Wednesday, December 6, 2023

A Conversation with Circle of Sanity

Circle of Sanity is a hard rock/metal band that has been performing and recording for fifteen years, developing a loyal following in the Northeast USA amongst a series of personnel changes. 2023 marks yet one more evolution for this band, and one that is poised to make waves in both its sound and band configuration. For the first time in their history, founding members Josh Sapna (Guitar/Bass/Vocals) and Kevin Horner (Drums) have added keyboards into their group in a major way. Classical/Prog Metal keyboard legend Vitalij Kuprij of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, who has spent the last couple of years releasing his latest solo album, Progression, as well as releases with prog-metal outfits Majustice and Ring of Fire, has come aboard and has officially joined Circle of Sanity. 

I had the honor and pleasure recently to sit in on their rehearsals as they played much of their forthcoming new EP live and chatted with the guys on the history of the group, their latest lineup with Kuprij now involved, and upcoming plans. They talked candidly about their music and band, and I came away from this experience quite impressed with their unique combo of hard rock, prog metal all with a strong melodic ingredient.  We also floated the new song past a few musicians and got their thoughts, shared at the end of this interview.



Dan Roth: Can you tell me a little about how the band originally formed and when?

Josh Sapna: We formed this band in 2008.  Prior to that I had a band called Mad Souls that put out a 14-song record, and for a while I was in a cover band called The Bugs.  The Bugs was booked by Media Five and we did the shore scene, big crowds, good money, but no outlet for my art. I put an ad out and Kevin Horner hit me up and we found a bass player and a second guitarist.  I started bringing my songs to the table and we wound up recording an EP at Barber Shop Studios with the late, great Jason Corsaro, the Grammy winning engineer.  It was our first release and overall were not as happy with it as we would've liked.  We wound up being a little rushed getting it done.
 In 2014, we released a full-length album, Twisted Into Shape, which had some new songs and a few from that original EP that we wanted to re-record and put out there in a more final shape. It was co-produced and mixed by Grammy award winner John Seymour (Alice in Chains, Dave Matthews, Santana).

Roth:  Tell me about the name "Circle of Sanity". 

Sapna:  At the time I was really into the band A Perfect Circle. Also years before that, I wrote a song called “in circles”, which was produced, but only released locally through a few hundred CDs. It’s a song I would love to redo and release in the future.  I knew that the next band name would have “circle” in it and whatever  I came up with would be the last one I would ever have to create. I released all the songs I’ve written from that point on under that name, regardless of whoever was playing them with me. Thinking about all the craziness that works its way into peoples lives got me thinking that when we were there in our circle playing music, none of those things could exist there, and the name was born “Circle Of Sanity”. That night I called Kevin and ran it by him and explained my thoughts of how I came up with it and he agreed it was a good name and so we went with it.

Kevin Horner: You never know what's going to happen when you walk out the door each day, but in here, with these guys here in our circle, this was our circle of sanity from outside worries.

Sapna: Once we had that settled, I started thinking about our logo and we were the first band to put the letters of their band name in an emblem like that.  I designed the logo and that will be on our albums and banners.

Roth: The band lineup seems like it has evolved over the years.

Sapna: Well, Kevin had taken a sabbatical at one point.

Horner: Yeah, I had stepped away from drums and was really done for a long time. Spent time with the family. But then over the last year or so, I filled in at a few Circle of Sanity shows and then one day Josh called me and tells me about his new writing partner and invited me back to check things out. With the talent level in this room, which was all it took for me to be back in. 

Roth: Has the band always been a trio?

Sapna: No, it started out as a four-piece, but when Dan Molkenthin left to join Back in Black, the AC/DC tribute band, we stayed as a trio from that point on. We have been through a couple different bass players over the years.  I have led a trio for most of my years on my musical journey. For this new lineup, we are currently writing and recording as a trio. 

Roth: Josh, through all the years of this band, you have been the one mainstay the entire time. Are you sort of the keeper of the flame, as it were?

Sapna:  Yeah. For the last two records, I wrote everything on them except for "The Oath"; Kevin wrote the lyrics and Dan Molkenthin had written the music  on that one. I do all the vocals and guitars, and on our last record, Celestial Mechanics, I also wrote all of the bass lines too.  We'll see how that goes for this new album.

Roth:  On the Celestial Mechanics album, you guys did a Crowded House cover, which was somewhat unexpected, but it worked. You definitely made it your own. Where did the inspiration come to cover that, and is doing a cover something you would do again?

Sapna:  I've always loved "Don't Dream It's Over" and I like to throw in a cover and see what we can do with it.  I want to do a cover of The Doors' "Strange Days" on our next album. You might not think a band like us would listen to eighties music like that, but I love some of it and it was fun to record.

Roth:  I know bands don't always like to label themselves, but do you consider yourselves a metal band?

Sapna:  Not by today's standards. There is metal in there of course, we are all metalheads. But today "metal" means something different than it did thirty years ago.

Roth:  Josh, who are your inspirations?  

Sapna:  In the early days, it was Led Zeppelin, Allman Brothers, Pink Floyd, Traffic, and on up to Iron Maiden, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Chris Cornell.  I am a huge fan of Rush, Tool and Karnivool. My well of influences is really deep.

Roth:  How about you Kevin? Any significant influences?

Horner:  I love Vinnie Paul, Dave Lombardo, Neal Peart. Lars Ulrich of course too after listening to him for the last forty years.  But Vinnie Paul is probably the style that I bring to this band.  I'm probably more of the "heavy" guy in the group, even though the band is more melodic. I bring the brawn to the melodic.


Sapna:  Exactly, we do have a way of staying out of each other's way, while bringing a lot to the music. It just happens naturally.  When you listen to the three of us performing, there is a lot going on but nothing steps on anything else.

Roth:  You have referenced the current lineup a couple of times here.  Let's talk about your newest member, and the first time the band has had a keyboardist, Vitalij Kuprij.

Sapna:  I started playing out again once things started opening back up after the pandemic, I had a different bassist and drummer, but we were out there playing songs from Celestial Mechanics and the prior record.  And over the course of the last year, I met Vitalij just socially.  We were playing darts and talking music.

Vitalij Kuprij:  We met at a social club not far from where I live.  We would be playing pool or darts, but always talking music. Over time, he would share with me his songs and then Josh invited me to jam.  For me, I never really wanted to do anything locally unless it showed true potential.

Sapna:  Just as I wouldn't expect to find a world-class piano player at the local fire company, he wouldn't expect to find a songwriter who does what I do at my level. It is just by grace of God that this came together like this.

Kuprij:  As I got to know Josh, I realized that this made sense on a personal level.  We have the same passion, the same kind of point of view, the same attitude toward 'no shortcuts, no winging it, make a statement on the highest possible level', which led us to getting together and the rest is history. I came here and we just started playing and it led me to join them on a full-terms commitment basis.

Roth:  Is this the first time you have had a keyboardist in the band?

Sapna:  Yeah. It was never anything I thought I needed to seek out for the band. .  The piano is the most beautiful instrument in the world. To hear how that can go with TOOL-ish kind of music, you don't always get that. When you listen to my heavy riffs and hear what Vitalij does to complement them and drive the song to higher levels!

Kuprij:  And we work really well together. You know, I have had my own bands where I did the writing for them, but Josh does all of that. To me, I want to look for incentive, not to just be a keyboard player. He starts creating something, a split musical creation where I can be part of it compositionally which is a big incentive for me to commit to anything. My golden times are gone where I just show up and play keyboards for someone. I'm not that type. I want to be part of this on a deeper level than just performing keys. 

If the musical idea one of us brings is good, we combine our forces and develop it. To me, this was something that was important to me before I would commit to the band.  We never argue, and we all value each other.

Roth:  You have such a deep classical and prog-metal background. Do you find it easy to add your element to this band?

Kuprij:  I just try to fit them in into the puzzle, and this is a good puzzle and it works. It is just natural and you have to grab that.

Sapna:  "The Great Escape" is our first single and I had that written and arranged, then Vitalij added his musicality to it. Then we got into this other song where I had the riff and a verse and chorus, but then he came up with this whole other part that took it to another level.


RothCan you tell me a little about the lyrical content of the song? The lyric "You can feel how the tension builds,  no regard for the dreams it kills. Now we all have to fight this machine, or our dreams could expire." stood out to me. 

Sapna My thought on that was for people to escape all the media propaganda that is directed at setting people against each other and for humanity to escape that and come together for the good of all. That’s the message of that song.

Kuprij:  Another reason that I really value my commitment to this is that I've always been a European-oriented individual for most of my life. When I got to the USA, it was classical and TSO.  I've done some damage in Japan, as you know, but I never wanted to do something in the U.S. market because TSO took that over for me. Those two months playing in arenas were good enough for me. We still play some cool rock songs after the rock opera story. To me, that was enough. But with these guys, we have a multi-genre type of sound that we are crafting. That's what it feels to me.

Sapna: We could go out with a Breaking Benjamins or even a Shinedown.

Horner:  It's classical, a bit of grunge and metal.

Kuprij: Yes! I can sneak in with the classical and my own rock stuff that I do. 


Roth:  So many records these days are made remotely, with musicians in various parts of the world  sharing files. Vitalij, you did that most recently with the releases from Majustice and Ring of Fire. And that is almost the standard these days. With you guys writing and recording here in this studio, do you have a preference?

Sapna:  It is way better all being here in the same room. Working with files, you have to work with what is given. With us all working it out here in person, I'll come up with something that I think a song will go, and Vitalij or Kevin will come in with something that I hadn't even planned and we change the song. That's the kind of stuff that doesn't happen when working remotely.

Kuprij:  It is like talking to Voyager. You come up with an idea and you have to wait seven f**king days to get a reply. [Laughs]  Let's jam and get it done! I started with Roger [Staffelbach] the same way. There's three of us and we are writing and recording five feet away from one another!

Horner:  There is an energy that this band has that is undeniable. It's the energy you feel when you see certain bands. The biggest thing for me is this is fun. I'm not even looking to be a rock star. I love coming here weekly and writing with these guys because I know they're going to challenge the shit out of me and it's a blast. These guys are just really amazing musicians and you don't get this with every other band.

Roth:  So, tell me about this new record you're working on with this exciting new lineup.  An EP or a full album?

Sapna:  It's an EP at this point, but if we keep writing, it may be a full-length album. But we'll see. Releasing records these days is different than it used to be. It may make more sense to release a shorter EP and then follow it up with another. What we are thinking is it may be five songs and a cover. I'd also like to do an acoustic version of a song from one of our previous albums, just a new take.

Horner:  Acoustically, our songs sound just as heavy, but served up differently.

Roth:  Once the album is released, do you have plans to tour?

Kuprij:  Absolutely! I get the TSO tour done, come back and get some things scheduled. We want to bring our music to the people and they are going to love it!

Roth:  Any label lined up yet? 

Kuprij:  Not yet. We have some interest already, but we will be considering offers. You know,  we have a bit of everything. The riffs. the heaviness, the melodies, the power, the wide-open choruses.

Horner: The choruses are sing-a-along choruses, but still heavy.

Kuprij:  We play it humanly with balls, none of that sampled bullshit. 



"The great escape” is just that…a great escape from the norm that takes you on a wonderful rollercoaster ride of music and melody’s. It travels through a progressive metal time warp that is full of superior musicianship. A perfect match of grooves, riffs and intensity that is just as I said…”A great escape” - Chris Caffery (Savatage/Trans-Siberian Orchestra/Spirits of Fire)

“The Great Escape: Heavy and has a nice grinding groove. The melody is catchy and I really like the vocals as well.” - Rosa Laricchiuta (Headpins/Trans-Siberian Orchestra)

"Badass !!!!" -Al Pitrelli (Alice Cooper, Savatage, Megadeth, TSO)

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Saturday, November 9, 2019

A Conversation with The Wizards of Winter

Over the course of the last ten years, Yuletide rockers The Wizards of Winter have been spreading their brand of Christmas cheer with three Christmas albums and annual nationwide tours.  What started out as a tribute band to raise money for a local New Jersey food pantry quickly evolved and grew into an all-original Christmas act with fans worldwide.  The group consists of a host of first class musicians and vocalists whose backgrounds include Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Def Leppard, The Irish Tenors, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, Blue Oyster Cult and more.  The band recently released their third album, The Christmas Dream, to rave reviews. I sat down with the founders of the band, Keyboardist/Musical Director Scott Kelly and Flutist/Vocalist Sharon Kelly to talk in-depth about the new album and tour.


Photo courtesy Jeff Smith of ReflectionsNYC


Dan Roth: On social media, you had been talking about making a new album for a couple years now. What was it that finally got everyone into the studio?

Scott Kelly: It was having enough material ready and having everyone available at the same time.

Dan: A few of the songs on the new album made their debut in concert before you recorded them. Does playing these songs out first help when it comes to recording them?

Scott: Absolutely. The songs get refined. We come up with a rough idea of the chords and melody structure and Fred will work up the guitar leads. By playing them live, we find out what worked and what didn't and come up with the final format. The arrangements really get tweaked, as we experiment with them.

For example, if you just listen to Fred's solo on "Secrets of the Snow Globe", his solo is amazing. When we first started playing that song live, that wasn't the solo that he played on it, but now it will be.

Dan: What was the first song written for the album?

Scott: The first song conceived for this album is one that we call "The Happy Song". This was a song that we started working on in 2016 with just me, Sharon and Fred. We banged it out with the drummer that we had at the time. In the two years this song has been around, we could not come up with a name for it. Any time that we would play it for someone, they would always remark what a "happy song" it was. It just stuck. It is sort of a running joke within the band that our songs have four or five names internally here. We tried to come up with a name for it, but "The Happy Song" just stuck.

Dan: Describe the creative process that went into this. Do you write all of the songs beforehand? Or is any of it done in the studio?

Scott: Both. The way it works most of the time is that I will develop the melodies, the chord structures and most of the lyrics. Sharon will then work me over with the lyrics.

Sharon Kelly: He puts too many words in each line. [Laughs]

Scott: I'm not a singer, Sharon sings a lot of these and she will tell me where I need to rearrange and edit the lyrics without losing the spirit or the story. I'll record all of it on my keyboards and Sharon works on the vocals with me and then the next person in the process is always Fred. My writing style is more prog rock/Broadway and a lot of our songs need that metal edge. Fred puts all that on top of what I come up with.

Sharon: He and Fred have a very unique writing ability that they share together. They are just a really great writing team.

Scott: I've tried writing with other people, and it doesn't work the same as it does with Fred. Together we make a great team.  He'll hear things in what I bring him, and ideas immediately come into his head. Fred lays down all of the guitar work on the melodies that I gave him. Then it goes to John O.Reilly and Greg Smith and we determine what the final arrangement is going to look like.


Sometimes, we finish way in advance before we get to the studio. Other times, some songs don't get finished until we are actually in the studio to record. Like the song "Midnight Noel" on the new album. That was around in my head for a couple years without me bringing it to anyone. We wrote it in one day, rehearsed it that evening and recorded it the next day. And even that - while we were recording it, Greg remarked how he would love to hear some organ on it. Our engineer chimed in about Deep Purple and I immediately thought of "Highway Star".  With that in mind, I worked in an organ solo that fit in with the song, recorded it in one take and it came out great.

Sharon: When we were originally putting that song together, we envisioned the flute carrying the "First Noel" lead. When we did it that way, it just didn't sound right and didn't sound heavy enough. We flipped it and Fred played the lead on guitar. Allowing us the freedom to make moves like that in the studio is critical to how our songs come out.

Scott: "Midnight Noel" is a great example of that. We recorded the whole thing with flute carrying the lead and without the organ part and it came out a bit too "pop" for our tastes. We do try and keep our songs commercial enough to get airplay, but this one felt too far that way. So, we re-worked it until it came out how you hear it.

Dan: Even though Greg Smith has been the bass player in the band for several years now, this is the first Wizards album that he has recorded on. Additionally, this is the first album with drummer John O.Reilly on board. These two have played and recorded together before with Rainbow and Joe Lynn Turner. What was the recording experience like with these two in the band?

Sharon: Too much fun! [Laugh]

Scott: [Laughs] Very true. They know each other so well musically. They are so tight together; our engineer was loving it because they would be done in a take or two.

Dan: We've already talked about "The Happy Song" and "Midnight Noel". Let's take a look at the rest of the music on The Christmas Dream. “Secrets of the Snow Globe”, the album opener, though five minutes in length, feels like a mini-epic with a few different movements that make up the song. It kicks off with sort of a haunting intro with keys and Sharon’s wordless vocal lines before it moves into the vocal portion, and then into this prog-metal instrumental section led by Fred’s fiery guitar work, before moving back to the vocal portion to wrap the song up. There is no real chorus to the song either. Can you talk about how that song was constructed and came about? It feels like something that could have become a 12-minute song a la Dream Theater or Yes.

Scott: [Laughs] It easily could've been. And it almost did. [Laughs]



Sharon: The vocal intro to "Secrets of the Snow Globe" was actually something we were going to use in "Spirit of Christmas" at one point. We eventually took it out, but always had that in the back of our heads.

Scott: "Secrets of the Snow Globe" went through many different iterations over time, and for a while was known as a song called "Avalanche". At the time that I was writing it, I wanted to showcase Sharon's phenomenal range. I also had the band Nightwish, who we love, in mind as we composed the song. Because this is the opener to the show and it is taking you inside the snow globe, we needed that eeriness of the intro. Once inside the globe, she tells the story of what the snow globe is about and that it keeps these secrets inside about Christmas. Then the prog metal piece is the journey as you are flying from place to place inside the snow globe. That was what I was thinking of as I wrote it. It could have gone into many additional directions, which it did for a while [Laughs]

Dan: “Handel’s Torch”, the instrumental rocker that comes up next has some elements of Hallelujah Chorus mixed in there, as well as some bits of other classical melodies mixed in. It also features some prominent flute and guitar interplay. How fun is this one to play?

Scott: We haven't played it live yet, but I suspect that this will be a blast to play in concert. We had so much fun playing it as we learned and recorded it.

Sharon: I envision a lot of things for that song.

Scott: I got the initial lick of this song from "Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella", but no one else besides me hears it when we play it. [Laughs] I then melded it to the Hallelujah Chorus, and it came out great. When I brought it to the band the first time, everyone was all over it. I told the band that I really envisioned it with a groove like Led Zeppelin's "No Quarter" and the band really took to it and it is one that we are really proud of.

Dan: “Gonna Snow” is one of your more playful songs, getting away from the heaviness and complexity a bit. This one seemed to get a pretty fun reaction when you played this live.

Scott: It really got in there as a place-fitter in the storyline of the show. We set things up with that "Special Feeling" and you're in a snow globe, so it's gonna snow! And it also set up for the first time it snows on us in the show.

Sharon: It's just a fun, radio-friendly song.

Dan: “Polar Eve” is one of my favorite songs from the album. It is a bit different and the longest piece on the album. It brings to mind a Nightmare before Christmas-feel when I hear it, with its angular melodies and halting pace. What is this song about and where did this come from?

Scott: The melody and some of the lyrics just came to me in the middle of the night. I came down to the piano and started putting it together. That Nightmare Before Christmas vibe is there mainly because of the great record producer, Johnny Z, who we worked with for some time. I had never seen the movie and Johnny just loves it. At his urging, we sat down and watched it, so "Thank you, Johnny Z". I don't totally get the movie, but I was looking for a song about Santa and the North Pole and I gained some inspiration from the movie. As I was working on the melody, what was going through my head was "Dasher, Dancer, Donner...", all the reindeer. I changed the melody just enough to fit them in.

Dan: Karl Scully of the Irish Tenors sings this. Sounds like he really embraced this, with his nuances and phrasing. This had to be some new territory for him?

Sharon: Yes, it is. But he is such a professional and really did an amazing job.
(L-R): Fred Gorhau and Karl Scully
Photo courtesy Jeff Smith of ReflectionsNYC

Scott: Karl does just a great job on delivering on that song. One minute he is singing operas in New York City and then we bring him here and he does something completely different. He loves it though and he says that it has expanded his ability.

Dan: On your self-titled album, the band tackled the original Christmas story of Christ’s birth with “Once Long Ago”. Now you revisit that time period but with a little twist with “Four Kings”. Who knew that there was a fourth king and that they were a band?

Sharon: Only in Scott's world.

Scott: That's true. The story has been told a million times, and there are always the unsung heroes that are in the background. Did the shepherds get credit in there? Do the kings get much credit? I started thinking about the band, and you have the road crew who are the unsung heroes. If it wasn't for the road crew, the show wouldn't happen. I wanted to put the Fourth King up as the roadie. Ted, the fourth king, is the sound man. He's what is making it happen. If you listen to the lyrics, "Ted mixed the sound to spicen the taste" and he's rolling up the cables and setting up the amps. He is helping to put on the show for the stars of the show, the Three Kings, but none of it would've happened without him. I was just trying to be playful.

Dan: Obviously you are having some fun with this, but any trepidation injecting some humor into the holiest of stories?

Sharon: No, I think because in our set, we do have some somber moments and some very serious songs. I think it balances it out. Our first set is quite serious. "Gonna Snow" and "Four Kings" are a nice break with some fun, as is "Nutrocker" when we throw that in there.

Dan: Did you write this with vocalist Vinny Jiovino in mind? Like 'Once Long Ago", this is a real tour-de-force for his vocals.

Scott: I did, actually. I wrote it specifically for Vinny to sing.

Dan: Some of the lines between the verses, like “Hey Ted, Don’t forget those microphone cables, you know we got to tell a story, don’t you?” are real fun – did they come later?

Scott: Vinny created those with Tony Gaynor. During the show, it becomes this whole shtick and they thought there should be some rap in between the verses. Vinny played with them a bit and we decided to leave them in when we did the recording.

(L-R): Vinny Jiovino and Tony Gaynor
Photo courtesy Eletra Johansen
Dan: In concert, you pair this song with “Once Long Ago” as narrator Tony Gaynor urges lead vocalist Vinny Jiovino to tell the audience the “whole story” in what is one of the more comical exchanges on stage. Is any of that scripted?

Sharon: They came up with that on the fly and it just worked. But it's never the same every night, whatever they are feeling during the show, they go with.

Scott: It is a lot of fun. The band is just basically riffing while those two go at it. Some nights, it's gotten to like three minutes of them joking around with that and we have to signal, like "Hey guys, let's go". But it is a real fun exchange.

Dan: “In Plain Sight” tackles the tough subject of homelessness and encourages us to see life through their eyes. Why is that important? And why on a Christmas-themed album?

Scott: It ties it back to the first Christmas. If you listen to the beginning melody, its "Silent Night" but in a minor key. As I was writing this, I started thinking about how the Holy Family were homeless. They were supposed to be included in the census. They get there and they don't have any money, there's no room at the inn. Someone out of kindness took them in, even though it was a stable, it was someplace to be. I took "Silent Night" and put it in a minor key to make it more somber. It's not in the saddest of all keys, D minor, [Laughs] but rather A minor. It also hearkens back to how we started this band, which was to help the food pantry.

Dan: This song of course features Vinny once again, but also marks the debut of Alexis Smith on backing vocals. Tell me about Alexis, as she is new to the band.

Sharon: She does the chorus with me to make it stronger. She is a wonderful singer and I really enjoyed working with her in the studio. During the tour, she will be singing the lead on the "How did they get to this place?" part of the song as well as "Gonna Snow" and a few others.

Dan:  "A Christmas Dream (Salzburg Carol)" – I understand this is an arrangement of My Favorite Things that you have personally been playing for quite some time?

Scott:  I've been playing it for at least 20 years.  It is just an arrangement that I have been playing personally, mixing "My Favorite Things" with "Carol of the Bells".  We decided to flesh it out and add the other instrumentation.  We also beefed it up with probably sixty tracks of horns and bells, etc.

Sharon: Scott and I spent a lot of time in the studio after he and Fred came together on that song. We added horns, bells, that violin riff, the flute part. There are so many layers to it, but we think it came out so beautiful.

Dan:  Why do you think "My Favorite Things" has become a piece of music so associated with Christmas?  It certainly didn't start out that way.

Scott: It didn't, but The Sound of Music used to be shown on TV around Christmas time for many years, so for us personally, it is a song that we just wound up singing and playing around Christmas. Of course, it also has lyrical references to sleigh bells and snowflakes and The Reader's Digest book of the best Christmas songs always included it. We call it "The Salzburg Carol" because that is where the story takes place.

Dan: “A Toast to Time (Farewell)” is a very reflective song. Looking back one one’s life and wondering if they would do it all again. Since you write these lyrics, what provoked this one?

Scott: The older that you get, the more retrospective you get. You've been through so much in your life, whatever your life experiences have been, good, bad or indifferent. Personally, I do it throughout the year, but specifically at Christmas time it becomes something that many of us do. A tradition that Sharon and I had was that once the Christmas tree was all decorated and we had all of the presents under the tree and the kids were asleep, we would sit and think about what the last year delivered to us? What will the new year bring us? And then we tied it into "Auld Lang Syne".

Dan:  It is a really pretty song, but a very stark arrangement; just piano and vocals.  Was there any thought to bringing the full band in?

Sharon:  No, I feel the song would lose its intense emotional impact if it was performed by the full band.

Scott: In our show, it gets included in the encore. You come out of "Spirit of Christmas" with everybody singing, the band is roaring, people are on their feet. For us to go right into "A Toast to Time" is almost a complete shutdown of that and an emotional moment that the audience really enjoys. We see so many in the crowds with tears running down their cheeks. We also tie it into remembrances with famous people that were lost over the year and also family members that passed. We make it personal for the band. 

Dan:  I know songwriters are often hesitant to pick a favorite, but is there a song on here that you feel especially strongly about? Maybe it was the most fun? Or happiest on how it came out?

Scott:  "Handel's Torch" is the most fun to play, for sure. I'm proud of "Secrets of the Snowglobe", just from what we delivered as a band in that song. Sharon's vocals and Fred's guitar playing over top of that, the prog madness that is happening in there as a band.  That is probably the most musically intensive song, while "The Christmas Dream (Salzburg Carol)" is the most complex.


Sharon: I think as a band, everyone just delivered on this album. I can't say enough about Fred and his writing and playing. And of course, John and Greg have added so much. Greg writes such tasty bass lines to our songs. This is probably the strongest that we have ever been.

Dan: Now that the band has its third album out, how do you look back on the others?

Scott:  Looking back to the self-titled album, I sometimes cringe knowing how we have progressed as a band.  The songs are good, but we didn't have the money or experience yet to deliver the way we do now.  If we take into account the band's musicianship, tightness and maturity, if we were to go in and re-record that album, it would sound so much better.   

Sharon: I think every artist goes through that though, the growing pains. I am proud of all the albums, but if we were to record some of those older songs, they would reflect how we play today.

Dan: I feel with songs like “Polar Eve” and “The Four Kings”, the band is taking musical chances and stretching beyond its comfort zone. Would you agree?

Sharon:  I think that since The Magic of Winter, our albums portray a wide variety of musical styles.  That is definitely felt on the new one for sure. Contemporary, progressive rock, a little bit of rockabilly with "Four Kings", some metal.

Scott: I think that's what makes The Wizards, The Wizards. We do take chances on things and are not afraid to go into those different directions.

Dan:  Will the 2019 tour include many of the new songs?

Scott:  All of the songs except for one will be part of the setlist this year.  Along with many songs from our two previous albums of course.  That is always the challenge as you record more - what fits into the show and story and how does it work out timing-wise?

Dan:  Over the last couple of years, the band has added a few new members. Last year, John O.Reilly came on board for the tour and then went into the studio to record the new album. What does John bring to the band?

Scott: He is one of the nicest guys we have ever met. And as a drummer, he brings a level of precision that we had never consistently had before.

Dan: The word is that your band has had its share of musicians inquiring on openings. Steve Brown, guitarist known for his work in Trixter and Def Leppard, came on board this year. How did you know that he would be right for the Wizards?

Sharon:  He was recommended to us and we went to one of his gigs to see and meet him.  There was definitely a connection right away.

Scott: Steve had come to see us when he first got the Def Leppard gig, I think in 2014, and told us how much he loved the music and the show. I never forgot that. Now we went to see him, and we listened to his playing style that will fit in with what we do.  Plus, he came highly recommended by several people.

Dan:  Let's talk about a Wizards of Winter show. How has the show evolved over the years? What can a fan expect?

Scott:   This year will be the biggest production that we have had on any of our tours, though nothing compared to our friends in TSO.  Production is not the main focus of our shows, but we have introduced some video elements and new lights and some other fun stuff that complements our music.

Sharon: This will be our third year with Abner Torres of Out of Darkness Designs. He and Scott have mapped things out to a greater extent than years passed.

Scott: Our story is always the same, in terms of going in search of the true meaning of Christmas, but it has evolved and matured to the point that I think how the story transitions and the emotional feel comes across will be the best this year.

Dan: The Wizards’ concerts often get compared favorably to early TSO performances, before they added their big production elements. Would you say that is accurate?

Scott: We do and that is a compliment. The early TSO tours are much different than today's and we are much different from what they do today. We're not as "staged" as their shows. In many ways, particularly as they incorporated their giant video screens and play to a click, they became a soundtrack to a movie. There is no room for any flexibility or improvisation at all. And that's fine for them. That's just not us. We play more as a band.

Scott Kelly, in a moment of levity
Photo courtesy Jeff Smith of ReflectionsNYC
Dan:  One thing that The Wizards also do is poke fun at itself, which TSO would never do, whether it’s Tony’s fun interactions on stage or a certain keyboardist going into grinch-mode. Do you enjoy keeping it light?

Scott: Oh yes. Christmas is all about fun. If people are spending money to see us play, they should leave with a smile on their face and their heart lifted. Plus, we're not trying to be rock stars, we're trying to have fun and put on a great show.

Sharon: We have serious songs and serious moments, but when we have a chance, we like to take advantage of it and have some fun and be spontaneous.

Dan: One of the noticeable differences is that while your show has a narrative arc, your albums do not. You fit your songs into the live story.

Scott: We intentionally write like that because I didn't want to be trapped in a story. I wanted our overall story theme to be the same each year, but where do we go and how do we get there and what do we see is always different.

Dan: What are some of the challenges of touring nationwide in a 7 or 8-week time frame?

Scott: Long hours on the bus. We try to cover the geography with one band that acts like Mannheim Steamroller and TSO do with two.

Sharon: We so appreciate our fans and we do feel bad when we cannot get to their town. We see their comments and messages and emails asking why we aren't playing in their area.

Scott: What fans don't always understand is that we go where the promoters and agents send us. We would love to go back to some of the cities that have embraced us, but if there is not an invitation or if it doesn't route well, then it just doesn't happen. It is the same for all bands, I suppose, but we are locked in to playing in a certain time frame around the holidays.

Dan:  You’re operating in the independent universe, with no major labels and A&R people. Is there a certain freedom in that? And is there a hindrance to that?

Scott:  Both.  The hindrance is that it is hard to rise above the noise level to get noticed. With Sharon and I, this is our tenth year into the band, and we have put countless hours, all of our heart and soul to make it what it is today.  There is no financial investment coming from outside the band, there is no management. We have the flexibility of decision-making, but you have the responsibility and financial burden that comes along with that.

Dan: Scott, you wear a lot of hats in the band. Songwriter, keyboardist, musical director. In the ten years of The Wizards, how have you evolved in those roles? Have you learned to share yet?

Scott: When we first started this, I didn't understand the music business as a business. I have become really educated in the business side of things and what it takes for a band and a tour of this magnitude to get on the road. I like to control things, but I have learned to share. In the beginning, I did it all, but I eventually shared more with Sharon because the load became too much to handle. On the songwriting side of things, I have gotten a lot better. I had never really written songs before until we set out to create an album; I didn't know I had it in me. Though the earlier songs are good in their way, I feel the material I am writing now is stronger.

We do get offers from high level management companies that want to come in and manage the band. We also get offers from people that want to invest financially in the band. It becomes tough for us to loosen up enough to let things like that happen. Not so much giving up some control but being forced out of something that you spent the last ten years building. This has been a family project, with our daughters being involved in many aspects as well. It has grown and matured to the point that we probably can't handle it all ourselves anymore. What does the next step look like? I'm not sure. We're in the good problems to have/serious growing pains stage.

Dan: Have you looked past the 2019 tour yet? Any plans for what might be next musically?

Scott: Over the years, we have talked a lot about doing a project outside of the Christmas season. It's been tough to get people that want or are able to do it. Every year that we talk about it, everyone winds up with other commitments. This is the first time that I have a group that seriously want to do something in the off-season. I have some ideas, but I don't fully know what it is going to be yet. So, we'll explore that after the tour is over. Beyond that, there is always the talk of splitting into two bands for Christmas since we get enough offers and just can't accept them all. That is not something that we have seriously considered yet, but the conversation happens.

Dan: Well thank you for taking the time to chat about the new album and tour.

Scott: Anytime. Thanks for making the trip.


For more information:

Official website: https://thewizardsofwinter.com/
Stream the new album: https://thewizardsofwinter.hearnow.com/
Official Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheWizardsofWinter/



Saturday, August 31, 2019

A Conversation with Tony Dickinson

Tony Dickinson, the multi-instrumentalist from the great state of Colorado, just may be in the running for "hardest working musician" in the business.  While this talented musician and production whiz can often be found recording and performing in his home state with his funk/rock band Sylva, fans around the world have also gotten to know Tony over the last few years from some of his other compositions, production and performances.  In this career-spanning interview, we chat about his involvement in the forefront of the video game music scene, both solo and with his current band, The Tiberian Sons. We also touch on his deep musical involvement with Jeff Scott Soto and his hard rock/metal outfit, SOTO, as well as his role with the yearly Trans-Siberian Orchestra touring production.



Photo courtesy of Brenda Bowman

Dan Roth: Considering the various bands that you are involved with, you seem to have wide-ranging musical interests. What first got you into music?

Tony Dickinson:  My mom is a piano teacher and I started taking piano lessons from her when I was six or seven years old. Then, my K-8 school put everyone in a music program, and you chose between orchestra, band or choir.  When I was in Fifth Grade, my older brother, Adam had a garage band and he could not keep a bass player in his band. With that as inspiration, I chose the bass and started playing upright bass in orchestra.  When I hit Sixth Grade, I chose Jazz Band and got one of those school bass guitars that you could take home.  I fell in love with it as soon as I started playing it.  I liked the upright but with this, I could start playing the music that I really enjoyed at the time.  My parents got me my own bass - a Squier bass - and I played that non-stop.

DR:  What bands were you in to as you were learning to play?

TD:  At the time, the bands that I liked were Smash Mouth, No Doubt, Weird Al [Laughs].  It was a funny smorgasbord of music that I was learning to play.  Eventually my older brothers started feeding me bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Primus and Megadeth.  Megadeth was probably the first band that I really fell in love with. Around the same time, my mom was playing in a Gospel band and she invited me to play my bass with them. That was super fun and I got my taste for more of a soul, funk, r&b style in that church music.

When I was in high school, I joined the Drumline and played bass with that.  That is where I was exposed to Dream Theater, Symphony X, and progressive bands of that caliber. I stayed in Jazz Band all through high school and had exposure to many different ensembles.  At my core, the progressive metal thing and Red Hot Chili Pepper's bass lines are probably where I can give credit to most of my development as a bass player. Flea's bass lines are pretty much how I learned how to play bass. From there I moved on to Les Claypool and learned a ton through listening to him.

DR:  Safe to say that Flea was your biggest inspiration?

TD:  He was the first one.  And then John Myung from Dream Theater too.  I was always amazed how he was keeping up with that insane guitar playing. Stu Hamm is another that I got exposed to in high school and I learned a lot of his solo stuff. His bass solos were pretty influential on my playing.  I played a lot of Symphony X in high school and it is crazy that I am now playing in a band with their singer.  It is still surreal to me that I started there and ended up here.  I did take some lessons, and my 7th grade bass teacher exposed me to Jamiroquai, who became a huge influence on me not just bass-wise, but also from a songwriting standpoint, especially with my band Sylva.

DR:  Were you in any bands throughout school?

TD:  My buddy Travis Moberg and I had a heavy metal band throughout high school but never really did anything with it. Most of the music that I wrote for it was really pretty terrible and most of it was plagiarism. [Laughs] When you start off, you often wind up mimicking the music that you know. I am never going to show the world anything that I wrote back then. [Laughs]  

Once in college, I got into more funk and r&b groups.  Earth, Wind and Fire easily became one of my favorite bands, along with other artists like Stevie Wonder, Prince, Michael Jackson, and Chaka Khan.  I also had been playing in a classic rock cover band for years and we played a lot of great funk stuff from the '60s and '70s.

DR:  Very nice. As a bass player who has such an appreciation for funk, how much love do you have for Larry Graham?

TD:  Oh yes! I love Larry Graham.  On one of my early YouTube covers, I did "Pow" from Graham Central Station.  It's kind of a goofy song but such a great bass line.

DR:  A big part of your musical story is the remaking and remixing of video game themes.  How did you enter that world?

TD:  I just have to rewind a bit for that.  I was a member of the Megadeth forum, circa 2006.  They had a music sub-forum where someone had posted an amazing cover of Super Metroid music.  They made it into this big, long progressive rock epic!  I found the guy that had made it, which led me to the remix websites, one of them being Dwelling of Duels and the other OC Remix. Both of these were monthly remix competitions and I was really surprised at the high production level and playing caliber that I was hearing on these remixes. I just started trying remixing and playing some of the video game music from games that I had played when I was a kid. A lot of that music is surprisingly well written.  I eventually started submitting my remixes to these sites and really having some fun with it.

DR:  Were you a one-man band on these?

TD:  Most of them were all me.  If they were credited to "PuD", then everything you heard was me.  I was playing guitar, playing bass, playing keys, and programming drums.  All of the songs were my arrangements. Sometimes I had guests on my tracks to add a solo or something. I still do these to this day, but my production skills have improved a lot, so I don't really direct anyone to listen to those older tracks.

The video game remixing thing for me was really important. People will look at it and say, "that's really nerdy", and it is.  I am a shameless nerd. Doing that stuff was really important for my development as I cut my teeth on that learning production skills.  I learned a lot how to do arrangements and write for different instruments. With every Dwelling of Duels track, I would try something a little different each time. The first track I did was a metal medley of MegaMan music.  By the time I did my fourth track, "Command and Conquer Red Alert", I was doing heavy metal with orchestra. I had an orchestra library that I wanted to learn, and I arranged this Command and Conquer music.  That track is the one that led me to the whole Tiberian Sons thing and working with Frank Klepacki later on down the road.  Frank is great with interacting with his fans and I had emailed him to talk about the tracks that I was doing.  After that, we just kept in touch.  I had originally made this one, "Hell March to the Apocalypse" in 2008.  And that was a such a great moment - "Heavy metal music and orchestra!" [Laughs], which is funny because of where I eventually would wind up. That heavy metal/orchestra thing became one of my wheelhouses and sparked the idea for The Tiberian Sons.


DR: Somewhere in there, you did release a solo album - PuD's DuDs.  Was that an extension of what you had been doing on the Dwelling of Duels competitions?

TD:  PuD's DuDs had everything that I had released on DoD up to that point. For the album, I decided to go back, re-record, remix, and redo a lot of it because my production skills had gotten better over the years that these were originally recorded. These were a big improvement over the DoD versions. I want to emphasize for anyone that is reading this, that this album came out in 2010 and really sounds like shit compared to today's standard. [Laughs]  I am always going back and playing with those songs; the arrangements are always the same, but it is the production level that is increasing. I will listen to them and think how they could be improved with my current guitar tone settings or the drum library or orchestra samples that I am working on.

DR:  "PuD" stands for "Prince uf Darkness"? 

TD:  [Laughs]  Yeah.  "Prince of Darkness" was a Megadeth song and was the name I used on the Megadeth forum.  It doesn't mean anything to me, but I carried it over and used it as my nickname.  I made it even more ridiculous by changing "of" to "uf", which makes the initialism "PuD", which you may know is a phallus nickname.  I just wanted to make people giggle with my 12-year old humor.  [Laughs]

DR: [Laughs] OK, got it.  At what point did you form your band, The Tiberian Sons?

TD:  I kept on going back to the tracks that were heavy metal with orchestra and re-working those.  By 2015, I had started The Tiberian Sons because I needed another excuse to re-do these songs. [Laughs] For this band, I decide that I would play guitar instead of bass. Travis Moberg, who sings in my band Sylva, plays drums in The Tiberian Sons. I got Connor Engstrom, who I met through Trans-Siberian Orchestra, to be the second guitar player and got my buddy Max Noel to play bass.  The first show that we played was MAGFest (short for "Music And Gaming Festival") in 2015.  

DR:  MAGFest seems to be the mecca for this scene.

TD:  Yes!  I started going to the MAGFests because a lot of the guys who I met online doing the video game remixing were going. I wanted to put a band together to play there.  We released a 4-song EP (Conquering MAGFest) that has some of those remixes.  A year and a half later, we recorded the full album, Collateral Jammage.  That has the heavy metal orchestral tracks that I had done for DoD, but versions 3 or 4 at this point.  It also had some new stuff, like the cover of  "Mighty Wings" from the Top Gun soundtrack. 


DR:  Collateral Jammage sounds like a real group effort.

TD:  Thanks! Travis is playing the drums throughout; I do most of the rhythm guitars, though Connor did all of the rhythms on the Mighty Wings cover. Connor and I split the guitar solos. Max did half the tracks on bass and I did the other half. I played the bass on the more complex tracks, like "A Coelo Usque Ad Centrum" and "Prancing Dad".

DR:  Where did the name come from?

TD:  When we first started the band, we didn't have a name for it.  That "Hell March" remix was our signature sound.  We had all played the Command and Conquer games and all loved them.  We were thinking of naming the band related to those games, because the games’ intense warfare themes matched the music. We went back and forth until Max came up with The Tiberian Sons.  "Tiberian Sun" was the third Command and Conquer game and this was just a play on words.

DR:  You have played MAGFest a few times now?

TD:  Yeah, we played MAGFest 2015 and 2017.  Last year we played there with the composer of the Command and Conquer music, Frank Klepacki. There is video posted of the entire concert (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-ArbE0bEQQ) that I edited together and Frank talks about how the whole thing came together after the second song.  Over the last few years, Frank had composer friends that have gone there and also urged him to go MAGFest.  Frank and I had stayed in touch ever since I had reached out to him when I was remixing "Hell March" and now he was asking me about MAGFest.  We exchanged a few emails and at one point he sent me an email saying that he wants to play MAGFest and wanted The Tiberian Sons to play with him!  I had been playing Command and Conquer games since I was nine years old, so now I get to play with one of my childhood heroes!  Frank and I talked about this for several months, but I couldn't confirm that I could do it until I heard from TSO management. MAGFest happens in early January and sometimes the TSO tour has gone into January.  It hasn't happened in a while, but you never know because tour scheduling takes a long time to finalize. Finally I got word from the management and I knew that I was free for that weekend!  Frank and I set it up and made a big production out of it.  I got my buddy Nate Horsfall who does a lot of the artwork and visuals for MAGFest and he helped make this the biggest production that MAGFest has ever had.  Our show with Frank has gotten a really great reaction.  We filled the room which holds upwards of 6,000 people!  And now Frank is looking at having us play at other gaming festivals around the world due to the huge response.


DR:  That's awesome. You mentioned having to check in with TSO management about scheduling.  I understand that you came on board with the TSO production a while ago?

TD:  Paul O'Neill really liked to work with young musicians.  One of the things that Paul believed was that because the music industry had changed so much and so quickly, he felt there was a vacuum in artist development now.  Because he had the resources that he had, he took it upon himself to give the chance to young musicians like me, like Connor and many other young musicians and singers.

DR:  He was basically grooming you guys and giving you some valuable real-world experience.

TD:  Exactly. There have been other young musicians working in their studio that were never part of the back-up band even.  So that is how myself and many others got involved.  Connor and I started the same year, in 2011.

DR:  Were you familiar with TSO before getting involved?

TD:  Oh yeah. I had the Christmas Eve and Other Stories album and I listened to it a lot. I also was always a fan of Al Pitrelli because he was in Megadeth. He played on The World Needs a Hero album and the Rude Awakening DVD and I really enjoyed those.  I was very familiar with him from listening and watching those.  It was a real trip to now be playing with Al.

DR:  How did TSO find you?

TD:  In my high school and early college days, I did a lot of YouTube covers. The first cover I did was "Domination" from Symphony X. That video was discovered by Adam Seidel, TSO's accountant. He sent that along to the rest of the office and recommended that they work with me.

DR:  Did you have an audition?

TD:  Yeah, when I did my audition for TSO, I had the entire 2010 setlist prepared. We only played "This Christmas Day" and "Mozart Figaro" and then I hung out with Paul, Al, Dave Wittman and Jon Oliva while they were also working with Kayla Reeves at the same time.

DR:  Did you get to spend much time with the bassists, Johnny Lee Middleton and Dave Z, over the years?
TSO L-R: Joel Hoekstra, Roddy Chong, Tony Dickinson, Chris Caffery
Photo Courtesy of Jeff Myszynski

TD:  I got to work with them at the rehearsals that I attended. I learned a lot from both John Lee and Dave.  They are both very different schools of bass.  Naturally, I think that I am more of a 'Dave Z' on bass but I learned a lot of stuff from John Lee.  John taught me a lot about playing more conservatively - tighter and shorter - and more appropriately in an arena. I definitely would not have been able to play this Show without spending the time that I did with them for the six years before I got the opportunity.

DR:  When I interviewed Dave back in 2013, I asked him about the backup role, and he said this: “The whole idea of them coming to the rehearsals is because sometimes we do things differently from coast to coast. The East Coast and West Coast might have a different ending or a different tempo on a particular song sometimes. The backup guys actually have a very difficult job because they have to learn both sides and both players and what they do and be ready to fill in for either one without a hitch. That's a tough task.” Can you speak to that?

TD:  I had to do that, and it is tough.  I had to learn each of their fills.  I really wanted to prove myself, so I studied very intently and made sure that I knew exactly how each of them played everything.  It was also very educational for me to see how each show varied a bit.  Over time, each show has gotten more similar because of the production, with the screens and more songs being synced to tempo. Now that I am the sole bass player on the East, I can do a little bit more of what I want to do, within reason.  Now I get to talk to the newer bass players, and I tell them that if they ever do get the opportunity, they need to play like the other musicians will be expecting them to play.

DR:  Besides being a great bass player, Dave Z was such an outgoing and lovable personality on stage and was a real fan favorite.

TD:  Dave and I were only ever in the same room together at the rehearsals, but he and I emailed back and forth a lot as we nerded out about bass stuff.  [Laughs]  Even though I had physically only been around him for a total of six weeks over the years, Dave always made you feel like you knew him really well.  He was so friendly and welcoming, so I felt like I knew him probably better than I realistically did. Dave was a music nerd too.  He and I would have music theory  and ear training contests.  Personality-wise, Dave and I are pretty different.  I am not nearly as outgoing as Dave was, but then again very few people are.  [Laughs]  Musically, Dave and I were really pretty similar.  We were both into Dream Theater, Dirty Loops, Michael Jackson, and the like.  Our playing styles ended up being pretty similar.  It was a natural fit for both TSO and SOTO because he played a lot of fills the same way that I would've approached them.  So, with both bands, I play Dave's fills and that is my way of keeping him going.

DR:  Any apprehension stepping into that role after what happened?

TD:  That is the really the hardest thing when I stepped into the role in 2017.  I knew the legacy that he had left and the affect that he had on people. Nobody wants to follow someone like that, but the show has to go on.  It really is about finding the balance of what came before you and trying to still remain your own person.  I was really worried about how the band and the fans would feel.  The band was really welcoming and were happy to have me, and the fans were amazing. I am so happy that the fans accepted me so warmly.

DR:  The TSO show calls for a lot of energy, movement, and interactions with your stage partners. Does that come naturally to you or did that take some time to develop?

TD:  I had to develop a little of it. It is a delicate balance.  For one thing, I am not dancer.  I know Dave was a dancer.  If I tried to do dance moves, it would come across really contrived; it is not who I am.  My movements are a little bit more "rockin' out".  I did develop a few certain things because I know the expectation is more of a visual involvement from the bass player position in the East band.  I just figured it out and do it in my own way.  As far as interacting with the other band members, there are a few things that are programmed in, but some of that ends up happening naturally.  If you watched last year during "Wish Liszt ", Dustin Brayley and I started doing this little fun bit of turning around faster and faster. If you're having fun on stage, and we are, that stuff just happens.

DR: You are often seen playing high above the crowd in cranes or lifts or catwalks, any trepidation about that?
Chris Caffery, Tony Dickinson
Photo courtesy of Pamela Lovell

TD: Surprisingly, I was really cool with it. [Laughs] They strap us in really good before going up.  It can be a little weird when the platform moves in a way that you're not expecting; that's when the jelly legs kick in. [Laughs] As long as the platform is moving with you, it is not that big of a deal.

DR:  Now that you have done two tours with them, have you had some time to reflect?  Anything stand out? Favorite crowd, city, tunes to play?

TD:  Grand Rapids, Michigan is always great!  Green Bay last year was incredible. TSO hadn't been there in a couple years and the response was so good, that TSO's manager Adam Lind booked the next year's show there on the spot. One unforgettable moment was when we played the matinee Show in Washington, DC - the show before Christmas Eve. Two dudes in the front row - one dressed as Santa and one dressed as an elf with inflatable guitars. They basically air-guitared and mimicked the lyrics to the entire show! We were eight shows in on that stretch, we're tired and loopy, it's almost Christmas and then the curtain comes up and you see these two guys in the front row.  [Laughs]  Oh my God!  For the entire first act, I could not look at them or I would burst out laughing. I know the singers had a much harder time with it; the first song of that show was "Night Enchanted" and these guys were right in front of them. [Laughs]  I know Russell and Dustin had a hard time keeping a straight face with these two ridiculous-looking guys right before Christmas Eve having the time of their lives. And you know what?  Bless them for that.  It was great having them there because it was something out of the ordinary and it was so much fun.  Those are the moments that you live for; it was awesome!

DR:  Have you had a chance to record anything with TSO in the studio yet?

TD:  Not yet, but when they are ready to have me, I will be ready!

DR:  For this year, TSO is bringing back their original storyline, Christmas Eve and Other Stories.  You mentioned earlier that you had prepared that entire 2010 set, so are you excited to finally play it?

TD:  Yeah!  My first year, 2011, was the last time that they had done this show.  So, I know the show already.  Plus, many of the songs were also in the show from the last four years. It is a great story and I am really happy that we are doing it again.  And I am really happy that the fans are excited about it.  I am really stoked for the fans to see this show with so many more of the bells and whistles that we didn't have back in 2011; I think they are going to be thrilled with how it comes out.

DR:  Let's talk a bit about SOTO.  I assume you met Jeff Scott Soto through working with TSO?

TD:  Yeah, I would interact with him at rehearsals and then see him when the tour would come through Denver.  In 2013, Jeff was working on what would become the Inside the Vertigo album. At the time, Connor had already worked with Jeff and gotten to write and record two of his tracks. At rehearsals, I really pushed Jeff, "Hey man, let me just write you a song". [Laughs]  At the time, he was already at 14 songs and he had to whittle it down.  He finally let me write him one and that ended up being "The Fall", which also ended up being the lead single!  I played all the guitars, bass, keys and did the drum programming on that one.  And then for their second album, Divak, I wrote "Freak Show".  For that one, Jeff had his drummer, Edu Cominato, play live drums on it.  I played bass, keys and rhythm guitar, but I brought in this friend of mine, Chris Feener, who is an amazing guitar player, to solo on it.

DR:  Do you and Jeff mesh musically pretty well?

TD:  Jeff really likes the early songs that I wrote for him.  He felt that musically I was hitting the spots that he wanted to sing. Jeff is great to work with.  For the most part, I let Jeff do his thing on the vocals.  He is great at it; he has great ideas and is really easy to work with.

DR:  On the new album, Origami, you are now an official member of the band.  You also co-produced the album.  Can you talk about that role?

TD:  I do the production work that needs to be done, like much of the keyboards.  I also reamped all of the guitars.  There are two "invisible" members of SOTO that deserve a shout out: Leo Mancini and Luiz Portinari are guitar players who collaborate with our drummer, Edu.  When Edu is working on songs, he often writes and record with them. So, on the album there are guitar parts from me, Jorge Salan, BJ, Leo and Luiz. With five guitar players on the album, they all needed to be reamped, so I did all the reamping. I did the horn arrangements and some additional guitars as well. I end up doing a lot of the nerdy, technical stuff because that is one of my specialties. I also wrote three songs for the album, including the title track.


There is one song that we included that was really special to us - "Detonate", a song that Dave Z had written with Edu. It was the last song that Dave recorded with SOTO, but it wasn't completed before he died.  Dave had recorded most of the bass for the song, except for the middle section.  He had recorded that middle section in demo quality while they were on the tour bus. We felt it was really important to preserve all of the basslines from Dave on this song, so it was my job to work some studio magic and try to get his bass to sound the same throughout the song.  It took a lot of EQing and reamping  and nerdy studio work, but we finally did get there and ensured that you could hear Dave playing bass on the whole song.

DR:  You mentioned Sylva earlier - this is your ongoing band that recently released its first album?

TD:  Yes.  The idea of my band Sylva kind of morphed a couple different ways. Even though the album just came out recently, a lot of that music was written as far back as 2008. We just never ended up doing anything with it over the years because of me going to college and Travis going through firefighting and paramedic school which ate up almost eight years of our lives.  It finally started moving forward recently because I finally found people who want to play the music and I don't have to pay for them to come to rehearsals. [Laughs]

DR:  The band’s music reminds me in places of Tower of Power, Umphrey's McGee and Jamiroquai Are these influences on the music that you write for Sylva?

TD:  Absolutely. All of those bands that you named and also early Maroon 5, Muse and Snarky Puppy.   Sylva is really a big conglomeration of all of my influences.  There is a little bit of prog rock, a little bit of jazz, a lot of dance, funk, soul...pretty much everything except for metal and classical, which is reserved for SOTO and Tiberian Sons.


DR:  Is Sylva your main gig when not touring with SOTO and TSO?

TD:  Yes.  I write and arrange most of the music.  With the rock thing, I have so many different avenues.  Sylva is the other stuff that I really want to do. It is music that I have a lot of creative involvement in and love playing. I'm hoping that it is a band that I will be in for a very long time.

DR:  Do you have a favorite brand of bass?  One that you gravitate to the most?

TD:  I have two favorite basses.  The 6-string that I play with Sylva and SOTO is a Muckelroy bass. Brady Muckelroy is a luthier from Texas and once I tried one of his instruments, I said, "I cannot believe that a bass can feel this good and be this playable!"  I had to have one and it is amazing. It is a 6-string and does everything I need it to.  The other bass that I really connected with is the Sunburst Music Man Sterling that I take on tour with TSO.  I am a big fan of the Music Man sound and I love having the double-humbucker set-up for flexibility.

DR:  Tell me about your gig with Warner/Chappell.  Is that commissioned work for media?
Photo courtesy of  Nikolai Puc Photography

TD:  I write library music and trailer music as one of my primary gigs. I started as a session guitar and bass player with them in 2013.  Later on, I started writing for them as well. Most recently they have had me doing the big orchestral trailer music, like anything you would see on a Marvel trailer.  I had started working with Lisle Moore, who had been doing the NBA and ESPN music for ten years. In 2016 ESPN contacted him to update the theme and he asked me to help out updating the music package.  I ended up arranging and creating some of the primary themes and title sequences, so the current NBA music you hear on ESPN are my arrangements and performances.

DR:  I know you are about to tour Europe with SOTO and then a couple months on the TSO tour.  What is 2020 looking like for you?  Any big plans yet?

TD:   Definitely some shows with Sylva and Tiberian Sons.  I will be producing an album for a  singer/songwriter from here in Colorado.  And some more Warner/Chappell stuff. I am also going to put more energy into my social media, hoping to get the YouTube thing going again.

DR:  Tony, thank you for taking the time.

TD:  No problem, my pleasure.


For more information:

Tony Dickinson:
http://www.tonydickinson.net
https://www.facebook.com/tonydickinsonmusic/
https://www.youtube.com/user/TonyDickinsonBG
https://twitter.com/TonyDickinsonBG

Sylva:
https://www.sylvamusic.com/

Tiberian Sons:
http://www.tiberiansons.com/
https://www.facebook.com/TheTiberianSons/

SOTO:
http://sotoworld.net/










Monday, July 1, 2019

A Conversation with Chloe Lowery

Vocalist Chloe Lowery has a commanding, exquisitely powerful soprano voice. The kind of voice that you don't easily forget after hearing her sing a song or two. She signed her first major record contract when she was twelve years old, sang lead for Big Brother and the Holding Company, but first hit the public eye in a big way when she teamed up with Yanni in 1989 for his Voices album and tour. Since then, she has been a fixture in the touring productions of both Rocktopia and Trans-Siberian Orchestra and can often be found as a guest soloist with symphonies around the USA. She has been equally at home performing classics and covers along side Classical Crossover Vocalist Chris Pinella or rocking out with Whitesnake guitarist Joel Hoekstra.  For the last several years, she also fronted the rock band Chameleon, releasing several EPs and becoming a fixture in the New York City music scene. But it took a tumultuous relationship change with a long-time musical partner that finally propelled her into creating an album that she can call her own, one that is "Just Chloe".  We got together in Manhattan to discuss her new solo album, "The In-Between".



Dan Roth:  You describe it in the liner notes of your new CD, but for anyone that has not yet gotten this album, what is “The In-Between”?

Chloe Lowery:  For a long time, this was a nameless record.  I was even contemplating calling it "Chloe" or "Just Chloe".  There really wasn't a lyric that really embodied the whole thing, until I wrote "The Words You Wanted.  I took the phrase from part of the chorus, "And I’ll always love you, But somehow I lost me while I was busy holding onto you, And somewhere in this in-between...".  For me, "The In-Between" is where I wrote this record. I was not at a peak high in my life, I was somewhere in this in-between where all of this change that was happening, personally, professionally, life and everything.  It just made sense that that is what the record was.

DR:  Were there any particular musicians or voices that influenced you in making this record?

CL:  I actually did myself a favor because, like my old band Chameleon, I am a little bit of a chameleon myself.  Because I have sung in so many different types of Shows, I have had to put on my "rock" hat, my "pop" hat, etc.  I can emulate different genres. But for this record, I really shut out music for a minute.   Without judgment or criticism, I wrote things from a place where maybe no one would ever hear these and they would be purely for myself to find out what my organic voice and authentic voice was saying without any outside influences.

DR:  You have been very up front with letting listeners know that this album was the result of you going through a major breakup. When did you know that you wanted to express what you were going through in song?

CL:  It was more or less an accident.  When I split with my ex, it was a huge life change. I felt that life was just going to carry on and be fine, but the ramifications of all of the decisions I was making - it was just a lot all at once.  I didn't know how to process it.  Also, professionally, I was going through a lot of changes and not knowing what the next step was.  I started writing as a form of venting and what came out was a "word vomit" of everything that I was going through.  It was really an organic thing, as I was going through all of these emotions which were almost like the stages of grief. It wasn't planned, it didn't happen until it was sitting right in front of me. 

DR:  You have toured or recorded with some substantial acts, but always singing songs someone else wrote. You had your own band, but even those releases were more collaborative in nature. You only get one debut album. How scary was this? Did you feel ready?

CL:  It is still scary because we're in the beginning stages of getting people to connect with the record. It is such a different market now.  The record business has changed so much from when I started at twelve years old.  I have made several solo records over the years that never saw the light of day for a million and one reasons.  I felt very proud that I was able to do this record by myself and write it with no judgment.  It was really a personal self-accomplishment and I got to the point where I was feeling like, "OK, I am ready to share this with the world" and ready to share my story.  It was scary but easy at the same time.  I am really excited to see the impression of it, to see what's next.

DR:  Your ex is someone that you did work with very closely in two of your musical worlds, but his name never comes up in interviews.  Is that by design?

CL:  Outside of our TSO and Chameleon family, listeners don't know and don't need to know.  I wanted to leave his name out of it.  For those that know, they know.  For those that don't, albums are meant to be related to your life.  If I bring up name and details, it takes away from the listener's point of view.  The record is specific to me, but generic enough where it can relate to you.

DR:  Both lyrically and visually, can I ask how specific you got with what you went through?

CL:  I've taken some liberties with the record and with the videos. It is a story and it's dramatized for sure. The honesty behind the intention is 100%. No mistaking the accuracy there but like all story-tellers, you take liberties to connect the dots. There are certainly situations that are hinted at that might be true, but they might not. Listeners can decide what they want there.

DR:   In early 2018, you released a stunning rendition of the Roy Orbison classic “Crying” which segued into “How Could You”. “How Could You” kicks off the album, but what happened to “Crying”?

CL:  We left that specifically for Pledge supporters.  Everyone that pledged had access to the song and it was an enticement for those supporters.  We did leave it on YouTube though if you still want to check it out.

DR:  The album is set up in a unique fashion, with complete songs, but interspersed with a series of musical interludes: Betrayal, Denial, Letting Go, Reflection, Acceptance, and Forgiveness. Just looking at those Interlude titles can give someone a quick idea of the album's theme, but what made you set it up this way?

CL:  I have always loved records that had interludes or had a constant stream of music that never ended and told a story.  It's funny that we're listening to Janet Jackson right now [Ed. Note - a Janet Jackson song happened to be playing in the background at this time] because I listened to her records when I was growing up and she was known for having these interludes between her songs.  I always really liked that.  I also wanted the listener to engage more with the storyline of the record with my versions of the stages of grief. I felt that they helped further the story as the interludes helped set up the emotion for the song.

DR: Were any of these interludes conceived as entire songs?

CL:  No,  I sat down one week and wrote all of these 20-30 second little songs.  "Reflection Interlude" is a little piece of "Something in the Water", which is a Chameleon song, and that is on purpose.  One that seems to be getting  a lot of notice and listeners seem to like is "Acceptance Interlude".  That one is more of a verse/chorus set-up and I have heard from some of who wanted me to "finish" that song.  Maybe my next record will be of all of my Interludes completed. [Laughs]

DR:  What was the first song written for this album?

CL:  The first work I did for this album was "Don't Let Yourself Down".  In the very beginning of my split, my move to Brooklyn and all of this change, I was just in a daze and crying a lot.  I went on a family vacation and I think my mom got sick and tired of all of my crying.  One day she said to me, "Honey, don't let yourself down".  Besides being great advice, that really hit me because I had never heard that before.  I sat down at my Aunt and Uncle's piano in North Carolina and wrote the chorus to that song.  I then put it away for a long time because I didn't know how to finish it.  The first complete full song that I wrote for this album was "Shiny Toy". I wrote that while I was in Prague for a gig.  I walked around Prague and it all came together for me there.

DR:  I would like to touch on the songs on the album, so let's start with "Shiny Toy". You’ve mentioned that this song is about seeing your ex with the new “shiny toy” in his life. It’s a very powerful song to really kick off the album – asking in the chorus “Did I mean nothing at all, Did We mean nothing at all?” How hard was it to write that song?


CL:  That one was actually really easy to write because it was very circumstantial to me and what just happened to me. It is not just about seeing my ex with his new "shiny toy", but more about the feeling of being replaced so quickly and so easily. That was more of the underlying layer of the song.  Ex's are supposed to move on and move forward, so there was nothing that he did wrong,  but the quickness and swiftness of the situation is what really got to me. I created the track and just vented; here are the words.

DR:  One of my favorite lyrics from this album comes from this song: "If happiness is just a smile, but you never walk a mile, then love means nothing to you". Very poetic, but it says so much.

CL:  I have to actually give some credit to my ex for that.  That is one of his favorite lines that he used to say, and we even used it in a Chameleon song, "Everybody's Going Down".  I sing "Happiness takes a while" on that one, but he originally wanted me to sing [Chloe sings "Happiness is just a smile"].  He and I debated that line though, because happiness is not just a smile; you have to work for happiness, happiness is a choice. So that lyric in "Shiny Toy", while it is mine, I twisted it a bit.

DR:  “Renegade”, musically is a song that is very upbeat – a good “sing-along” chorus – but it’s really all about your ex and his renegade-type lifestyle?

CL:  My ex is a very free spirit, which is one the things that I really loved about him. Down the line, it just didn't fit with my life anymore.  It's not about control, but more about making sense of someone's choices.  It just wasn't working for me.  It was like, "OK, there ya go again!"

DR:  There is a line in the song “Something in the water we thought brought us together now undone”. Is that a nod towards your previous band that had a song with that title?

CL:  [Laughs]  Everything that you can probably think, just go with it.

DR:   "Giving up on You" is a duet between you and vocalist Nathan James.  Did you write this with a duet in mind?

CL:  No. I wrote this by myself on the piano - just the melody and bass line.  I knew I wanted to do a duet on the record and Nathan was always in the back of my brain.  When I got the first draft back from my producer, Travis Laws, it just felt like this might be a good opportunity for a duet.  I restructured it and changed some of lyrics, so it made sense for a second voice to sing.

DR:  “Crazy” kicks off what feels like the second half of the album. This song feels like it is about dealing with things and moving on.

CL:  You are totally correct.  Some have said that this record feels heavy or really sad. You have to listen to the whole thing, and it is a fun party at the end of it.

DR:  The video for this is particularly clever, with you and your significant other backstage at a venue, reliving the same scene every couple of years, showing how the relationship was at each point.  Having seen you perform at so many clubs around the city over the years, was this based on a particular venue in your mind?


CL:  We struggled with what was the best thing to convey with that video.  The Digital Sparks team and I were in Charlotte at the time and we had come up with a few different ideas and this is the one that really stuck. They found a venue in Charlotte to use for the shoot, but it is very much like an Arlene's Grocery or Rockwood Music Hall.

DR:  This song features a guitar solo near the end of it by Al Pitrelli. It is one of two songs that he contributed guitar to on the record. He has also been involved in most of your live solo performances thus far. How did you get Al involved?

CL:  I'm really lucky.  I have a special relationship with Al.  We've been great friends since we met in 2010 and have always checked in with each other over the years.  There is a mutual admiration for talent there, but we also have this great working relationship and we're friends. With TSO, I am the Dance Captain for the West tour, so I handle the dancing and some of the singing. He calls on me a lot in that capacity. He has always said to me, "If you ever do anything, let me know." so I took him up on it.  I have a lot of great guitarist friends, so don't get me wrong, but Al plays with soul and heart and so much artistry behind his playing.  He came in and played on two songs and I have been lucky that he has been there for me at my live performances so far.

DR:  You did a unique cover of Roxette’s "It Must Have Been Love". What made you want to cover this?

CL: I knew I wanted to do a cover but hadn't found one yet that made sense. I was halfway done the record while I was on a TSO tour and I was listening to songs with [vocalist] Ashley Hollister and we were listening to some of the 80s and 90s songs and "It Must Have Been Love" came on. We started talking about why no one has covered it before. Vocally, it is really high, but you can forget about that because of the poppiness of the track. I knew I didn't want to do it the way that Roxette did it; I wanted my own interpretation.

DR: I want to call out the production of Aurelien Budynek here.  Not only did he contribute some tasty slide guitar passages, he really created such a subdued atmosphere that really changes the feel of the original song.

CL:  Aurelien killed it on this one.  He really did.  Aurelien has a really great ear and is one of my other favorite guitarists.  He also knows how to create a mood or atmosphere in a song. He is also the one who played on "Crying". For this one, he came back with this amazing guitar arrangement and added a string track.  Asha Mevlana came over and recorded the violin and viola and it was done in a day.

DR: "Dirty Disco" is a fun, upbeat song that has a bit of feel to your previous band.

CL:  We actually wrote this when we were in South Carolina and writing songs for Chameleon.  This was one of the fun tracks that we came up with and I have always loved it. With all of the band members in Chameleon, we just couldn't get it right. It just never felt right for that band.  I told Travis that I wanted to do it and we collaborated with Georgios Pesios, who mixed part of the album.  I love this song and it is a bit of a departure from the heaviness of the early part of the album.

DR:  “Don’t Let Yourself Down” is a song we touched on earlier.  It has that big epic-feeling song of the album, puts me in the mind of Chameleon songs like "Up There" and "Stay/Wait". I find your voice to really be suited to songs like that, where there is a quiet, tender introduction to the song that builds into something really loud and powerful. Do you feel the same way?

CL:  My whole platform is that I am a big singer and I sing emotionally about emotional topics. I am one of those artists where you are supposed to feel things. I think that is just my gift and is something that I do even with TSO and Rocktopia.  I totally gravitate to the more intimate songs where there is a conversation happening and by the end I am soaring and showing my range.

DR:  The closing song on the album, "The Words you Wanted", feels like you have come out the other side, moved past all of the heartbreak feelings and come to terms with the where things are now.  You refer to "All these damn songs I had to write". Were these the words you wanted to say to him but couldn’t? "We both got what we need to breathe, I found myself and set you free" – looks at things differently than earlier in the album.

CL:  My ex had sent me the guitar track to when I was on tour with Rocktopia a couple years ago and we were still writing back and forth. I actually wrote a completely different song on top of that guitar riff.  I then put it away and didn't think about it again.  When I was creating this album, I was going through some of my older songs for some ideas for the album's closer and came across this track.  I completely re-wrote the lyrics for it but left the guitar parts intact.  The subject matter came from a conversation that I had with my ex.  When he heard that I was making a record about him, he said instead of being mad, why not say the things that you always wanted to say?  This was much later after I had come to terms with things and there was some closure.  It is inspired by him and that conversation.  The guitar parts are still his and left just as he recorded them in The Red Room, probably two years before I finished it.

DR:  Over the years, you have sung so many songs written by others in various touring productions and shows, all of which come with a certain amount of direction. You do work with a producer on this record, but was it hard to find your own voice? To say, “this is me”?

CL:  It is both a blessing and a curse that I can sing in so many styles.  Going through this forced me to stand on my own and speak honestly and what came out is very authentically me without someone telling me, "you should do this, you should do that". Travis was the greatest producer and collaborator for that.  I would hand him the basic tracks and his production just really complemented what I was creating.

DR:  You have made a music video for each song and interlude for the album.  Where did that idea come from?

CL:  The industry is so weird.  It is so challenging to find ways to get people to sit down and listen to music these days.  I thought it was a good way of getting people to sit down and listen to the album if there was a visual element to it. I'm one of those people who will tend to stick with a song or album longer if there is a video to it.  It was a marketing plan that would help get people to listen to the album and listen to the story. It is a concept record and you really need to listen to it from top to bottom to understand it all.

DR:  Some of these videos puts you alone in these big empty scenes – a forest, an empty parking garage, a spacious empty meadow – is that done intentionally to help convey how you were feeling?

CL:  I never even realized that until you just said that. There may have been a subconscious reason for that.  For this record, I was alone.  I wrote 90% of it alone in my apartment and was on my own for the first time, which is why my hashtag is 'justchloe'.  It was always Chloe with Yanni, Chloe with TSO, Chloe with Rocktopia, Chloe with Chameleon.  Now it was "just Chloe".  I think the team at Digital Sparks studios understood that and shows the struggle to find answers, clarity and the struggle of being alone.

DR:  I want to ask about the musicians on the album. You certainly seemed to surround yourself with players not only from your previous band Chameleon, but also from the productions that you tour with, Rocktopia and TSO. Was this a matter of just calling someone up if they were available to fill a need on the album? Was there anyone you wanted on the record that wasn’t available?

CL:  I'm really lucky to have really great friends and have developed really great relationships, especially with my TSO family. I do like collaborating and I wanted my friend's input on what I had written for this album.  From Chameleon, I had Aurelien Budynek, Georgios Pesios, and Andrew Ross contribute.  Everyone was shocked that Andrew was on the record, but he came in and added some percussion and backing vocals on "The Words You Wanted".  From TSO, I had Asha, Jodi Katz, Al and Nathan of course.  I actually had another interlude where Ashley Hollister and Natalya Piette sang, but unfortunately it didn't make sense with the record, so it got scrapped. And of course, Travis Laws who I got to know from Rocktopia was just amazing as a producer.  I even got involved playing some synths and keys, which I was very excited about.

DR:  As part of your crowdfunding campaign, you offered up the opportunity to record a cover song for fans. Did you get many takers on this? And what sort of covers did you wind up singing? Any that were a favorite or fun?

CL:  Yes!  I forget about how many we did, but that was a popular item!  Georgios Pesios and I sat down for a couple days and did acoustic versions of all the songs. He played guitar and mixed them. It was a wide range from Pat Benatar to some classic rock songs.  I did "Painkiller" from Judas Priest! [Laughs]  It was fun, it was great to put my spin on some of these.

DR:  Thus far, you have done release concerts in Florida and NYC, opened up for Myles Kennedy, and done some of these songs at a music festival in upstate PA. How much fun is it to sing these creations to fans in person? It seems like there would be a difference between writing a song in your apartment and recording it in a studio and then singing how you were feeling to a crowd full of people.

(L-R): Al Pitrelli, Chloe Lowery, Travis Laws
Rockwood Music Hall, April 2019
Photo courtesy Bill Passannante
CL:  It's exciting. As an artist, our job is to touch people and relate to people and help people. When people respond well or sing back words that you wrote, that is so rewarding.  We are building our whole live thing.

DR:  Back in the 70’s, you would have a record label behind you which pushed an artist's music to the stores and radio. In the 80’s, there was MTV which helped put artists on the map. How difficult is it in today’s industry to establish yourself as a name or a brand? Is it more social media and networking?

CL:  It's really all about connecting. Whether it is getting a song into a movie or TV show, or building your social media following.  Social media is obviously a big part of things now.  There are artists that are launching careers just off of Instagram. I find that cool and strange at the same time because it is hard for real talent to shine through. The market is just completely flooded.  You just have to find your way of connecting that works for you. With me, people seem to like to see what I can do when I perform live.  That is a priority for me to get on the road, which is all in the works.

DR:  Good to hear that there may be some touring coming up.  Anything else in the works?

CL:  We still have several videos to release.  The "Must Have Been Love" video is next and you guys will like it for a specific reason, but I won't say what it is yet.  The "Dirty Disco" video is also very exciting with everything going on with Pride Month. Something else that is in the works is a virtual live show for everyone that can't get out to the live shows.

DR:  For the fans of your previous band, is there any chance of hearing any of those songs again?  Maybe in a live setting?

CL:  Those songs are all still mean so much to me.  My producer was a really big fan of "Up There" and we tried to revisit it production-wise and make it more something catering to me, but it fell by the wayside.  Maybe I will revisit one of those songs live? My ex and I were a good writing team and I would like to work with him in that capacity again, so you never know.

DR: You have been involved in two touring productions over the last decade – Rocktopia and TSO. Do you still enjoy doing those Shows and do you plan on continue fitting them into your schedule as long as they still want you?

CL:  TSO is such a blessing.  I didn't quite understand what I was getting into when I did my first tour.  I thought it might just be one tour and done. They have really become my family and I think that was Paul's gift.  As long as TSO will have me, I want to be there.  We are always complaining towards the end of those tours about how exhausted we are, and we want to go home, but we always look forward to it starting up each year.

DR:  Chloe, thanks for getting together today and finding the time.

CL:  Thank you!  It's always a pleasure.



For more information:


https://www.chloelowery.com