The RatHole - Fireworks Magazine

November 20, 2008

ISSUE 20

Shy
Charade
Joe Lynn Turner
Paul Gilbert
Dare
Season's End
Darren Smith
Danielle McKee
Starbreaker
Kamelot
Scorpions
Legs Diamond
Heartland
Rich Ward
Doogie White
Averi

James LaBrie*
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EVERYONE’S A STAR
An interview with TONY HARNELL by Phil Ashcroft

Starting life as another Frontiers Records project, Starbreaker has turned out to be much more than any of it’s contributors ever thought possible. The bringing together of TNT/Westworld singer Tony Harnell with Last Tribe guitarist Magnus Karlsson, bassist/producer Fabrizio Grossi, and ex-TNT/Riot/Ark drummer John Macaluso, has turned out to be an astute move on the part of the Italian record company. The resulting melodic metal CD has more than turned a few heads, and after being courted for a while by Serafino Perugino of Frontiers, Harnell is more than happy with his first release on the label.

"I was approached by Frontiers about a solo album, a Westworld album, basically about anything I was willing to do," recalls Tony. "I’d never worked with the company before and I’d heard good things, but I wasn’t sure if my proposed solo album was the right material for the label. So I thought the best way to get started with them was to do a project, which was one of Serafino’s first suggestions – a one-off project. In retrospect, how this turned out – which was tremendously better than any of us first thought – I may have been better doing a different sort of structure with the deal," he laughs, "but whatever – it started off as a project and ended as a band."

While Harnell was initially unaware of, and apprehensive about, some of the people he was being linked with, he now thinks that was maybe for the best. "I wasn’t really familiar with Magnus (Karlsson) at all," he admits. "I’m not one of these people who’s always reading the press, I don’t really know who’s doing what all the time, but Fabrizio Grossi – I’d heard his name but didn’t really know what he was about. I’m kinda glad that I didn’t actually because I think he’s got an unfair reputation because of some of the productions he’s done – I think a lot of that has to do with the budgets he’s given and the way some of the things are recorded before they get to him. Now I know more of the things that he’s done I think that if this isn’t the best production he’s ever done, then it’s at least one of the best." There was at least one person involved that he was familiar with, drummer John Macaluso. "That was my idea," he concedes. "It was really down to the wire and we needed a drummer and I thought his drumming would serve the material very well – and I was right because I think that his touch on the CD is what lifts the entire thing up to a different level."

Dealing with four people in three different locations, the music was put together the same way as many of Grossi’s other projects. "It was written in a very modern way," agrees Harnell, "over the internet. I would receive mp3’s daily or weekly from Magnus – I didn’t reject much, there were two songs I said I didn’t like but the rest of them were great. I made some adjustments and Fabrizio made some edits, and there were a few arrangements we both made, but Magnus provided us with some great music, and it made it very easy for me to write the melodies and lyrics. I had a really good long discussion with Fabrizio before we even started the project and gave him a pretty clear idea of what I was looking for. This wasn’t exactly what I was looking for but it was definitely close enough and I knew that I could do something with it. So I would receive my mp3’s, I would do my writing and go into the studio here in New York. I did the vocal tracks very quickly and got them back to California where the bass and drums were recorded, then it went back to Sweden where Magnus did the final guitars, and back again to California where it was mixed and mastered."

"Obviously I was worried about everything because I didn’t have an awful lot of control over it," says Tony, "but Fabrizio was kind enough – because he respects me and is a long-time TNT fan – to allow me to have a lot of input. We spoke a lot on the phone about what we wanted and he made me feel very comfortable, so when we started mixing we went back and forth quite a bit on e-mail and on the phone and discussed things – but yeah, sure I was concerned. It’s a strange way to work – but I have to say that we haven’t really gotten any bad reviews – there were maybe two out of thirty or forty that were slightly above average, but they were the worst ones I’ve seen so far. I can ignore the worst ones, because for all of the things that are, quote, "wrong" with this album, there’s so much right with it, especially when you consider how we did it. It was on a shoestring budget, I mean really there was no money put into it. What it does tell me is that in the future, with the four of us working in the right conditions closer together – and maybe Magnus and I get to sit down and write the songs in the same room – I think the potential is fabulous."

At what point did it become apparent that it was going to be something really special? "I think when they started hearing what I’d done with the melodies and the lyrics and the vocal tracks," states Harnell. "They started coming in to Fabrizio and then he forwarded them to Magnus, and I think the excitement started building from there. When we were finished and sent everything to John for him to learn the songs, he flipped out – and then we all met in California to shoot the video. When we all finally got together it was a little strange because we’d already started to get excited about the music, then we met and all got along really well. But then we did this photo shoot and started looking at the polaroids, we went "Oh my God, we look like a band!" There was an energy there when we were looking at the pictures and we looked like we’d been a band for years. There’s definitely something there and I have to give credit to Serafino at Frontiers for having the insight to put the three of us together. When John came in it was like the icing on the cake, and he turned out to really round out the album and the band well."

I wondered how different the album would have been if Tony had been more involved with the music. He ponders the question. "Well, Magnus has a very specific style, which is great," he begins. "I think he’s a fantastic guitar player, I’d put him up there against any of the metal or neo-classical guys, and actually better than almost all of them because he’s also a good songwriter. But I think I would have pushed him more into places he’s maybe not comfortable going, but yet I feel he’s got the ability to go. That’s the only thing – I would have pushed him further into maybe heavier riffs here and there – there are some monster riffs on the album, don’t get me wrong – and maybe I would have made the arrangements be a little more different from song to song. I tried to make each song as different as I could but there are some similarities in the music between the songs – but in saying that, I’ve been criticised in other bands I’ve been in because the albums were too diverse," he laughs. "So I thought 'This’ll be good because it’s really focussed', but then we get criticised for that so sometimes you can’t win I guess."

Tony also seems comfortable with the more metal style of Starbreaker than what we’re used to hearing from him. "Yeah I’ve always been more of a metal guy," he says , "but then TNT got pushed into sort of being a pop-metal band early in our career – which is fine. The thing about me is that I love all different types of music – I’m just as much at home writing songs as a singer/songwriter type of person, or Brit-pop or folk music – I’m very at home with so many different kinds of music and get excited about writing anything. But I feel when you get into that no-mans-land where it’s not really heavy and it’s not really pop it gets a bit difficult, and that’s kind of where TNT sits sometimes. So when I think about where I want to go with my music outside TNT I want to go both heavier and lighter. So on a solo album you might see things that are really very heavy, but also things that are beautiful and light and piano-esque – I’ll keep it when I do it in the same vein so it’s dark or whatever, but things can be dark because of a chord progression not because it has to be heavy. Heavy has more to do with the key that the song is in, and the chord patterns and the melodies, more than any de-tuning or trying to sound evil with all that kind of growling and stuff."

The darker and aggressive vibe of the music also gave Harnell more scope to add some venom into his lyrics. "Definitely," he agrees. "I had to keep in mind what kind of album I was doing. I tried to pull things out like anger and things like that, but at the same time I wanted to make it a very positive album, because I think you can be angry about a subject but still come to a positive conclusion about it and send out a positive message about something you’re angry about. That’s what I tried to do on the whole album – there are some beautiful spiritual songs, but there are also songs on this album about subjects I’m concerned or angry about, whether it’s the media like in ‘Lies’, which also has some political slants in there as well. Then you’ve got something like ‘Save Yourself’, and as much as I don’t like talking about what my lyrics are about, it's my opinion about the dangers of psychiatric drugs and how they’re being overly prescribed to children, and people in general. So in the song it says basically you’ve got to save yourself, and if you read into the lyrics now based on what I just said, you’ll get a little bit more insight into what I’m talking about with that song. ‘Light at the End of the World’ is pretty self-explanatory, but basically with this sort of atmosphere we’re living in and with everything that’s going on in the world, we have all these reality shows, and models, and Hollywood – it’s all fake - and at the end of the day we really have to stand up together and prevent a lot of the bad shit that’s going on and not get so caught up in the fake stuff."

This falseness is something that Tony thinks has had a detrimental effect on a lot of different walks of life, particularly the music industry. "Yeah, absolutely I do, he asserts. "It starts with the business people, and then unfortunately because the artists – talented or not – want to make it so badly that they buy into it and become victims of it, and then it just becomes this really vicious cycle. I’ve been through it – we were signed to two major labels in the eighties and early nineties and they put through a lot of hell with how we sounded and how we looked – all of it. So I definitely have an understanding of it, but now with the way TV and the internet is, it’s gone past the artists and onto the young boys and girls on the street. You see them dressing in the latest fashions with the latest hairstyles – they’re getting plastic surgery when they’re 17/18 years old – they’ve become obsessed. They’re so exposed to the stars now that they think they’re part of it, I think the mystique of celebrities is disappearing very quickly. When you talk about rock’n’roll what I think is missing at the moment is the theatre – you would go see Kiss, or Queen, or Alice Cooper, even Led Zeppelin, and more recently bands like Marilyn Manson – you look at concert footage and the bands looked bigger than life compared to the audience. Then when the nineties came along – and I’m probably the biggest fan of nineties music of anybody I know among people of my generation, I thought there was a lot of great music – what I didn’t like about it was the t-shirt and jeans thing. I think that got out of hand to the point of who was the band and who was the audience, and I’d like to go see a band and look up and see people who are larger than life. It’s not just the lights or the bombs or anything else, it’s also the fact that they’ve got the coolest clothes, the coolest haircuts, and they’re striding around on stage like they fucking own the world. That to me is what’s really missing, and it’s becoming a blur now between the stars and the kids – I don’t remember a time when I could see kids coming out of school, or on the subway in New York City where I live, who look like pop-stars or rock-stars. I think definitely the line has been crossed."

Looking to the future Tony sees Starbreaker as an ongoing thing, despite the fact that they haven’t spent much time together. "Well, I’ll tell you, I’ve had some really good meetings with Fabrizio in New York twice, and in L.A. we were together for about a week. We’ve spent a little bit of time together, we’ve been on the phone for hours and hours, we’ve exchanged e-mail upon e-mail – and Magnus and I, even though we only met briefly, we’ve had some good conversations and talked a lot on the phone – and John and I have known each other for years so that’s a given." It’s obvious he trying not to get carried away, but he definitely thinks there’s a spark there between the personalities. "All I can say is I feel pretty comfortable with it," he says, before adding realistically, "There are some things to work out, and how we’re going to go forward, and there are some things to handle, but everybody’s so excited about it and the music is so strong that I look upon this as an amazing demo to introduce the band to the world. In saying that I think it's better than a lot of the albums that come out that cost a lot more money than this one, but I feel pretty confident about this thing going forward."

The next step will be to play live, but there are obstacles to get around before that can happen. "Yeah, it’ll be a little tough but we’ll have to figure something out," he admits. "The hardest part will be, I guess, putting Magnus together with us so we can rehearse – but most of our shows will probably be in Europe so we’ll figure it out as we go. We’ll have to find a home base where we can launch a tour from – we all have good friends in Europe so it shouldn’t be a big deal to go shack up someplace and rehearse for a week or two."

This interview was reprinted with permission from Fireworks Magazine.

"You can turn your back on the face in the mirror, awaken to find that your just getting nearer to the end. And you can tell yourself but you'll never believe that it's really true... You always knew."