Queensryche

Part 31: Quest For Music Videos!

Back in 1985 or so, MuchMusic was the window through which we discovered the vast majority of heavy metal.  For a while there, my sister had good taste in music.  Her favourite band was Motley Crue.  She was obsessed with their tall, tall hair.  I taped her the first two albums, Too Fast For Love and Shout At The Devil on two sides of a 90 minute tape.

Together, we watched a shitload of videos.  Our favourites were often the ones where the band seemed to be on some sort of quest, or adventure!  Some of these videos I haven’t seen in years, so forgive me if the memories are hazy…

Motley Crue – “Too Young To Fall In Love”.  It seems like some little kid is telling Motley Crue something important, and then they kick some ass.  My sister used to say to me, “I think that kid is telling Nikki Sixx to stand up.” 

Lionheart – “Die For Love”. You gotta see this one. Dennis Stratton, ex Iron Maiden. This evil guy in a white suit and a wheelchair has a pretty blonde girl captive! The band must come to the rescue! I hope their hair doesn’t get mussed! Good song though. Great song, even. SERIOUSLY funny video though, like those poses…the singer jumps around…they kind of dance-fight with the bad guys….

Queensryche – “Queen of the Reich”.  The Queen turned them to stone!

Thor – “Knock ‘Em Down”.  Thor (Also known of Jon Mikel Thor) was this musclebound metal singer, and his video was hilarious.  This evil space-witch named Pantera enslaves the population of the world below!  Thor, riding in his space ship (which is obviously a Millenium Falcon model with some battleship parts glued to it, and crewed by nothing but big-breasted women), beams down!  The evil space-witch shoots him with her red eye lasers, but Thor reflects it back with his mighty hammer!  The space-witch is defeated!

Dio – “The Last In Line”.  That video actually scared me a little, with the monsters leaking fluid and stuff.  I’m glad the kid got out of hell, although it looks like Dio has to stay.

Dio – “Holy Diver”.  Always the hero, Dio awkwardly weilds a sword that is obviously too big for his tiny frame.  But he does slay an ugly dude who doesn’t put up much of a fight.  Is that Jimmy Bain?  George used to say Vinny Appice is the guy forging the sword.  Is this true?

Grim Reaper – “Fear No Evil”.  The band ride into action on an armored APC (Asskicking Personnel Carrier), with spikes and tusks!  They must free the slaves of the evil minotaur.  Steve Grimmitt breaks the chains of the slaves with his bare hands! 

Armored Saint – “Can U Deliver”.  At least the beginning part, they seem to be looking for a sword in a desert!  A techno-coloured desert!

And of course, Kiss – “All Hell’s Breakin’ Loose”.  Gene doesn’t seem too impressed with Paul’s swordplay.  Vinnie looks less like a chick than in the previous video.  The post-nuclear holocaust seems to have somehow increased the size of women’s breases, if this video is to be trusted.

Part 6: The Record Store, Year 1
Myself on the left, Trev on the right.

We were pretty slow most evenings.  You could study for exams at work most nights. Fridays got busy, but Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights were dead.  That didn’t mean we doing nothing.  Rule #1:  “If there’s time to lean, there’s time to clean.”  We had scheduled to do something every night.  Mondays was cleaning the mirrors which lined the store walls.   Tuesday was putting away new stock, which always came Tuesdays.  Wednesday was checking the security tags on every cassette in the store.  Every fucking cassette.

For the first 2 months or so, it was just me and the owner.  Once September hit, he hired this other guy, Trevor.  I didn’t like him at first, he was the “other guy”.  He was the same age as me, also finishing school at the same time as me.  We shared similar musical interests.  Influences we shared:  Guns N’ Roses, Van Halen, The Four Horsemen, Kim Mitchell, Rush, and any bands with amazing drummers.  Over the course of the years, he introduced me to:  Steve Earle, Oasis, Metallica, Megadeth, Max Webster, anb Buddy Rich.  I give him a lot of credit for expanding my horizons during those days.

A lot of memorable releases came out that first year.  Superunknown and Purple were already out, but I was on board for some major ones.  Nirvana Unplugged was the biggest release of the fall 1994 schedule.  There was an Aerosmith hits disc, a Bon Jovi hits disc, and the Eagles reunion album which was absolutely massive.

The new Tragically Hip, Day For Night, came out on a Saturday.  We sold out by Sunday.  The boss drove down to Scarborough to get more on Monday.  Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy came out on vinyl the week before the CD was released.  We got just five in.  He didn’t expect it to sell, but we sold out before my shift even started.  Interestingly, none of the customers planned on playing it.  They either a) didn’t even have something to play it on, or b) were keeping it sealed as a collector’s item.  It definitely was a cool package.

Some poeople have a “swear jar”.  We had an alarm jar.  If you forgot to de-tag a customer’s purchase and thusly set off the alarm, you had to put a dollar in the jar.  We would use the spoils on our annual Christmas dinner.  It created some friendly competition between us.  That first Christmas is when I started working directly with Trevor, and I started to like him due to his excellent musical taste.  But in the alarm jar game, we were always about equal.  Sometimes you just forgot!

One lady may well have stolen something and set off the alarm, and I’ll never know, because, well….  As she was walking out the alarm went off.  I asked her to come back in the store and check to see if she had something from another store that may had set it off.  She was so upset at the alarm, she really wanted to show me she had nothing on her person.  So, she removed her top.  “See I’m not hiding anything in here!”  Covering my eyes, I told her it was quite alright, I believed her, and she could go.  First time I’d been flashed on the job.  Not the last.

She wasn’t even drunk.  They actually used to serve alcohol at this mall.  There was a licensed restaurant right next door to the store.  The regulars would start in the morning and keep going.  You’d see them in there every day, and they’d wander in completely plastered.

We had a few regular psychos at that mall.  There was Johnny Walker, who would just walk around the mall talking to himself, all day.  Literally, all day.  The story goes that he was quite rich.  He didn’t need to work, wasn’t capable of work, and just came to the mall and walked around all day, talking to himself.  Sometimes he would argue with himself and he had been ejected from the mall a couple times.  He came into the store a couple times but never caused any problems on my shifts.  One time, he even bought a cassette.  It was like the madness turned off.  He spoke to me, bought the tape, and walked out.  Madness set back in, and he’s off arguing with himself.  I wonder what happened to Johnny Walker?  He’d been walking the malls since grade school, sometimes changing malls when he got permanently ejected from one.

Then, there was Sue.  Sue had been in an accident years before, and had a walker.  She moved very  very slow.  She had a bit of a crush on the owner.  She stalked him relentlessly and gave him Christmas gifts.  She’d park her walker right there in front of the counter and talk his ear off for hours.  Hours!

One day, a large Japanese woman was shopping.  The owner said, “Go ask that lady if she needs help.  Then he stood back and waited.  I didn’t know it, but he had just given me my first challenge.

“Hi, can I help you find anything today?”

“No thank you though,” she answered, then almost immediately, “Do you have Soundgarden?”

I showed her what Soundgarden we had both new and used.  We also had the latest copy of M.E.A.T Magazine, and Chris Cornell was on the cover.  I’ll never forget that detail.

“Do you like Chris Cornell?” she asks.

“Yes, he’s actually one of my favourite singers.”

“Oh!  Really!  I love Chris Cornell.  He’s sexy.”

It was too late now.  I had opened Pandora’s box.  She opened the magazine to his picture inside.  She went on:  “I like when he wears his sexy black boots.  Chris Cornell wears black Doc Marten boots.  Do you know the boots?  Chris Cornell wears black Doctor Martens boots.  Do you like Doc Marten boots?”

I was on my own.  The boss just stood back.  I couldn’t even figure out a way to improvise my way out.  I was a rookie  I decided that this woman was most likely a lil’ crazy and I played the polite card.

“Yes, I do…”

“Chris Cornell is sexy.  Did you know that Soundgarden had an original bass player who was Asian?”

I did know that.  “Yes, his name was Hiro Yamamoto…”

“Yes Hiro Yamamoto.  He is Asian.  There are not many Asians in rock bands did you know that?”

This went on for a good 20 minutes.  After she left (not without asking my name, fuck!) my boss came to speak to me.

“That’s your first lesson.  Don’t get into conversations with customers.”

And of course we had the drunks.  I remember one jolly drunk came in that first Christmas Eve.  We all wore ties Christmas Eve, that was the tradition.  It was a tradition I kept every year to my last year at the store, even when I was the only one left who still did it.  This drunk came in, a big Grizzly Adams dude just reeking of alcohol.  He was definitely in great spirits though.  First he asked us why the ties?  The quick-witting Trevor answered, “I’m wearing mine because it makes me feel important.”  We laughed.  I then went over to see if he needed help finding anything.

“Hi there!” I began.

“Not yet, but I will be when I get home.  Hahahaha!” he answered.

Ultimately the jolly drunk guy couldn’t remember what to buy, so he bought $100 in gift certificates for his grand kids.  That was a great sale, and the best part was that it turned out to be $100 of pure profit for the store.  The bearded drunk guy probably lost it, because all my years with the store, they were never redeemed!

After Christmas, the owner confided in Trevor and I that he was going to be opening a second location.  This location would be in Waterloo.  It would be easily accessible by one high school, two universities, and one college.  He would be splitting his time between our store and setting up the new one.  Ultimately this meant he’d be in much less and we’d be getting more hours, and also bhe was bringing a new guy in.

I walked in one Tuesday to see this black-bearded behemoth behind the counter.  It was kind of awkward because the owner didn’t introduce us at first.  I looked around for an hour, stealing glances at this big grizzly bear of a man with the thickest blackest beard you can picture.  Finally he introduced me to Thomas, later to become Tom, the legendary founder of Sausagefest.  Ahh, but that comes much later.

TOM

Tom was a wicked cool guy who expanded my musical tastes even further than Trevor had.  Tom and I had many influences in common.  I had met another kindred spirit.  Influences:  Black Sabbath, Dio, Rainbow, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Van Halan (not Van Hagar!) and Johnny Cash.  Music he would introduce me to:  Miles Davis, Willie Nelson, Fu Manchu, and the whole stoner rock scene in general.  His place was plastered with rare Marillion posters.  Tom was serious about music.

Tom was so serious about music that it was actually hilarious.  Kids, this is the difference between liking music and loving music.  Nobody loves music as much as Tom.  Dare I say it, Tom loves music even more than me.

One night in Toronto, we visited the big HMV on Yonge St.  Tom was methodically working his way through every decent section of the store.  Long after Trevor and I had finished shopping, Tom was just finishing browsing rock.  With a handful of discs by Rainbow and Saga, Tom would then announce, “OK…I just have to check country.”

20 minutes would pass.  “Alright…on to jazz.”

20 more minutes.

“I just have to check blues.”

10 more minutes.

“Oohh…I wonder if they have the soundtrack to the Godfather.”

Checkout.  Trev, Tom and I usually checked out of that store $200 lighter.  Each.

Then, repeat.  We walked down the street to Sam’s, and finally to Virgin.  Rock, country, jazz, blues.  Every store.  That was Tom, three stores, one night.

Seriously those early days at the store were the best times I ever had working.  Working hard or hardly working?  No, we worked hard.  If there’s time to lean, there’s time to clean.  We ran that store with the owner making guest appearances, adding to it with our own creative ideas.

I graduated school in the summer of 1995, and hadn’t decided on my next move.  After that I was putting in increasingly more hours at the store.  It gradually built up from a part time job to full time.  When the new store opened, Tom split hours between the two of them so there were plenty of day and night shifts available, usually alone, which were the best times because you could play whatever you wanted!

I remember Tom walked in one night when I was playing Dio.  Back in 1995 you could not play Dio in a mainstream record store.  That would be like the equivalent of playing Michael Bolton in one today.  He was so far removed from what was selling at the time.  But I was rocking out to Holy Diver and Tom appreciated that I had the balls to do it.

Tom went to a lot of concerts.  After we had bonded over the mutual love of metal, I joined him and many of my future Sausagefest friends at a Black Sabbath concert.  It was Motorhead opening on the Sacrifice tour, and Black Sabbath headining, supporting their final studio album (17 years and counting!) Forbidden.  They played at Lulu’s Roadhouse just down the street.  A few weeks later we saw Queensryche in Toronto on the Promised Land tour.

Trev, Tom and I would have many adventures.  Such as that time seeing Kiss in…ahh, but that’s another story.  Before I talk about Tom and Trev again, I need to tell you a really shitty story.

TBC…

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Queenryche – Evolution of a band

I conducted this interview with Eddie Jackson of Queensryche in October of 2001.  My first interview ever.  Eddie gave me over an hour of his time, and told me afterwards it was a lot of fun.  This interview was first published on Global Bass.

rycheProgressive metal fans have had much to celebrate recently. With a slew of new releases both on CD and DVD from many high profile bands, there is plenty to be excited about. One of the most exciting of these new releases is ‘Live Evolution’, the very first career-spanning live album from Seattle’s Queensryche. It was recorded over two nights this year, with the band playing some songs unheard in fifteen years. Queensryche has been a leader in its field since its debut EP in 1983, and was well overdue for a definitive live album.

Since the beginning, bassist Eddie Jackson has been there providing the solid grooves and very melodic runs. We recently had an opportunity to speak with Eddie about his band’s extensive back catalogue of songs, and being a musician in general. Picking songs for this double disc was a natural process, as Eddie explains:

“The set list was pretty much just a group effort there. Individually we all came up with certain songs that we thought we would like to perform that night. But you know, at the end of the day, it was putting out something that was gonna be something different from what we usually do, and that [something different] was to go back several albums and perform some of these songs from ‘The Warning’, [and] from ‘Rage For Order’. Because a lot of the time these past few tours we’ve been focusing  from ‘Operation:Mindcrime’ forward. With the exception of maybe “The Lady Wore Black” or “Take Hold Of The Flame” from the earlier albums. But this time around we just wanted to give them something…you know, you figure it’s a live album, a live DVD, let’s give ‘em something refreshing like some of the older stuff.”

Interestingly, the band decided to arrange the shows on those nights, and the album, into suites. Each suite contains songs from a pair of albums, and are played roughly chronologically, a very different approach for a live album. Eddie comments:

“We just figured, OK, we’re going to put together a set list and then we came up with the idea, ‘hey, why don’t we put this together in suites?’ Starting from the beginning to the present. The first suite was the songs from the first couple of albums, the second suite from the next following set of albums, and so on. It was just an idea that we put together, and we thought it would be kinda fun to do. It definitely makes sense when you look at it and then when you hear it.”

When they hear the new CD and see the new DVD, fans will be able to relive the evolution of the band’s sound in the space of a couple of hours. No album is ignored, and such rare classics as “NM156”, “Screaming In Digital”, and “Walk In The Shadows” are rolled out on stage. Even so, Eddie explains that some songs just didn’t make the cut. “One of them was “Enforcer” [sic, “En Force”] and “No Sanctuary”. And I can’t remember the other songs, there was just a handful, not many. The thing is, it’s really tough to sit down and try to perform everything that we have on paper. Because first off, we’re limited for time, and second of all, we’re limited on disc.”

“It’s a long set, it was just [an effort] to put together a good variety of songs that will not only please ourselves but also the fans. And again, if we were to play all the songs that we had written down on paper, heck, we’d be up there like three or four hours!” Not that many fans would complain if they did indeed see a four-hour show!

As many fans are aware, Queensryche’s last studio album, Q2K, represented their first and only lineup change. Guitarist Chris DeGarmo left the band and was replaced by fellow Seattle native, and friend of the band, Kelly Gray. Before joining Queensryche, Kelly was known primarily as a producer. “He’s done producing work with a few bands, Candlebox, Dokken, Sven Gali, just to name a couple of them. What’s the other one, Second Coming. He’s a very talented individual. Not only is he very talented when it comes to playing a producer role, but also as a musician. He’s a good songwriter, a good guitar player.”

Is having a producer in the band a relief?

“That guy, he wears many hats. It’s kind of a blessing in a way to work with someone like that because you’re killing two birds with one stone. Being a guitar player, a writer, but also coming in and helping us produce as well as mix.”

As one can hear on the new live album, Kelly Gray’s addition has not changed the band’s onstage sound. The fit was very natural according to Eddie. “We just kind of let it happen. We really didn’t sit down and try to educate him into, “This is what Queensryche sounds like. This is what we want you to play like.” We just let him have free reign over it and not really…if you think about it, he’s not coming in to replace Chris. He’s coming in to replace a guitar player. By coming in to replace Chris, that can be a little tough on someone.”

Eddie also explained that because of this natural approach, he did not have to make any adjustments as a bass player, although the band’s sound did change on record regardless. “Kelly has a little more of a bluesier background as opposed to Chris’ style. But I think you can tell, Q2K without Chris, stylistically it’s a little different than the songs Chris has worked on. I think he compliments Michael [Wilton, guitar] quite well stylistically and again he’s a very talented guy.”

Various members of the band are taking advantage of their position at the moment and are slowly putting together solo projects. Eddie has not yet done so, but he explains, “I’ve always wanted to do something like that, kind of like step away from Queensryche for the day and then do something on my own. I’m always coming up with ideas and I eventually would like to put something together like that.”

Eddie describes some possible sounds:

“My listening taste of music is so eclectic. It’s like from Abba to Zappa. I love pop rock, I love hard rock, I love jazz. I think one of the last albums that I actually bought was the Rob Zombie Hellbilly Deluxe. I mean it grew on me like fungus! It’s just got some angst and attitude. Stylistically that would be a fun little approach.” Eddie explained that he also loves funk music, and that could be a possible direction for his solo project, should the mood take him.

A few things you are virtually be certain to hear out of Eddie in the future are sonic experimentation on the bass, and his singing voice. With regard to the latter, Eddie’s interest in singing “rivals” that of playing the bass:

“Yeah, I love singing! And I’ve noticed since Chris has left, I’ve had to cover a lot of his parts, and I’m telling you they’re up there sometimes. But still, it’s something that you don’t really think about. Through all these tours that we’ve been performing on, I’ve never realized how much he actually sang.”

As far as sonic experimentation goes, Eddie gave us several examples from the past:

“We actually created some of those sounds ourselves! Yeah, you know at the very end of ‘Walk In The Shadows’? That big ambient reverberated sound? At the very end, ‘Walk in the shadows…walk with me! POW!’ That’s a door slamming in a parking garage!” This continued onto later albums like Promised Land, where soundscapes were created by “banging on top of these big garbage cans.”

As far as bass goes, Eddie finds himself inspired by other bass players’ sounds more than their playing: “There’s a lot of bands out there with a lot of talented bass players, . . . and I go, ‘How the hell did he get that sound? That is so cool! What is he running? Some sort of an effect? I wonder what he’s using!’ You’re just reaching and guessing.” This sonic experimentation can be best heard on such Queensryche albums as ‘Promised Land’ and ‘Rage For Order’, although on ‘Operation:Mindcrime’, Eddie’s been asked by many fans about his bass sound: “I’ve had guys come up to me, and they go, “Hey, how did you get your bass to sound like a truck?” I go, “What? Where’d that come from,” you know? So obviously there’s a little bit of fretless in “Promised Land”. And “Real World”, there’s some fretless on there. So heck, you know, some 5 string here. I’ll experiment with anything. I think I really love approaching the sonic end of it, trying to come up with a really cool sound, something that’s very distinctive.”

One additional thing Queensryche fans can look for is a reissued ‘Operation:LIVEcrime’ on  CD and DVD. Out of print until recently, this album has been reissued with two bonus tracks. “Those are with the original lineup. Those two songs, “Road To Madness” and “Lady Wore Black”, those were recorded at the time LIVEcrime was recorded.”

Finally, fans of Eddie Jackson and Queensryche know that he enjoys placing jokes and riddles inside their releases. From the backwards text he put in as his album credits on the new disc, to some visual pranks he planted on the band’s Promised Land CD-ROM game a few years ago, Eddie likes to have fun. He uses words like “goofy” and “silly” to describe his attitude from time to time. Pay attention to Eddie Jackson at all times. You never know when he’s testing you to see if you’re watching. Pay attention to Queensryche as well. It is a very exciting time to be a fan of the band, as they celebrate their past on ‘Live Evolution’, and look to their future.