Bullets

Bullets

LOUDNESS: NOT JUST A KNOB

Jeff Tamarkin

Even their record company bio can’t resist chuckleinducing cracks about sushi, Toyotas and “getting oriented” to their music. But if given the blindfold test, it’s questionable how many metal heads would guess just by listening to their music that Loudness is from Japan.

The Eddie Van H/Blackmore guitar lines hardly sound like the product of a nation whose biggest pop music export ever was the 1963 wimp ballad “Sukiyaki.” And the Tokyo quartet’s English lyrics are just as intelligible to western ears as anything Motley Crue or W.A.S.P. ever wrote. Hmm, never mind; you get the idea.

It’s only when Minoru Nihara, Loudness’s vocalist and lyricist, sits down for a chat that it becomes obvious that Loudness isn’t from Hoboken. But then again, some people from Hoboken can probably learn a few things about English from Nihara, who’s only been speaking the language for about a year.

Loudness, formed in 1981, is Japan’s number one heavy metal band. And with their first American album, Thunder In The East (Atco), nestled in the Land of the Rising Chart Figures in early spring, the U.S., too, would seem ready to Get Loud. Nihara’s not complaining. "We want to make, ah, lots of money,” he says in no uncertain terms and the universal language.

But Loudness’s yen to bring home Yankee dollars isn’t the only reason the group is shifting its attention west with the album (there are four more in the homeland) and a summerlong tour of the States. “Another reason,” says Nihara, interpreter standing by just in case, “is because we want to open the door here for other Japanese bands.”

Loudness realizes that their fame in Japan won’t give them a headstart in the U.S. In spite of the fact that the faces of Nihara, guitar hero Akira Takasaki, bassist Masayoshi Yamashita and kamikaze drummer Munetaka Higuchi are perpetually plastered in Nippon music mags, they know they’re starting from scratch here. But that means they'll have to get accustomed to American rock traditions while they learn the language and see the sights.

“In Japan, fans in clubs can’t move freely,” reports Nihara. “People don’t stand up. In America it’s very scary! And they scream! When we finished a show in California we went backstage and still they scream More! More! More!’ The club owner came down and said to us, ‘Please, just one more song.’ So we said OK. In Japan they have such heavy rules, you couldn’t do that.”

There’s also no way a Japanese band could carry on with the kind of lifestyle that passes for human in American rock circles. “No, we too much good boys,” says Nihara. In Japan, the generation gap is still very much alive. “We sometimes go to a Japanese bar and drink alcohol, but no drugs. The older generation feels we are strange because we have long hair and sometimes a guy might want to change the color to blond. My mother didn’t want to hear rock music when I was growing up.”

Nihara adds that hard rock, especially, is still an oddity in Japan, and even though there are more metal bands than ever before, Japan’s proficiency with technology hasn’t caught up with metal’s requirements. So the band jumped at the opportunity to record their latest album in Los Angeles. “They have good studios in Japan, but no engineers that are good for hard rock,” explains Nihara. “Sometimes Japanese engineers are good for new wave music, computer music, but not hard rock.”

Thunder In The East was produced by a Brit, Max Norman (Ozzy, Y&T), one of whose redeeming qualities, jokes Nihara, was that “he let me record my vocals’’— Nihara wrote both Japanese and English versions of the album—“as many times as I wanted. He kept saying, ‘Do it again! Do it again! It still sounds like Japanese. I can’t understand what you're saying.’”

Loudness—there’s no Japanese word for it; they took the name from the loudness button on a stereo—has already, in just a few months, gone further in the west then any other Japanese rock band. For which they say to America: Arigato!

ROCKIN’ ROBIN

by Sylvie Simmons

Good reasons to like Robin George:

He turned down an offer to join Asia.

Ted Nugent covered one of his songs.

Dangerous Music (it’s not, it’s good).

Dangerous looks—cheekbones you can slice cucumber on, chin you can hammer mortar nails with, chest bare, legs apart, guitar brandished on the thigh like a broadsword, a mega-bloody-guitar hero no less, the very savior of rock ’n’ roll as the front cover of British rock mag Kerrang proclaimed him; which was the first I ever heard of Robin George. Last I heard of him too—until Dangerous Music, a fine if somewhat un-guitar-heroish album, which is what’s lured me to a back room at Bronze Records, home-from-home of Motorhead, to talk to the Very Savior of Rock ’n’ Roll himself. A quiet, self-effacing fellow he turns out to be older than he looks, wiser than he quotes, ready for a bit of fame and fortune. “Basically, like everybody else, I’m only in this business to make a living...”

First try involved Arista, who snapped him up as an “experiment,” released a record, History, all old stuff (“I wasn’t happy about it, and I suppose I still make excuses now”) and we musn’t forget the picture disc, shaped like a guitar, guaranteed to be a best-selling idea—except Def Leppard found out about it at the last minute and beat him to the post. Arista, “more of a pop label than a rock label,” did its little best considering Robin had neither a silly hairdo nor a funny hat, and pushed him as a moody guitar hero, lots of top-of-the-mountain-head-inthe-clouds pix, only “I’m as much a songwriter as I am a guitar player; I’m not into 20-minute solos; I find it boring, personally.” Not so much leading him down a wrong turn as hurling him into a bottomless pit.

“I didn’t really notice it,” shrugs Robin, who if he hasn’t quite crawled out yet at least has his fingers on the edge. As for the Future Of Rock stuff, ‘‘I take it with as much a pinch of salt as anybody else does, really. It didn’t make me a star. Well, it did in my house.”

The house contains a wife who snapped a very fetching picture of Robin for the cover of his first-ever piece of plastic, a single with a group called Life, better known (if at all) as the supergroup of Wolverhampton (musos associated with Magnum, Trapeze and Judas Priest were in it). But ‘‘it was during the punk era, and the new breed of A&R men tended to block out rock ’n’ roll; if you weren’t streetcredible or whatever they didn’t want to know. That’s my excuse anyway.”

When Life died he was a bit depressed, though, burying himself in session work (‘‘Never on purpose; people would just call me and ask me if I’d do things and I love working”) and producing (Diamond Head, hailed at one point as the new Led Zep, and the glorious Wrathchild) and writing (‘‘I’ve always held onto the thought that one day I’d be able to do stuff the way I want to do it”). Eventually an old contact from Arista moved to Bronze, signed him up, sent him into the studio and out comes the album.

How would you describe it? I’d say it was vaguely Billy Squier-ish, except maybe a bit more meek-mannered and polite. Others have called him the British Bryan Adams. Once in a while you hear just a dash of Cheap Trick, maybe even Cars. Hence no surprise that Robin and the rest of the thinking universe reckon it’ll catch on better in the States than Britain, ’cause ‘‘it isn’t heavy heavy rock, therefore they’re calling me crossover rock, whatever that means. We’re trying to pick up as wide an audience as we possibly can without letting down the people who are already a little bit aware of what I’m doing.” He doesn’t mind calling it ‘‘dance rock,” doesn’t even mind admitting it’s a bit of a “compromise,” but says “live-wise, it’s a lot meatier and a lot more straight ahead.”

Afraid I can’t attest to that personally. His only London date coincided with Motley Crue at the Dominion and wild horses couldn’t have dragged me. But he’s got a good band—Mark Stanway (ex Magnum and Life), Huw Lucas, Kex Gorin and Phil Soussan—and when they finish their European tour supporting Uli Roth, they’re coming straight back in your direction.

“It’s all coming back, apparently,” muses Robin. “I’m glad I didn’t get my hair cut. I was thinking of going punk! I want to be succesful as much as the next guy.” And if once again if doesn’t work out, “I think I can probably come to terms with it. Not,” he grins, “that I think that’s going to happen. It’s going to get better and I’m going to become a rock star. I hope!”

SLAYER: NEVER SAYAWWW, TO HELL WITH IT!

Anne Leighton

Slayer is a black metal band. Formed in Southern California, they sound like a cross between hardcore punk and metal: fast, loud, rough shout singing and dual lead guitars in songs three minutes and longer. And Slayer’s songs all share pessimistic philosophies about the “house of God” failing.

“We’re all going to hell,” states the Chile-born lead singer and bassist Tom Araya. “We’ve all done something bad in our lives.”

Though this attitude may seem somewhat hopeless, Slayer actually has lots of honorable intentions for mankind, all of which show up in their songs...I hope. Example: their second record, the Haunting The Chapel EP, has a song called “Chemical Warfare,” which Tom says could be Slayer’s tribute to America.

“What thanks do the war veterans get?” he ponders. “They think, ‘I’m fighting for my country.’ They come home and no one gives a fuck. 'Well, if I didn’t go, I would have been thrown in jail.’ My purpose in singing this song is a plea— ‘do you want to die this way?”'

Slayer’s songs are loaded with spiritualism and ritual. And their new album, Hell Awaits, has moved Slayer from their groundwork of devilish beliefs to actual devilish manifestations. The group’s songwriter, guitarist Jeff Hanneman, says that it’s become monotonous “writing about impending doom.” So now they’re singing “Necrophilia”

and “At Dawn, They Sleep.” About vampires.

What really counts, however, is the music. And that hasn’t toned down. Whether the members of Slayer are satanists or justplain-joes who like a good horror story, remains to be discovered. In fact, I asked Jeff if he was a Satanist.

The blond guy coyly responded, “I don’t know— could be.”

KEEL OVER

Joanne Carnegie

March 1: it is Keel’s first birthday and they’re celebrating it in METAL’s mailroom. One year ago today Keel formed in Los Angeles. Tonight they’re playing in Detroit to promote their major label debut, The Right To Rock.

Do Keel have the right to rock? Lead singer Ron Keel seems to think so. After all, the band is named after him.

“The Right To Rock is what we really stand for. We’d like to be role models for kids. We’re tough, assertive and confident. It’s important to have a strong attitude; the right to be yourself and to do things you believe in,” says Ron.

While Keel appear to have all the ingredients of being a Heavy Metal Outfit (lots of hair, leather, studs & wrist gadgets), Keel—the person—disagrees. “I’m not a rivethead," he emphasizes, pounding his fists on the table before him. “Heavy Metal is a label used to classify; to me it’s called music.”

Wait a minute. Keel sure sound like hard-driven rock ’n’ roll—you know, the kind with four guitarists and a drummer. But wait another minute. MTV has recently decided to cut back on Metal videos. Would Heavy Metalers deny being what they are because it could hurt them?

Maybe not. But listen to Keel—the guitars, vocals and lyrics—it all suspiciously sounds like Metal.

Their title track, “The Right To Rock,” puts emphasis on the guitar from start to finish and sure sounds metallic to me. And Keel’s version of the Stones’ “Let’s Spend The Night Together” is an OK job, but they cut out the best line: “I’m high, but I try, try, try.” Keel re-worked the song many years ago, and always wanted to record it. Oh well—he tried, tried, tried all right.

When it comes to producing, though, Keel did just fine. Kiss’s Gene Simmons heard them in L.A. and ended up getting top billing on The Right To Rock, as producer. Simmons also co-wrote three songs on the LP and is helping with preproduction for Keel’s next album. The Right To Rock “has a lot of power and energy. It’s real toughsounding; to me it sounds like a bunch of crazy kids in a bar making noise. They’re hungry and you can hear it. But the album has some class and the attitude is right,” Simmons says of Keel. Seems that Simmons has given this fivesome a few free music lessons. And maybe a little more.

‘‘Working with Simmons was a great opportunity for us,” says Ron. ‘‘I learned a lot from him about recording methods. He’s been part of 13 platinum albums with Kiss, and obviously learned plenty in that time. Gene is very professional and very serious. He also has many beautiful women hanging around the studio when you record, so it’s quite a pleasure working with him,” Ron says gleefully.

Before Simmons came along, Ron had semi-success in Nashville witha band named Steeler. They released an album (that sold 30,000 copies) on an independent label. ‘‘For me Steeler was like going to college. I made all the mistakes I could possibly make, and I learned the ropes along the way,” Ron recalls. Not feeling satisfied with the group though, he set out to find new musicians.

When he moved to Phoenix he became friends with drummer Dwain Miller and bassist Kenny Chaisson. Moving further west to California he met Keel’s future guitarist Bryan Jay. And guitarist Marc Ferrari left Boston because ‘‘they only played that new stuff.”

And so Keel came together.

‘‘We work cohesively as a band, all pointed in the same direction,” says Ron. ‘‘They sweat as much as I do.”

Glue yourself to MTV and you’re bound to see Keel’s video for ‘‘The Right To Rock.” ‘‘It’s a five-minute movie,” says Ron. ‘‘It’s total entertainment.”

But don’t look for any special stage gimmicks from Keel. ‘‘Our set-up doesn’t take an hour-and-a-half,” says Kenny. ‘‘Yeah, and we don’t have any contrived images,” adds Ron. ‘‘We don’t look to capitalize on anything; fads, trends, Satan, God or whatever. It’s more challenging and gratifying to concentrate on ourselves. We rely on our vocals, moves and our songs for a good show instead of props and gimmicks.”

Future plans for Keel might include hooking up with the Triumph or Queensryche tour. A few tour dates with Kiss has also been discussed. And when Keel reach ‘‘platinum success” they ‘‘wanna see the world,” says Ron.