it song. All of you guys were phenomenal on the record but again something you pull out of thin air? in the context of the structured song. Richie: It’s both but it’s funny because if someone writes about Richie: Somehow it worked and it was cool with what we were something sometimes somebody will think it happened just the doing. I personally have nothing to prove anymore like I did