Storming onto the scene in 1990, Firehouse quickly built up a reputation as one of the finest live acts to emerge from the already oversaturated American market. Fuelled by the success of their debut album that went platinum, and the sophomore effort 'Hold your Fire' which repeated the trick, the band have kept turning out impressive albums and are just about to release album number eight. In a day and age where high class melodic rock is being shamefully ignored by the mainstream media, Kieran Dargan got the low down on all things Firehouse from guitarist Bill Leverty.

So I guess the first thing to ask is will the new album 'Prime Time' actually be readily available in Europe this time. The last album that got an official release was Good Acoustics back in 1996.

Well , right now we are in negotiations with a few European labels, nothing is certain yet but one or two potential deals are looking promising. We would like to get a decent distribution but even if it doesn't happen we'll be selling the new album through our web site. In fact advance orders can be placed right now at www.firehousemusic.com and shipping will begin in mid October.

So on to this new album, 'Prime Time'. Are we to assume that the title suggests ten tracks of Prime Time Firehouse melodic hard rock?

Yes, it's ten songs of traditional Firehouse hard rock, not jumping on any hip-hop bandwagons or anything like that. We did stretch our wings a little bit musically and lyrically, we kind of dug a little deeper than our recent records and it is a lot harder edged than our other stuff. I think it will make everybody happy, it certainly made us happy.

When a band says 'Oh we've stretched our wings a little bit' I think the fans usual reaction is 'oh oh, what have they gone and done now?'

I think all we have done is make the music more interesting, we certainly haven't changed anything too radically that would make us able to tour with Linkin Park or anything like that. We just want to make the music more interesting, more mature. A lot of our fans from back in 1991 are now twelve years older, so they are possibly going to want more than 'Going down, down, down to Lovers Lane'.

Firehouse have always been pretty clever with their lyrics. It's easy to see the progression from 'Lovers Lane' to a song like 'You Are My Religion' which has a very deep meaning. Is that the type of progression we are talking about?

We still like to have songs about partying, good times and getting laid, but also we have some songs about things we care about. I think we have made our lyrics more substantive than they were, giving things a slightly new twist.

Firehouse have always been a loud and proud American rock and roll band. Does that still hold true in 2003?

This album is harder and heavier than anything we have done in a long time. We only have one ballad on this album, a beautiful number that CJ wrote. Michael (Foster) is singing a song on this album for the first time called 'Door to Door' which is all about NASCAR racing. He's always been a huge racing fan. I think that's one of the best songs on the album.

I know the writing process for this album has been pretty sporadic, spread out over the last eighteen months. How long in 'real' time has it taken to complete the entire process, and of course in the meantime Bruce (Waibel) has left the band and been replaced by Dario Sexias [pronounced Say- chos].

I honestly couldn't tell you. We would lay down tracks during the week and then fly out to play on the weekends. You get home Monday dead tired, so you work on it Tuesday and Wednesday and then fly back out on Thursday for more shows, so really I only worked on it about two days a week with the exception of a couple of weekends where we all got together and worked on it. We don't have a whole lot of hours of recording on this album. A lot of the guitar tracks that are on the album were tracks laid down during the writing of the album as a guide, because we wrote most of it in my studio. The feeling was 'Well I'll just lay down the guitar tracks and I'll replace them later on' but when I got around to it they really didn't need replacing. I like the feel and the attitude on them, so I left them alone. Michael then came in and did his drum parts. In fact we worked kind of backwards on this one, but he came in and he'd do his drums and then he'd come back and say he wanted to re-record his kick drum patterns on this song or that one, so we ended up recording the drums time and time again until Michael was happy with it. Dario came in when the drums were done and he did his bass parts and CJ's really quick in the studio anyway.

On the 'O2' album you plundered the Firehouse back catalogue for older songs that hadn't previously been available. Are all the songs on 'Prime Time' brand new compositions?

All brand new songs. Some bits and pieces were older ideas ... I'm always laying down ideas in the studio and CJ does the same. You kind of put everything together and then if the song is crying out for something special you go to your bag of tricks and pull one out.

How was it working with a new bass player this time around?

He was great. He was very quick. He has a great feel and plays with his fingers instead of with a pick. This is his first recorded work with a name band. He recorded some stuff with his old band but in terms of a major release, this will be his first.

The album will be released in Japan in September and then through your web site in October. Will you also have major US distribution?

We don't know. So far it's just ourselves but if somebody else jumps in and says they want it, well we're all ears. I've been screwed over by labels so many times, you know saying they will really promote your album and give you a big push, that you are almost better off doing it yourself and get a business plan together because once you sign that contract then you have very little control over what happens. The other side of it is you obviously make more money by doing it yourself and not only that but you retain ownership of your masters and you can do what you like with them. You could be ready to promote the hell out of your album until somebody at the label decides that they want to switch the money to something more modern sounding and then you're screwed. We sound like we do, we're not going to change now, we're not going to jump on some trend and try keep up with the Joneses. We like the way we sound, we don't want to surprise our fans too much. The only surprises are that Michael sings one song and I sing two. People heard me sing on the last record and I got a lot of positive feedback on it, so I decided to do another. Then after a couple of glasses of wine I went into my basement and wrote another one which the band thought was great so that made the record too! CJ sings really hard during the live shows, I mean his throat must look like hamburger when the show is done but it gives the listener a break too. I mean maybe like the Beatles or Grand Funk, not trying to compare us to those bands or anything , but you know we have some good singers in this band and it's about time we used all the talent available to us.

So have we song titles for the new album?

Yeah: Prime Time, Crash , Door to Door, Perfect Lie, Body Language, I'm the One, Take me Away, Home Tonight and Let Go. It will be exactly the same track listing for every territory, no bonus tracks for Japan or America, just ten high quality hard rock songs.

Every time you talk to a musician after they record a new album they will inevitable tell you it's their best work. Are you in that frame of mind right now?

We went into this record with the intention of raising the bar quite a bit, and now that it's done I really think we achieved that.

Do you think that Firehouse will win many new fans with this record or is this something that's just going to appeal to the fans you have gathered together over the last fourteen years?

I think it's both. I think it will appeal to our fans first. We wrote this record for ourselves and I think any time you do that you can keep your core fans happy and attract new ones that have never heard of Firehouse before. I think they'll hear the freshness and the quality songwriting when the listen to it.

So you produced the album again this time

Yes, produced, engineered and mixed it in my studio , Michael are CJ are the associate producers.

So it's Bill 'Mutt' Leverty from here on in then?

I don't think I'd even qualify to be a pimple on his ass! I think it's my best production so far, but I'm no Mutt Lange. I don't know what he does to make them sound so good , but he nails it.

On the production front, people remember the debut album and 'Hold Your Fire' as big slick productions - lots of layers and triggers, but on latter albums the sound has thinned out somewhat. How do you approach your production now? Do you look for a certain sound per song, or per album, or individual requirements for each different track?

I think we try to keep it that our records sound contemporary but on this one we kind of have a hybrid of both. We did more layering on some songs. It's a little bit drier than our old stuff and we used no triggers on the drums at all. We may sneak a little bit of a sample with the snare on occasion but other than that it's all live. A big part of Michael's sound is from the overhead mikes and we didn't have to roll any of it off in the mix. We took every song differently. We didn't just take the drum sound and copy and paste it for every track on the album. Every song had it's own identity.

Do you find songwriting gets easier or more difficult as time goes by?

Well it gets more difficult really, trying not to repeat yourself and you can't copy anything else anybody else has done. I get more protective of that as I get older whereas when I was younger I'd say 'That sounds like an old Bad Company song but who cares, it's not that close.' But now I'd be embarrassed if it came out sounding like anybody. But as you get older you can approach things from different angles, like writing about your wife now, you'd write differently than writing about her down in Lovers Lane. Love is a huge topic and when your 36, it's a lot different than writing about love when your twenty one.

A lot of fans retain a particular mindset of Firehouse. You know, well they should still sound like the first record. The new Britny Fox album has been slated (and deservedly so) because it sounds nothing like they did back in the day. But on melodicrock.com there is a post that says 'Oh, I don't think the new Firehouse album will be any good either' and this is an opinion that Firehouse no longer match the way he remembers the band. You know - the hair, the look and the big, slick sound of the first album. A pre conceived notion. How do you deal with comments like that, putting the album down before it's even released, or even heard a track from it?

I can't pay much attention to that kind of talk. I don't have any control over him. It's unfair and ignorant really, it's just showing how stupid you are and posting it on a web site is even more ridiculous. Some people have a lot of free time and sit down and post shit all night long. It's the same for any other band too, not just us. Making comments like that, well...jesus. Stupid!

Do comments like that still get to you now ?

I guess it got to me a bit, but I'm already over it, haha! That's the perception issue that we have been fighting to get over. We've been fighting for a long time, it's a credibility issue, the whole hair band stigma.

But a haircut never wrote a song

It was the image, the album cover, the video. It was the whole image thing that people put to a certain style of music. 'Down ,down, down to Lovers Lane.' I mean DON'T GET ME WRONG, I love playing that song every night, it's fun, but more people would like to hear a sort of well ... I hate you, I wish you were dead. I can't change that in a person, all I can ask is that that person gives it a fair evaluation and then after that, if that person decides it not his cup of tea then that's cool, because there's a lot of stuff out there that's not my cup of tea and I don't sit down all night going to web sites posting about it. I'd prefer to spend my time telling people about positive things.

What defines success for Firehouse now? At twenty one years old it was most likely platinum records, stadium tours, mansion in the hills and everything that goes with it. But at thirty six, what is your definition of success now?

Well, it's not record sales, it's more like from the e-mails I receive from fans and people I play for who tell me, without me fishing for compliments, that they genuinely enjoy the record or seeing us play live. Granted I would like to be able to pay some bills with this record, and I think we will, but I would like to have people hear the vocals by CJ, Michael and I and have people say wow, I didn't know you guys could sing that well. I enjoy that. I would like for them to enjoy the guitar playing, enjoy the songs, the entire record. That, for me, is the definition of success.

You've been touring all last year, selected shows and weekends. Are the days of spending six months on the road gone?

Well we got on a package tour with Ratt, Warrant, Dokken and LA Guns last year which was all summer long, so if another comes up, then if it makes sense to do it financially we'll stay out. But now what makes most sense is play Friday and Saturday and spend the rest of the week at home, working on my solo record. It's a lot better to play to full clubs at the weekend rather than play to half empty ones on a Tuesday. People don't see the costs involved, the hotels, meals, the bus, the driver, fuel, crew ... everything. The bus alone will kill you, about $700 per day, so it really has to make financial sense to do it, so that's why it makes more sense to do weekend shows rather than stay out long term, unless you are on a good package that will be a good draw.

You still haven't been to Europe. It's been too long

I know, I know. You always break my balls with this one. We'd love to do it, really, but so far nobody has come up with a plan that makes sense. We're open to offers. Come on, somebody needs to call us with a plan. Honestly, if somebody can make it happen we're there!

STOP PRESS: Shortly after this interview took place, flowing discussions between a promoter and Firehouse, it now looks as if Firehouse will play their first UK shows for twelve years in March of 2004. More details as theybecome available.