Steve Blaze Of Lillian Axe/Angel

[HARD ROCK UNIVERSE]

Steve Blaze Of Lillian Axe/Angel

August 31, 2005

Ever since forming Lillian Axe back in 1983, Steve Blaze has been one of the most underrated guitarists of the metal and hard rock scene. Unfortunately due to the time they hit the big leagues of heavy rock with the release of their self titled album in 1988, the band got lumped in with the so called "Hair Metal" scene, when in all actuality what they were was a kickass melodic metal band. From their debut, all the way to the last studio album, '93's 'Psychoschizophrenia', the band put out some of the finest, most consistently hard rockin' records of the time. After a long hiatus, the band returned with the outtakes release 'Fields Of Yeterday,' which went a long way in showing that even what the band had in the vaults was superior to most band's frontline work, and in 2002, a live album was finally released to almost unanimous critical acclaim. A new, long awaited studio album is set to be released in the coming months. Obviously not content with only releasing music under the Lillian Axe banner, Blaze also has been extremely busy in recent years with Near Life Experience, a brand new solo effort 'Random Acts Of Blindness', as well as recording and touring with the reformed Angel. Outside of music, Steve's currently taken up acting, starring in the upcoming horror movie 'The Tao Of M,' alongside Type O Negative frontman Peter Steele and the members of Twisted Sister, for which he's composing the soundtrack as well. In between this hectic schedule I was able to sit down and discuss with Steve all of these projects, his philosophy on music, and life in general. A BIG thanks to Steve for taking the time to do this interview for Rock N Roll Universe!


Rock N Roll Universe : When can we expect to see the new Lillian Axe album? Is there a release date for that yet?

Steve Blaze : No, we've been working on this thing for gosh, probably about a year and a half so far. The one thing that's kind of held us back is we had to look for a new singer because of the fact that Ron Taylor, after sixteen years, seventeen years of being in the band, decided to call it quits and do some different things. So, we went through a situation where we're fortunate that we hadn't done any of Ron's vocals on the album already. It was an opportunity for a guy to come in and go straight to being on the new album. So, we had to take our time and find the right guy, which we did. We've just been working on it together since we're doing it on our own, we're just doing it piece by piece, taking our time, making sure that it's done well. As soon as it gets finished we will then shop it for the right label. We're hoping to have it done, completely finished in the next couple of months. All we have left to do still are some of my backing vocals, some guitar stuff, just a few solos here and there, some keyboards, just odds and ends, but the bulk and the meat of it is already done and finished.

RNRU : Speaking of the vocals, you do have a new vocalist, Derrick Lefevre. How are Derrick's vocals in comparison to Ron's?

SB: Well, we're very fortunate in that he sounds in a lot of ways very similar to Ron Taylor. He has that big, thick, powerful voice. Similar enough so that people will be very happy when they hear him doing all the catalog material from the other records. But unique and different enough where it is a new chapter in the band's history. There are times where I freak myself out listening back, and say "My God, if I didn't know any better, I'd swear this could be Ron singing." He sounds THAT similar to him in a lot of instances. The guy's been a fan of the band for awhile, he's been in this part of the country, an underestimated vocalist. Everybody that's ever come into contact, or heard him sing has always said this guy has never gotten his opportunity, or his just due, because he's a phenomenal singer. Having him in the band, it's a big boost for us, it's a plus, it's a new start. I wish Ron all the luck, I miss him, I love him, he's my brother, but I respect the fact that he felt like he needed to move on and do some different things. It's all good here, we're going to do a couple of shows in Chicago in September just to kind of acclimate Derrick to the people in the Midwest, where we have a very strong following. It's all good, I love the record, I think it's going to be great, people are going to pleasantly surprised, and we'll see what happens.

RNRU : Is there any change in the sound on the new album?

SB: I think every one of our albums changed sound, and it wasn't done intentionally. It was just kind of a growth thing. Using different studios, different amps, the writing changes a little bit from album to album. This record, I have a guitar solo piece on there, which I've never done before, a "show off" piece, I guess you'd call it, a shredding piece, where it's just nothing but guitars. As a matter of fact, it's like eighty something guitar tracks. I just felt like I wanted to do that, it's a piece that I released on my solo album, I wanted to put it on this record too as well to give it more of an opportunity to get out there. I get a lot of guitar players come up to me and say "Man, with times changing and guitar players not shredding and playing and showing the ability to solo anymore, are you still doing that?" This is me, I love guitar soloing, I love doing it, I love listening to good players do it. So, I figured why not give them something. I think the art of guitar playing has kind of diminished over the past ten years, at least as far as the public's receptiveness to it. So, I'll put that on there too, we've got a lot of long songs, in the vein of "Ghosts Of Winter," and "World Stop Turning." A lot of dramatic songs, a lot of songs which have lots of peaks and valleys. It's a different writing style, darker probably than before, along the lines of 'Psychoschizophrenia', but maybe a little bit more diverse. There's actually one song in here that the bass player, Darrin Delatte wrote the music for, which is the first time that somebody's written the music other than myself for a Lillian Axe record. He's got a song on there called "Antarctica," I wrote the lyrics to it but he wrote the music for it, and that's going to be on there as well. It's gonna be a good album, tenatively titled 'Waters Rising' right now.

RNRU : Along those same lines, when you were talking about how the art of guitar playing has diminished in the public's eye in the last ten years, where do you feel that Lillian Axe fits into the current Metal and Hard Rock scene?

SB: You know, I don't know, because it doesn't seem like there's a very definitive hard rock scene right now. It's something that's occurred over the past fifteen years or so, there's all these little subdivisions. There's not a lot of support for it, really, on radio. Think about it, in the 80's you had a definitive style, people want to call it "Hair Metal," whatever they want to call it. Then you had "Grunge rock," then you had "Rap rock," "Alt rock," I don't think they know what to call anything anymore, and there's nothing that's really dominating. There's no one uniform style that's come out just knocking everybody dead. I think that's why you're seeing so much of a kind of resurgence of, I hate the term "80's" and "Hair Band," it makes me sick actually to hear that. A lot of those bands are out touring and stuff because that was a time when there was some real... I mean how many bands are still around fifteen, twenty years later? There's some evidence to that, there's some real weight to it, and the fact that these bands, even if they change members, so what, they're out there still doing it. There was some real hard work and determination and some real strength to that type of music. As much as there were some great bands that came out of the "Grunge" era, how many of those are still around?

RNRU : They sort of had a short shelf life...

SB: It was, and even though it did produce a large number of good bands I thought at the time, it was a lot smaller of a bandwith than you have with 80's hard rock bands. A few years and it was done. It self imploded or something. It just needs to get back to where it's good bands again, and good songs. The problem is that no label's out there supporting or promoting good, new bands that write or are unique. Everybody's looking for the next quick little fix. It's really bad, it's a shame. It's kind of devastating because labels aren't looking for good bands anymore. You don't have that kind of support. Radio doesn't support it, obviously MTV doesn't support it whatsoever, if they play music anymore, I'm not sure. There is no support, for hard rock anyway. It's kind of a shame, because you have Rap music, which is kind of a cultural type of music. It evolved, and developed from a certain culture. That culture supports that style of music to no end. But what about the culture that developed Rock N' Roll music, Hard rock music? You don't see people supporting it anymore. It's kind of a sore spot, because there's some great bands out there, and nobody's getting it, the kids aren't out there buying albums anymore. They're trying to get everything for free. Nobody's supporting live music, they're not going to shows anymore. They'd rather sit home and watch it on a computer, on the internet, or play video games. They're missing out, because some of the greatest times in the world were when I was a kid going to concerts. Ten, fifteen, twenty thousand people going to see RUSH, Alice Cooper, Ozzy, Van Halen, Queen and all these great bands, The Scorpions.. it was such an event. Nowadays, it's just not the same anymore, it's a shame. They're losing out on it, everything's so numbing and desensitizing these days. I remember what it was like being in high school, going to a concert and smelling pot in the air everywhere, lighters in the air, freaks screaming where you couldn't even hear the band. THOSE were the days. Now, everybody's sitting around going "C'mon, impress me, blow fire out of your ass before I'm impressed." (Laughs) I'm just dying for bands to write some good songs and come up with some good material.

RNRU : It does seem to be coming back a bit...

SB: There are some good bands out there that are taking the art, the problem is, it's hard for a band to continue on, be successful, and to be able to continue making records when the financial elements are so difficult. People say, "Man, this band needs to do more records, they need to do this." Well you know, everytime they do a record, they've got to go out and tour for it, and they're probably not getting much tour support. It's financially stressful on bands, unless they're doing real, real well. Look at the story that just came out about the payola. How can you fight that? How can a band fight that if they don't have the machine, and the money behind them? It's obviously proven that if a band has the backing, the financial backing, the muscle and the machine, you can be dog crap and still get the plays on the radio.

RNRU : That's been one of the least kept secrets in the industry..

SB: That stuff's been going on since the 50's. I think everybody knew what was going on.

RNRU : Do you think that somewhat Lillian Axe gets unfairly lumped into the "Hair Metal" category?

SB: Oh, absolutely. Of course, it's funny, because nowadays people don't practice free thinking. Everybody wants everything packaged nicely, lumped into a nice little package that they can put inside their head, on a shelf, and know where it is. Everybody's got to have labels on everything. Yeah, we came out in the late 80's, but we had our biggest success in the 90's, and everybody had long hair back then. It's ridiculous to say "Hair Metal", or something like that. Look how many metal bands are out right now, they all have long hair, what does it matter? Lynyrd Skynyrd's got long hair, they're not "Hair Metal". All that whole "Glam Metal," "Hair Metal," that was just something for the media to have a label to make stories sound and look good. It was a joke. But you know what? We don't care. We are what we are, yeah we have long hair, a couple of us don't in the band, a few of us do. It's always been about our songs, and the energy that we have when we play live. That's the most important thing. There's one thing that you have to learn, is that you cannot force anything on anybody. You can try to convince them, if you've got the money you can infiltrate it into their brains through TV and radio, but when you start getting involved in all that, and you lose all the genuine reason why you're playing, the real reason why people get turned on to your music, you're here today, gone tomorrow. I think that's one reaon why our first album came out seventeen years ago, and we're still doing this. We did take a long hiatus, but the band still has a large fan base, I think we're going to put out our best record ever, that's all we can really do.

RNRU : You also have a new solo album out, 'Random Acts Of Blindness'..

SB : Actually, it's something that I've wanted to do for a long time, because I'm a HUGE fan of depressing music.(Laughs) I like really sad, beautiful music. I listen to a lot of Classical, New Age stuff, movie soundtracks. There's one side of my brain that's really geared towards that. I wrote this album, piece by piece, a little at a time. A lot of it was written after my dad died three years ago, so I dedicated it to him. It's a lot of acoustic stuff, basically everything but one or two cuts are all acoustic guitars, keyboards, piano. It's a whole different element. I normally don't really have the full ability to do an entire Near Life Experience or Lillian Axe album with twelve or thirteen acoustic songs. I was able to do that, I did it all myself basically at home in my home studio, put it out myself, just did it on my own. I didn't get with a label on it, I may one day, but the important thing was that I wanted to go out to all the close fans that could really appreciate it. It's a lot different than the Lillian and the Near Life stuff. I listen to it probably once a week, and I still love it. The stuff's really close to me, it's a lot about my dad, lot of kind of dark, deep, sad but beautiful topics on this particular record. A lot of people that have listened to it have been really moved by it. So, I'm probably going to start working on another one by the end of this year. It was a lot of fun too, the fact that I did it myself, basically at home, pretty much in my bedroom. Some of the sounds that I got out there, a lot of people are amazed, they can't believe that I actually did that on my own, and not in a big budgeted studio. My theory on that is with a good song, good recording and good tracks, you don't need all that.

RNRU : Speaking of Near Life Experience, in relation to Lillian Axe, how would you compare the Near Life Experience music to people who haven't heard it?

SB : A lot of people think it's similar in certain ways, I think the overall approach is a little different because it's a different chemistry of the band members. I would say if you had to really put some kind of definition to it, it'd be heavier, more groove oriented, darker, but still a lot of the same elements. Since I'm singing, it's obviously going to sound different than Lillian Axe. Still lots of harmonies, but overall just heavier, deeper and darker. The guys in the band are great. I think that if you heard the two, you would see a lot of similarities in the actual writing style, it's not so drastic, it really isn't. Other than the chemistry. It's really a difficult thing to try and pinpoint what makes it different. I write the bulk of both band's material. I think a lot of it has to do with the chemistry. I haven't written that many new Lillian Axe songs, the majority of the stuff that I write goes for Near Life Experience, because a lot of the material for the new Lillian Axe album has been written for several years. There's actually a couple of songs on the new Lillian record that were Near Life songs that we never released, that I thought would be great for Lillian. I could probably take the same song, have both bands do them, and they would sound a lot different from each other. It's not that much different, but when you hear it it sounds a lot different, when you start breaking down the pieces. That's a hard thing to do. A lot of people ask me that, they're concerned if I'm able to separate the two. How do you write this? Then, you write your solo stuff, then you write Angel? I guess when I get in that mental frame where I'm writing a song, I'm trying to write a great song. I'm not trying to.."I've got to write something for Lillian," I just write the song, and then the chemistry of the individuals is what will come into making it sound like one of the two bands. There's a pretty strong separation, they're so close that they're worlds apart.

RNRU : So, you just write something, then decide, "Okay, this would go better for Lillian Axe... This would go better for Near Life, or Angel'?

SB : Yeah, kind of like that. Because for Near Life, I've written probably one hundred ten, one hundred twenty songs. That's a ton of material, a lot of stuff, and some of the songs have actually gone back and forth to be honest with you. There's been some that we've tried for both bands, and like I said, some of the stuff on the new Lillian record was actually Near Life stuff that we thought that would work. It's what it is, I write it, the bands put it out there, it's so funny to see how some people think that they're so different, but they're really not.

RNRU : Recently, with Near Life Experience you played with W.A.S.P., L.A. Guns and Steven Pearcy on the American Blast Metal tour. How was that experience?

SB : It was great, I knew Steven and his band from playing with them last year with Near Life, and I'm good friends with the guys in L.A. Guns as well. So, it was cool to see them, and my tour manager Danny Stanton, who tour manages Angel, he's also W.A.S.P.'s tour manager. So, I got to see him, and it was great, it was a good show. We really had a great slot being the opening band, because it was a Sunday night, we probably had the majority of the crowd there when we played, because it was earlier in the night. By the end of the night it started, people just got slammed with all this volume. The other bands were all great, W.A.S.P. was great, L.A.Guns, Pearcy, everybody sounded really good. It was a night of just getting your ears assaulted, let me tell you, because it was loud, and the bands all did a great job, it was a blast, we had a good time. We had actually, with Near Life played with W.A.S.P. a few years ago, at The Howlin' Wolf in New Orleans. He still has that gigantic mic stand, the thousand pound mic stand, it was working fine. It took about six hundred people to get it off the stage. (Laughs) They moved everything so we could have some room, I had about two feet of room on stage, it was tight.(Laughs)

[HARD ROCK UNIVERSE]

RNRU : Your production company, Velvet Life Productions, has a horror movie coming out soon entitled 'The Tao Of M'?

SB : Yeah, Velvet Life Productions is a production company between myself, Eric Morris, who's the bass player in Near Life and co-star in the movie, and the director of the movie, James Bills. We did a half hour vampire movie last year that the local cable company picked up and played on their channel for about three months. We got picked up by a company called Isis Films, who we filmed a joint venture with, and we've gotten funded to do a full feature. We have Peter Steele from Type O Negative, the four band members of Twisted Sister are all going to be in the movie with Jason McMaster from Dangerous Toys. We have a couple of other guys too that we're waiting to see if they'll fit in the budget that want to be in the movie as well.

RNRU : What's the movie about?

SB : My character is named Midael. It's 1785, he's the toast of New Orleans, composer, pianist, has a great family, life's wonderful. There's a tuberculosis plague in the city, and my character's wife and child are incorrectly taken and quarantined, because the local priests, who are actually not really priests, are actually powers that have taken over the role of the priests. They're trying to, basically it's a wolf in sheep's clothing thing, they're trying to take over the city by acting as priests. They quarantine all these tuberculosis patients, and have them killed accidently, so to speak. They make it look like an accident to try to keep the spread of the tuberculosis plague from taking over the city. So, my character loses his wife and child, goes AWOL, kills one of the priests, is sentenced to jail, and then is sired by another vampire played by Peter Steele. At that point, I exact revenge on all the priests that have killed my family. Then we switched it to 2005, where I basically find the reincarnated version of my daughter and steal her from Eric's character, who's known as Dead. And the fun starts.(Laughs)

RNRU : As you're acting in this as well, how do you compare being an actor versus being out on the stage in a rock situation?

SB : I think it's a lot different. When I'm on stage, it's not a character, I'm not acting as anybody. You have the ability to be very expressive, there's no limitation, you can pour forth all these emotions while you're playing, it's a great release. And the acting, you actually sit back and get into the mind set of the character, and really study the character, become the character. I found myself as it is I'm walking, I walk around with a different type of walk now, trying to get in the mind of this character. But this character in the movie Midael is so complex. He's a human being turned vampire, he's basically very jaded, still appreciates life and beauty but he's very cynical. He's so complex, so torn up on the inside that it's a challenge to have to get into his mind. We have a lot of rehearsals where my acting coaches sit there and just get me into the mindset of what I'm doing, work with me on getting into the depth of this character at that particular scene. It's a lot different, it's really difficult in a lot of ways. It's tough sometimes, but it's very interesting, and I enjoy it. I'm also doing the score and the soundtrack for the movie as well, so I've got my work cut out for me.

RNRU : How do you approach doing a film score versus a regular album?

SB : Well, I did it for the half hour thing, and basically what I do, and I'm a HUGE movie fan, I love going to movies, and I study, listen to, and buy the soundtracks. The thing is, though, I can work on certain thematic things, but I can't really do a ton of stuff until we have the edited movie. When I sit there and watch the scenes, experiment with different things. Because you can take one scene, you can take a fight scene, and put this really bombastic, really heavy, driving stuff to match the pace of the fight scene. Or, you can take that scene and put "Adagio For Strings" behind it, or "Moonlight Sonata," completely opposite ends of the original spectrum, and create an entirely different mood and atmosphere for that scene. You can have this beautiful fight scene with people's heads being chopped off, blood flying everywhere to this beautiful, classical piece of music. Make like a dance out of it, like a beautiful serenade out of a horrible murder scene. There's so many different ways you can approach doing the score for a movie, and how you can put music to a particular scenario and change it. So many different ways, just by the style of sound that you're using at that time.

RNRU : Do you find that more challenging in a way?

SB : Yeah, it is. If you write a song, you know where you're going with it. In this particular thing you're mixing the visual and the audio, and you realize that you really have the mood of the audience, and the way the audience is going to perceive that scene, it hinges very much on the music that you put to it. When I watch movies right now, the music is AS important as the actual scene itself. It can make or break a scene. It's a hefty responsibility.

RNRU : As you're a huge movie fan, in the horror genre, what are some of your favorite movies?

SB : I think, as far as vampire movies are concerned, 'Interview With The Vampire' and 'Bram Stoker's Dracula.' I love all the originals, but when you look at the originals compared to the movies where the budget is higher, they're more beautiful, it's a whole different thing. I like the original 'Dracula,' the original 'Mummy,' the original 'Wolfman' with Lon Chaney. God, there's so many. I think 'Halloween,' that movie scares the crap out of me. I even like the original 'Nightmare On Elm Street', 'Amityville Horror', '13 Ghosts,' there's so many of them, so many great horror movies out there.

RNRU : Do you have a release date set for the movie yet?

SB : We're trying to have it ready for the beginning of November. That's when the American film market takes place, the new movies are presented basically. We have a lot of interest in this, a lot of distribution companies are wanting to have this movie. We've been doing pre-production for two months. Setting up the staff, finding locations, acting, rehearsals, casting the movie, so we have a lot going on. I'm just chomping at the bit to get started so we can get this thing done. We did the promotional trailer, brought it over to the Cannes Film Festival, and that's where Milena Merrill, who's the Executive Producer, got all this amazing interest in it, all these distributors wanting the soundtrack, wanting the movie, and ready to buy it then and there before it's even done. All we can do, as soon as the funding hits the bank, we start shooting. That should be taking place this week. I'm excited. If you go to www.taoofm.com, you can see the trailer, and see the original half hour movie as well.

RNRU : Getting back to the music, are there any songs, or videos that you look back upon and say, "Damn, I can't believe we did that"?

SB : Videos? Yeah, pretty much all of them (Laughs) Just kidding, I don't know man, we never really had the opportunity to really be in charge of our videos. I think that for the time they were good. But we wanted to do more serious stuff with them. The first video, "Dream Of a Lifetime," we just couldn't believe we were doing a video for MTV. "Show A Little Love," which is probably our best video I think, that was cool. It looked good, it was stylish at that time and we spent a lot of time on it. The guy who did it had done a lot of successful videos already, so we knew we were in good hands. Then we did the one for "No Matter What," and they wanted to do like a Beatles "A Hard Day's Night" thing. We just hated it, but we were in the middle of touring, and we drove from Pennsylvania to New York in a blizzard to shoot this thing in one day. We were just worn out, we were like, "Whatever. Just do it and let's go." Then, what happened is, after things started, we should've done a video for "True Believer," but the label waited too long. That was our best charting single, and they waited too long. Then, when 'Psycho' came out, they didn't even do a video for "Crucified," which we wanted to do. It was essential. So, a lot of bad decisions made, but you know, we're proud of the music, we had fun doing the videos although we would've liked to have done them a little bit differently. There's so much compromise involved, you've got to do what you've got to do sometimes, and a lot of times you have to do what the label wants you to do sometimes in certain situations. But yeah, I'm not really knocked out by our videos.

RNRU : Is there any chance of a Lillian Axe DVD coming out at any time?

SB : There's SO much footage out there, man, it's unbelievable. I have so much footage, and I've got a guy that's working with me right now on a Near Life live video. He wants to do a Lillian thing, and eventually when things calm down a little bit we're going to do that. Put something out like a history of the band. Because there's so much out there, we could do twenty four hours of DVD footage of this band (Laughs) So many shows I have on tape, I've got so much stuff. We'll probably do something like that within a year, like a history of the band from the beginning.

RNRU : You've done a lot of touring in Europe with Lillian Axe. How do European audiences compare with audiences here in the States for the band?

SB : We just went to Europe last year, and played in front of twenty seven thousand people, and they were nuts. We did an autograph signing thing, and we sat there for two hours signing and there were still five or six hundred people in line that we couldn't get to. It's amazing, I think it's a lot different because of the fact that they don't get to see you all the time, and you're a foreign commodity. They just seem to appreciate it, I couldn't believe all the material and stuff that people had, albums, t shirts, and everything. These people halfway around the world have more stuff than people in the States. You're just appreciated more over there. They drive hours and hours, there were people coming from all over Europe to this festival to see us. It was great.

RNRU : In Europe it seems that once they get into a band they stick with them, and they're not swayed by trends like here in the States...

SB : Oh yeah, they're dedicated absolutely. And we definitely are swayed here in the States, it's a case of being worried about impressing everybody else.

[HARD ROCK UNIVERSE]

RNRU : If you had to pick, what what be the performance you're most proud of on record?

SB : On album? Probably 'Psychoschizophrenia.' It's my favorite album. I think the writing process was, to me when I wrote that album, I felt like I was at my creative peak. Songs were just flying out of me, it was really a certain time in my life, I don't know what to attribute it to, but I just felt so creative, I had all these melodies, it was so easy to write these songs. There were a lot of songs that didn't make the album either. It was like a four year creative plethora of material. I think that some of my best songs and lyrics came from that era.

RNRU : You worked with Robbin Crosby, who produced the first Lillian Axe album. What are your favorite memories of working with Robbin during that time?

SB : One of the cool things, he came and flew down to Texas, we played with Motorhead in Dallas, and he flew out, got up on stage and played with us. He was a really nice guy. I always felt that he was kind of insecure a little bit. Even though he was a big rock star and had all that stuff, he was always still kind of, I don't know, kind of sad in some ways. But he was very, very generous, a nice, nice guy. I loved him to death, man I thought he was great, and it was a shame that I kind of lost track of him. I saw him a few times, later on when he was kind of down on his luck. I talked to him a couple of years ago, while he was in the hospital, and he sounded really bad. It was just a real shame, I mean he was a wonderful guy, big hearted. I can remember one funny thing when he first came down, I was living in Jackson, Mississippi, he flew down to work with the band on pre-production to get all the songs ready to go before the first album. We had worked for like five days in a row, and the last day, we finished the last song and he said, "That's it, I'm flying out in two days, everybody ready?" He like swigged like a half bottle of Crown Royal, he got real sick, let's put it that way. He drank way too much, and he's like, "Aww man, I think I shouldn't have had that beef at the Mexican restaurant."(Laughs) Blamed it on the meat, when he swigged like a whole bottle of Crown Royal. (Laughs) He was a great guy, that's a shame that he's not around. We had a blast working with him, every day we'd go out and eat lunch or dinner, and he'd refuse to let us pay for it. He was just very generous, a really nice guy. He's up there watching us. A great soul, and he's in a good place.

RNRU : You're also in the reformed Angel. When can we see a new album?

SB: I've written half of the new record, and I'm waiting for Frank Dimino to come on down to my house and come stay with me, but the problem that we're having is the movie is just putting everything on hold right now. That's the biggest problem that we have right now, we can't really do anything. We have some interest, we're ready to get started. Hopefully by the end of the year, Frank and I will have gotten together and written another five songs. I know some of the other guys are writing some things as well to present to us so that I can get to work on some new things. That's a great band too, I'm honored to be in that band. I'm just very, very excited about the possibility of us going out and doing some more touring towards the end of the year, beginning of next year. I think there's a package going where they're trying to put Angel and Badfinger together to go out on tour next year. A friend of mine's booking, and he wants to put Angel and Badfinger together. That would be fun.

RNRU : Who is in Angel at the present time?

SB: Barry Brandt is on drums, Frank Dimino, the original singer, myself, a guy named Michael T. Ross, who plays in Hardline, he's playing keyboards, and a guy named Randy Gregg, who plays in Thin Lizzy as well, is the bass player.

RNRU : How is the music sounding for the new Angel album? Is there any change to the classic Angel style?

SB : Yeah, yeah, of course, with me writing it? (Laughs) Yeah, it is, I'm such a huge fan of the early first three or four records, like "The Fortune," "Mirrors," "Cast The First Stone," I liked all the heavier stuff. I mean, I liked all of it, but that's the stuff that I've got them playing live now. The new stuff, it's harder rockin' than probably any of the other Angel stuff. But, it's still got the classic Angel sound. Frank's vocals, Barry's drums, I'm just trying to do some justice to it. Everybody loves the stuff, it's still kind of dark and medieval in some places. They had so many different facets, some of the stuff was almost Dio-esque, like dragons and kings and queens. Then there was a lot of stuff about the whole relationship thing, which I think every rock band in the world thinks about. (Laughs) So, I'm trying to draw the line between the two of them, not be so lovey dovey, and not be so medieval. Kind of somewhere in the middle. (Laughs) But, it's cool stuff, it definitely is rockin'. I can't wait to play it out live.

RNRU : Angel back in the day had a pretty spectacular live stage show. How much of that is going to continue?

SB : Well, we ARE wearing all white, that's one thing. We're not doing the disappearing thing with the holograms, or any of that kind of stuff. Still have the logo, but to do clubs, we can't really do any of that kind of stuff. Frank doesn't even know where a lot of that stuff is. If things got to the point where we were doing theaters or whatnot, being able to draw X amount of people, then we'd probably pull back some holograms, stuff like that. The band still has a cool look like they used to back in the day. We still pull out the all white, even nowadays, without looking ridiculous or feminine at all. It looks pretty cool actually.

RNRU : You mention Angel, besides Angel, who were your big influences growing up?

SB: Aww man, I was a HUGE Alice Cooper fan. Did you interview Neal Smith? I read that the other day. That band, that's the reason why I'm playing music. Like he said, all the way up to 'Muscle of Love,' I know every drumbeat, bass note, guitar note, vocal inflection on ALL those records, probably better than they do.(Laughs) I was a HUGE fan of that band. I liked The Scorpions when they first came out, early Judas Priest, Aerosmith, Sabbath, Queen, all the early stuff. All these great bands, their early material, RUSH, these bands were so great when they started. They're still great, but some of them lost that edge, that dark side, and got commercial, or just lost the creativity. Some of them still have it, but that was a great time when I was a kid listening to all these rock bands. That's why I first started off, I was classically trained, trained in flamenco guitar, since I was a kid. So when I first got into rock music later, KISS especially as well, and started learning how to play rock guitar, man that was it. When I saw Alice Cooper on TV, I knew what I was doing. 'Killer,' 'Billion Dollar Babies,' 'Muscle Of Love,' 'Love It To Death,' just the writing was unbelievable, it was so unique, different and diverse. It just floored me. Actually, Near Life played with Michael Bruce at an Anne Rice convention a few years ago, and I got to meet him. He was actually changing clothes on the side of the building in his car. I was like, "Hold on..Michael Bruce, give me a minute," He goes, "Yeah, I know you, I saw you guys play before." He'd seen Near Life, and he knew who Lillian Axe were. So, I talked to him for a minute, I probably sounded like a friggin' little kid, "Hey you know when you did that record? That record? That was cool." (Laughs) Because Michael wrote a lot of the good songs, like the really cool stuff. A couple of guys in Angel, I think Barry played on Michael's solo record years ago, I think Barry Brandt from Angel is the drummer on that, if I'm not mistaken. Dennis Dunaway was the MOST unbelievable bass player. He was such a bass player ahead of his time.

RNRU : Do you listen to any of the newer metal bands? If so, which ones have caught your ear?

SB: Honestly, I listen to, and buy everything I can. I just bought, there's a band called H.I.M, I just bought all three of their records. Most of my favorite bands are bands that have been out, I'm a huge Type O fan, King's X, Saigon Kick, bands like that. I like that band H.I.M, that's pretty good, I just got it. I love Chevelle, I think Chevelle's a great band. I like Papa Roach, I love KORN, Slipnot's pretty cool too, Drowning Pool. My brother plays for Black Label Society. There's a lot of bands out there, but there's a lot of crap man, a lot of just the same old stuff. And not really a whole lot of bands that are creating, not just a good song, but works of art. I like a whole album to be like a work of art. I think every record should have the flow, and the depth of 'The Wall' by Pink Floyd. But, it seems there's a lot of bands, they write a couple of good songs, then they put a bunch of filler on there. There's no congruity, there's no overall theme. Like, when we do a record, like 'Day Of Silver Sun,' the last Near Life record, it was like a whole work of art. How the songs had meaning, tied into each other, it was thought out, it wasn't just going and recording thirteen songs and throwing them on there. It had a lot of depth to it. I don't see a lot of that like I'd like to.

RNRU : Obviously you do that, and a lot of the bands, even in the 80's, but even earlier, like Zeppelin, Purple, Sabbath and Cooper did that especially. There's a timeless quality to that music that you don't see that much these days. Why do you think that is?

SB: Because it's been SO placed upon bands that the only way you're going to be successful is if you get a hit on the radio. Gone are the days where touring, development and support on a grassroots level is going to pay off for you. It's all about you've got to get that quick fix, because nobody sells records unless you have a radio hit. That's what the emphasis is put on. It's a shame, but that's the way it is. You can't really go out and tour, and build strong touring bases because it's too expensive to tour. Clubs don't pay enough money to keep a band out on the road. Clubs have difficulty because radio ads are skyrocketing, because radio stations demand top dollar, and the clubs can't afford to go and pay tons of money on radio advertisement to support shows. Clubs are having difficulty getting people in the door, because money's tight, gas prices are high. It's like a vicious cycle. It's a shame, so what do people do? They rent movies and they sit at home, play Playstation and watch DVD's, that's what they do. Until it gets to the point where everybody takes some responsibility, alright, radio stations say we're going to make our ads affordable, clubs, we've got to pay the bands what they're worth, and we've got to advertise shows properly to bring people into the venue, not just spend money on U2, who don't need all that. Start supporting, and then get the people, the fans to start supporting music, start coming to the live shows. Until everybody starts working together it's not going to happen. It's a jungle out there, I tell ya.(Laughs)

RNRU : Every band has them. What has been your most 'Spinal Tap' moment?

SB: (Laughs) Spinal Tap moment...I've had a lot of Spinal Tap moments OFF stage. (Laughs) Like looking back into my wardrobe from back in the 80's, and wonder, "What the hell was I thinking?" I've fallen on stage before, but I've never fallen OFF a stage. I did have a situation back in the early days, back when we first started out where the singer got on all fours right behind me, not even realizing where I was, just acting a fool on stage, and I backed up right over the top of him, just totally flipped, and didn't lose a lick on guitar. I think everybody's fallen a few times. Let's put it this way, and maybe not Spinal Tap, but maybe on a scarier note, I've had about four or five impersonators. One of them I found out about. I started getting contacted from girls who were basically finding out that this guy was impersonating me, and realizing, in the long run that it wasn't me. This guy had albums in his house with my name on them, his website even had pictures of me saying it was him. He was picking up girls, saying he was me, and it got really scary because some kind of way one of these girls said the F.B.I. was investigating this guy for something. They thought that maybe he was taking girls out of the country and doing some crazy Sh*t. (Laughs) It lasted for several years, until about five different girls contacted me, and I think it's calmed down since then. They didn't know because the guy's hair was short, and thought, "Well, it kind of could be him, if he cut his hair short," or whatnot. He ruined a bunch of lives, he really screwed over a bunch of girls, hurt them really bad. It was kind of scary to me, when I found out about it, it really freaked me out, made me feel very violated. I've had a few others, but that's the most harmful one. Back in the day when I had a blonde streak in my hair, some guy was going around, he cut his hair like mine, had the blonde streak, was going around picking up girls saying he was me. He had the haircut, they all thought it was me. That kind of stuff comes back to you, especially if the guy was a lousy guy, you know what I'm saying? It comes back to you.."Man, that guy's an ass," and it wasn't even me. (Laughs) There's some strange people out there, man. For the most part though, we've had a lot of GREAT fans, tons of really good fans. In Europe people following us all around Europe in their cars, in Japan these people giving us gifts, tapestries, dolls and things. It's really been pretty amazing, we really haven't had anything really screwed up or freaky. We did have a, I wouldn't really call it a Spinal Tap moment, but we did open up for Stryper once, and a guy had a heart attack and passed away during our show. At a Stryper show that's kind of Spinal Tap.

RNRU : Since "Dimbag" Darrell was killed, has there been any change in the way you approach live performances? Have you have any experiences close to that?

SB : I think everybody, the first few weeks, or months actually, was really just looking around. Honestly, I've had so many weird, just bizarre situations with fans. Wanting pieces of your hair, this and that, and some of them get.. I've been stalked a few times. You just never know who's just somebody that's really just a devout fan, or if it's somebody that has the ability, or the capablities of cracking under a weird pressure. You just don't know. But, you wind up realizing you can't go around living worrying about that, because it could happen to you at the gas station, it can happen anywhere. You just hope that there's no copycats out there saying "Oh, I'm going to go do that to this guy." It was a unique, rare situation, and it hasn't happened since, but you tell your crew guys "Look, if you see anybody really weird, that looks strange, don't hesitate to just take care of it", you know, tend to that particular situation. You can't pounce on them and beat the crap out of them when all they were coming up to do was to get you to sign something. I just can't live worrying about people creeping up on me from behind, if it happens, it happens. You just have to be more alert. I'm alert as it is. I'm the kind of guy, when I go to a stop sign, if I don't have a stop sign, I'm looking at the people that do have a stop sign, and make sure they're not running it. My peripheral vision is always working. So, I keep my eye out for everything that's going around around me. We had a guy once, a long time ago who tried to break into our bus because he thought his girlfriend was on the bus, and she wasn't. Come to find out, this guy and his dad, the next day, tried to plant a bomb on the local sheriff, or something weird like that. (Laughs) He broke through our tour bus, our road manager had to get a gun, the cops came, a strange mess. This guy wound up going to jail for trying to blow up the sheriff .(Laughs) You just never know with people, you've just got to be careful.

RNRU : On the flipside, on a lighter note, what has been your most memorable show or performance?

SB: Well, there's a lot of them, but some of the Lillian show, before we got signed, when we were opening for Ratt and Queensryche, as an unsigned band, that's what led us to getting our first record contract. That was good feelings man, playing in front of ten thousand people, them all going nuts, here we are just a local band. That was great, but probably last year, in Europe when we did the Bang Your Head Festival, there were twenty some thousand people out there. We hadn't been there in ten years, they were all going crazy for us, it made us feel really good. We've been touring for twenty years, we've been all over the place, there's been so many great ones, The Club Eastwood, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, we played there several times, always sold out, amazing turnout. I love touring, I still do, I love it now, even though it's more difficult to do now, and things are a little different, I still love doing it more than anything.

RNRU : What advice, if any, would you give to someone just starting out in the business?

SB: Find the right group of people to surround yourself with. Be patient, write, play as much as you can. Always realize that there's plenty of room for success out there for many different bands. Playing music is not a competitive sport. There's not just one winner in the world. Be supportive of other people who are playing, other musicians, keep your head on and realize why you're doing it. If you're in it to be backstabbing, to win some sort of championship or title, you're in it for the wrong reasons. Keep your head on, and stay out of drugs man, people don't even realize how many lives it's screwed up. You know, drink in moderation, do what you need to do, but don't do things that are going to be detrimental to you or other people, because it always hinders your creativity. Keep your head together, that's the main thing, be dedicated, and be patient.

RNRU : What keeps you going?

SB: This is what I'm meant to do. Everybody has a purpose in life. Some people say "Why can't you be satisfied, staying at home, doing this, doing that"? It's different for different people. And it doesn't have anything to do with your loved ones, or being with your wife, your girlfriend, or your family. Everybody has a certain purpose aside from that, what they're driven to do and accomplish in their life. It's what makes your soul, or your spirit advance to the next place. That, for me, is to be creative and create music, and if it gets into the acting thing that goes hand in hand, to create things that move other people. I can't paint, and I don't sculpt, so, my creations are musical and visual. That's what I'm meant to do. I was fortunate enough to be given the abilities and opportunity to do that, so then I take advantage of it. Plus, it's what makes me grow, makes me happy, to be able to move other people. And that's what keeps me going. I will do that for the rest of my existence, I will always create. The shape and size of things may change, the audience may change, but I will always create. And, that's what keeps me rollin'.


For more information on Steve Blaze, go to the following websites:

www.nearlifeexperience.com
www.lillianaxe.com
www.steveblaze.com
www.taoofm.com