When ‘The Power and the Myth’ was released last year, there was quite a backlash by many long-time fans to the musical direction of that album. Looking back, what’s your personal view of that album today?

“‘The Power and the Myth’- as I was doing that record, doing the vocals - I had my doubts, as I couldn’t get a grip on anything as far as the material was concerned. I wasn’t involved in the writing of the album – I have couple of song credits because they were old songs that I had written. But the problem with that record really (not that it wasn’t a good record in its own right, because musically it is a phenomenal record; those are great players, how could it not be?) was that for me, for my type of vocals, it wasn’t an arena for me to shine, no matter how hard I tried to get something out of the melody… It was in a low key, first of all, but it wasn’t as melodic as most of the stuff that I do, and I thought that we would have problems [with the fan reaction].”

Would you say that ‘World Upside Down’ is your personal reaction to ‘The Power and the Myth’, creating the House of Lords-style album that you always wanted?

“Well, I don’t want to take all the credit for the new House of Lords album because there were other band members that were also responsible for that sound; but – yes - I did want to go back to the roots, because first of all it’s what made us popular in the first place (the big, grandiose melodic, big hook sound). Without any of those elements, it’s not House of Lords. Now Chuck, Ken and Lanny really just did not want to revisit that kind of music again – they wanted to move on and to progress. So the only way to do another House of Lords record - and keep that name alive -was for me to do what I did. And I caught a lot of flak for it because a lot of people are then thinking ‘Well this is not a House of Lords album’ and I say that’s not true. You know, House of Lords never had a solid line-up for any one album. The only common thread was either Gregg Giuffria or me. Chuck, Ken and Lanny weren’t on ‘Demons Down’, which is one of our best records … unfortunately, it’s one of our best-kept secrets because the grunge era exploded and just broke everything apart. But ‘Demons Down’ - had it come out three or four years prior - would have been a monster record. We had the best management – we had just signed with Rod Stewart’s managers, and we were going to sign up on major tours – everything was in our favour except for the timing. That left a bad taste in my mouth, and when ‘Demons Down’ was done, I thought it was the best album I’d ever done in my life. So after that happened, it just took the heart out of me and I stepped away from the music scene for quite a few years. Now, from ‘Demons Down’ I have not written a record until ‘World Upside Down’. So just to give you an idea, in between that time I’ve released a solo album that was some older material, and ‘Power and the Myth’, for which I wasn’t part of the writing team.”

So how important was it for you to be back in creative control of your own project?

“Well I did have creative control on ‘World Upside Down’. I considered myself captain of the ship on that one. I knew what I wanted; I knew what needed to be done. I said ‘If I’m going to start writing again, where would I pick up from?’ Now mind you, this was a band effort, so when I say ‘I wrote’, I mean the band because Jimi Bell and Jeff Kent were very instrumental in the whole sound of this group. But before we started I told them ‘You need to listen to what I do and what I want to do’ and that was listen to ‘Demons Down’, listen to ‘Sahara’ and let’s come to the table and write a record as if it continues from ‘Demons Down’. And there was a lot of material written but I knew which songs should be on the new House of Lords album.”

So can you tell us a bit about the new guys and where you found them?

“Guitarist Jimi Bell and drummer BJ Zampa, I’ve known from Connecticut for many years. As a matter of fact, Jimi had wanted to be in House of Lords since day one, when they were auditioning guitar players. Lanny got the gig because of the Giuffria connection, but Jimi had been a long time fan of the group, and I never knew that he submitted tapes until we started talking a year and a half ago, and then he told me about it. And I said ‘You know, we should probably do a project together. You are one of the best guitar players I have ever heard.’ I mean, he is just phenomenal. The drummer, BJ, was Jimi’s friend, so I basically got a friendship with BJ through Jimi. I heard his drumming and thought ‘this is a great little rhythm section’. They’ve done a few things together including Thunderhead, and Metal Church. A little more heavy than House of Lords, of course, but they’re actually more apt to melodic rock than the heavy Metal Church stuff. However, because of Jimi’s speed as a guitar player, he always gets more attention from the speed metal fans. Jeff Kent, who did keyboards and bass, well he was a member of a group called Dreams, and evolved from there to be a very seasoned song-writer and lyricist – he’s written for Bette Middler, and KISS … he’s a very rounded musician”.

The credits on the back of the album state ‘Featuring the keyboard productions of Gregg Giuffria’. What exactly does that mean? What precise involvement did Gregg have in the album?

“Okay; when I started this project I knew that the bulk of the responsibility was going to be on me. I knew that going in, but I needed to know that what I was doing was something I could incorporate Gregg into because I knew that once he heard the material that he’d be into it. Gregg’s involvement?…Well, I guess he became a sounding board. I would be on the phone with Gregg and say this is what I’ve got, this is where I want to go, what do we need to do? His production value became an integral part of the sound because without him there to actually help sail the ship, I wouldn’t have been able to keep the House of Lords sound intact. Plus he added some keyboard parts from his studio over in Las Vegas. So his job was basically the same job he would have had if he’d actually been playing the keyboards in the same room with me. He played some keyboards at his place, but he couldn’t come down here because of his time schedule. We wanted to make sure that everyone knew that Gregg’s stamp of approval was really very large on this record. I mean, we were going to have his photo on there. He actually sent a photo – he did a photo session for the album, but the record company just wasn’t sure how that was going to look – having the four of us in one band photo and Gregg in a separate one, so they decided to just put ‘featuring the keyboard productions of Gregg Giuffria’. Anyway, without him, we would not have been able to have the same direction.”

The production and mix on this album are fantastic. How did you get involved with Dennis Ward?

“Well, I didn’t even know Dennis Ward when I started the project. I was intending to look around for mixers here in the States, as I was doing the production here. Regarding the production, a lot of people balk when a musician says ‘I’m going to produce my own record’; but when you’ve done as many records as I have and have heard a lot of people really screw up your direction, you kind of want to just say ‘Okay, let me just do this the way I hear it should be.’ So that’s why I convinced the record company to let me produce the record. My home set-up is not an elaborate studio, but I have the tools that I need to construct what I need to do, and if I don’t have it here I’ll go out to a studio. So basically, brick by brick I built this thing, the production from the drum sound right up to the last guitar sound. And when I was finished with it I knew we had something very special and needed to get it mixed by somebody who could actually accent all the things I had done. Somebody played me something that Dennis Ward had done, and I said ‘Now this guy is happening.’ So I sent him one track, and he sent it back in 2 days. I listened to it, and I said ‘Forget it, that’s it. He’s the guy!’”

Going back to the live shows last year, when you got back together with Chuck, Ken and Lanny for the Firefest shows, that was your first time playing live as House of Lords for many years. How did it feel being back on stage, singing those songs?

“Well, you know, it felt amazing, being on stage with the guys… with the exception of being very injured and not being able to actually enjoy every second of it. It was a very emotional time for me. I love the 3 guys – Lanny, Ken and Chuck. We worked together as a team for many, many years and we all saw eye to eye on the type of music we were doing, because we were all coming from the same place. But I first sort of ‘red flagged’ on things to come as we were putting together a set-list for the live shows. They were very hesitant about doing anything from ‘Demons Down’. Now, I do understand their point of view because they weren’t even on the record, but in my opinion, we’re not doing this so that we can go out and have a good time, there are a lot of fans out there that are fans of House of Lords, and it doesn’t matter which album it comes from, or even from my solo record; it should all be material that we’re able to make a good show out of. So the set-list became a little bit of a problem where they actually wanted to do more songs from ‘The Power and the Myth’ and I had a problem with that, because I didn’t feel that that was our strongest record. So other than that, once we got the set decided, I had a blast doing those songs. They’re part of my life.”

You mentioned your injury there. So what exactly happened, and how did that affect your ability to perform?

“Well, two days before I was to leave for England there was a news bulletin here in Florida that another hurricane was coming to hit south Florida and they targeted our area again. I had just taken down hurricane shutters – we have a two-storey home – and my wife asked me to put them back up before I left so she and my daughter would be safe if the hurricane arrived while I was away. So I’m up on the 2nd floor and it starts to rain a bit, and my foot slipped off the ladder and I fell and landed on my side, breaking a few ribs. I was thankful that was all it was because I really thought I’d injured myself even worse than that. So, I didn’t know what to do at that point, because had I cancelled, that would have been a hardship on everybody. It was just the kind of thing where I had to brave it through, but at the same time, while doing that I was in a lot of pain – I took a lot of pills while I was there.”

How difficult was it for you personally to get back together with these guys to play live, knowing that you were recording a new House of Lords album which they didn’t know anything about?

“Well, it was incredibly difficult, but I have to tell you that I was not recording the record when I actually agreed to do the show. I agreed to do the show about 6 months prior to actually doing it, and it was just after that that I decided that I needed to take it seriously and write a House of Lords record that I was going to be comfortable with … because Chuck and Lanny started to talk about writing material for another House of Lords album, and in the back of my mind I just felt I didn’t know if I could go through that again. You know, I got slammed in the press, and I got slammed because I was trying to put the best spin I could on those vocals and there wasn’t much for me to do as a singer on those songs. I guess you could say I needed to redeem myself.”

The reaction to the new album so far has been amazing. Do you see this as vindication for the decisions you have made concerning the future of House of Lords?

“Well I’ll tell ya, it’s a sigh of relief, it certainly is. Because let’s face it, it could have went both ways. I could have written and recorded this album, and the reviews could have been ‘This is not good, this is not House of Lords…’. We got that criticism after ‘Sahara’ and that was a very successful record for us. And when Gregg and I started doing ‘Demons Down’ – though not to forget Mark Baker – but there were only two of us - there was some talk about what the album was going to sound like. I guess in the end, the music will has to speak for itself. But when you say ‘vindicated’, I didn’t go into it thinking ‘I’m going to show those guys’. Believe me, it wasn’t that way – it was this it what I love to do. I did what you love to do, now I need to do something for myself.”

I gather Chuck, Lanny and Ken were not too happy at first. Is everything smoothed over now?

“Now we talk on a regular basis because of the live CD. We all want that live album to be part of our library and part of our lives. But, yes, there were 2 weeks of tension where you didn’t want to be around any of us, you know. And you know what - and rightfully so I have to say - a lot of it, really a lot of the blame falls on me, because I should have let them know prior to going to England. But my feeling was because I did know when I was in England, about this new project going on - but I so wanted to do this show with them - and I so wanted for us to have a reunion that I risked it. I knew that directly after that I was going to tell them, but I didn’t think if I told them 2 or 3 weeks prior to the show, that this would have happened. They would just have said ‘You know what? Screw you, we’re not doing it.’ So basically if anyone’s to blame, it’s me, but it was not to hurt anyone, it was just to make sure that we had the show together. And you know what? The funny thing is now, Ken, Chuck and Lanny are totally cool with it. Their first reaction was anger, but then the second reaction was … first Ken goes, ‘Well I wouldn’t want to make another melodic record anyway.’ And Lanny’s in a totally different place – he doesn’t want to do a record like that. They’re at different places musically, so they were really mad because of how it went down, but in the end they’re not mad anymore. And they’ve benefited also because now they have a live record that they’ve always wanted – they’ve always wanted a House of Lords album released, and now they’ve got that opportunity.”

You and Robin have been together now for over 10 years. Are we ever going to see collaboration between the two of you?

“Yes, on the solo record. On my solo album, which I’m starting to write now, there is a song called ‘Until the Last Teardrop Falls’, and it is just amazing. It is a great song written by friends of ours, Amy Sky and Marc Jordan, and I told them that me and Robin are always looking for a song that we could do together, and this could be one of them. I don’t know how much of a demand there is for us to do a whole record of duets, because you know…is that overkill?”

But I didn’t exactly mean would you ever do a duet, but rather would Robin do another solo album, with your song writing behind her?

“We’re doing that right now. We’re writing a record that will rival her ‘Do You Miss Me’ album and hopefully surpass that by miles. And the reason why is that we know what Robin needs to do. She needs to put herself in the shoes of ‘Trouble or Nothing’ and from there, step out and say ‘Now where would I have gone from this point.’ And that’s where you have to go because that’s where your roots are planted; and it’s the same thing for me. That’s the same way I felt regarding ‘Demons Down’. So this new solo album will be an extension of ‘Trouble or Nothing’.

I love this man’s thinking.