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PACKEE'S PUB, NJ, 05.16.03 George Lynch has been making music for over 20 years. Not impressed? Come talk to me in another 20 and we'll see if you can say the same thing about any of the nu-metal wunderkinds you're listening to now. Back in the '80s, you didn't have to like Dokken or their music to appreciate the kind of guitarist George Lynch was. Though the band's name bore singer Don Dokken's name, it was Lynch's virtuoso performances that stood out as the driving force behind the band's success. It was standard fare back then to see Lynch's name mentioned in the company of such luminaries as Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen. Jump forward to present. After the first and second incarnations of Lynch Mob, solo efforts and a short reunion stint with Dokken [at the behest of a label refusing to release a Dokken album without him], Lynch finds himself reunited with Mob band mates Anthony Esposito [bass] and Robert Mason [vocals]. With an album of remakes ["REvolution," a collection of songs spanning Lynch's career] already on shelves and a new record planned for year's end, Mr. Scary took time out before a recent Jersey gig to sit with us. It took George Lynch about 15 seconds to dispel any negative expectations I may have had going in. Unlike some other icons of '80s rock that we've sat with, Lynch was neither bitter [see: Stephen Pearcy] nor spoiled [see: Sebastian Bach]. In fact, we found the entire band to be refreshingly down-to-earth and open. The humor was dry, the mood light, the tangents plentiful... Show & Tell: The new album comes out next week. Anthony: Tuesday the 20th. S&T: And it's a collection of songs from basically the last twenty years. George: Yeh. Cleopatra [Records] came to me and my manager and asked me if I wanted to do a remake record. I was just getting off the LP [the Lynch and Dokken band mate Jeff Pilson collaboration "Wicked Underground] record which took me fifteen or sixteen months to finish so I was just really in studio mode. I was like, "that'd be great, I'd love to stay in the studio and continue working." I had a lot of ideas for a new record but didn't have a band and thought a remake record would be a really good idea, I can go back and tweak old songs. Actually it was a vehicle for getting the band back together which is the number one reason to justify doing the record. Anthony called me up, I don't know how the hell he found out about it 'cause I tried to hide it from him. The day before bass tracks were supposed to go down, y'know, he's supposed to be on the other side of the country, and he's like, "yeh, I just happen to be around the corner at a Dunkin' Donuts with my bass... tuned to B." [laughter] Anthony: "I'm at Starbuck's across the street, thought I'd just drop in..." We actually hadn't spoken for awhile. George: Just through lawyers. Same thing happened with Robert. Robert: I was in the Starbuck's down the street on Melrose. In all seriousness... George: No, let's not get serious. Robert: I was at Krispy Kreme... George: Your usual daily couple dozen donuts [mocking singer Robert Mason's penchant for healthy eating]. Anthony: I was at the low-fat, chicken hut. George: The tofu hut. S&T: There's three singers that the band's had including one after Robert's last stint with the band. Why him now? George: We learned our lesson. We'd been through a variety of different kinds of singers and you're just thinking you want to have what really was the band, [and the] band really was what we were back in '90, '91, '92. What was the best aspect of what we had back then was consistency, people with talent, people we know are going to be around, which I value now as I'm getting older, and will work hard. Robert: And they called me anyway. S&T: [to Robert] What's it like doing vocals for someone else's songs. Robert: The stuff on "Wicked" [Lynch Mob's first album "Wicked Sensation"] I got to do a bunch live but never really felt like I got to make them my own, as much as I'd wanted to. For my audition in '91, when we ran out of songs we all knew... George: When we auditioned for you? Robert: Yes, when I had you guys out to my pad. Once I'd removed the guys from Cribs it was a little easier getting you in there. George: I didn't pass the juggling part. I did the handstand and juggled with one hand singing the Piña Colada song in Portuguese backwards... Robert: And I did some Dokken stuff, whatever we could get through. In the case of the Don stuff I had to make some drastic changes because we don't sing anything like each other. Anthony: Thank God! [laughs] Robert: I had to do them my way, I was granted the license to just redo a little history. George: The Dokken songs lent themselves to the most change because the old songs, there's a lot of room to move but the newer stuff is harder to improve on. S&T: What was the selection process for the songs? Were there ones you'd always wanted to redo? George: You never can pick the perfect songs. Man, there was so many other songs we would have liked to have done. The whole thing is just really frustrating doing a record like that because you really want to do original music because now we're touring on it and we're still doing old music and we really, really, really want to do new music. But this is a building process, end of this year we'll cut a new record. S&T: Are you working on new music now? George: Yeh. Anthony: Sound checks. Robert: Yeh, sound checks are great for [working on new stuff]. S&T: What's it like compared to the old Mob stuff? Anthony: Very White Stripes. [laughter] Robert: But that's only when you don't show up for sound check. George: It'll always be pretty much mainstream, heavy rock with hooks but what we want to try to push it a little bit and try to change up. There's stuff we all listen to that's outside of what the people coming to see us probably listen to. S&T: Like what? George: A lot of punk stuff... Anthony: The new Transplant record... George: Like Queens [of the Stone Age] and Tool and Tomahawk. S&T: Who shows up to Lynch Mob shows? Are you surprised at all ever? George: You get the expected crowd, which is the older male crowd, the guys tend to be more dedicated throughout the years. But west coast is different, a lot more girls, east coast a lot more guys. S&T: It's '92, this stops, you do a few more Dokken records, back here. What was everybody else doing for that time? Robert: I did a bunch of writing, a bunch of session work singing on other people's records. I pretty much went from this straight into doing other things that weren't always high-profile; some were behind the scenes, backgrounds on this record, song doctor or helping a singer do vocal tracks on that record... I did a year on the road with Ozzy as a background vocalist doing harmonies live. He just didn't want to use samples and we sang pretty well together and it was a cool tour, got treated like family, what can I say. And I got to play with Geezer and Ozzy on stage. I did a record with a band called Cry Of Love on Columbia. Did a lot of landscaping my own home [laughter]. Stuff you do when you're not making records. Anthony: Moved back to New York and opened a recording studio [where he's worked with The Misfits, Psychedelic Furs, Omegaman], couple records we just did, Bouncing Souls, on the Warped Tour again this year... I did a song off the Dee Snider movie soundtrack... S&T: Strangeland? Anthony: Yeh. S&T: What's the name of the studio? Anthony: Schoolhouse Studio in NYC. We've had the Ramones, Iggy, the last Misfits thing we did. I had my own band, after Lynch Mob, called Control. George: Chas was in a band called Earshot. Chas: Yeh, I did Earshot for a couple months. George: C'mon, bag on Wil for a little bit. S&T: We did off the record. Chas: I'd previously played with Zoe Bonham, daughter of John Bonham, that was a great experience. Got to meet the entire family, met John Bonham's mother which was just... S&T: [John Bonham] was your hero growing up? Chas: Oh yeh, every drummer! Then a buddy of mine who did some engineering for my band in-between Zoe and doing a project with George, contacted me about doing this thing with George which was a little 3-song EP he put out for Christmas through his web site... George: "The Lynch That Stole Riftness." Chas: Yep, which was a blast, I was given license to play whatever I want... George: Yeh, until that singer showed up it was fine. Chas: I did that, got called about doing Earshot and that was a learning experience. I got out of that and immediately called George about any recording things that he might have coming up and next thing you know I'm sitting on a bus in New Jersey where I've never been before. S&T: This tour ends at The Chance in a couple weeks... Robert: This leg. S&T: And then? George: Going out with Yngvie [Malmsteen] for about six weeks. S&T: You've been doing this a very long time. What do you think the greatest difference is between going out back then and going out now. George: We kind of had this trajectory [mimics an upward climb in the air with his hand] through the '80s. We started out in vans, no crew, driving through the snow, just kinda winging it, no money, like everybody else starts out. Built ourselves up to arena touring with good management, good label, had some success, gold and platinum records and all that, then it kind of tapered off a bit. And I look at it now as an opportunity for rebirth, a chance to not have just one big episode in my life but maybe two. Go back and do it all over again. Sometimes I bitch and moan about how I used to have it a little easier but was I really that elated and happy about that at the time? Nah, I bitched and moaned about it then and we had everything. Anthony: I had a more extended period of time than George of not touring. I look at it like its a major luxury to be able to afford to just say we're gonna go out, book gigs and afford a bus and play places and people show up. And they come to see you and they hear the songs and they buy your shirts. It's like 99% of the bands in America can't afford to go and play out of their backyard so in a way its really a special thing that we're able to do, I love it. I get really pissed off when I'm not playing. George: We have a lot of wonderful people that are sort of dedicated to helping us get back to where they'd like us to be and where we need to be. So we're in one of the world-class studios with great producers and engineers. Normally a band at our level with the amount of success or lack of success that we've had wouldn't allow us to have these sort of resources. So we're going to be able to do a record the way we want to do it have it exposed to people. We're gonna put all our energies into what would be like our first album all over again, we've learned all these lessons. Anthony: We're not trying to beat a dead cow, we're not trying to suck the life out of it. We're tying to still be creative, still go forward with how we feel now. We're very happy where we are right now. George: No we're not (laughter). We're gonna be happy where we are in nine months. We'll never be happy until we're as big as Madonna, until we marry Guy Ritchie. interview by scott sisti |
