YOU KEEL ME!

YOU KEEL ME!

FEATURES

Sharon Liveten

Ron Keel looks like a hippie, or would if he wasn’t partial to rock-star-tight blue jeans, and snazzy red leather cowboy boots. Even the tall, thin, founder/guitarist/frontman/singer of Keel admits that he looks kinda ’60s. In addition to the hair that ends just above his belt, Keel has an open, baby face, and a tendency to say things reminiscent of a few decades back. Like, “People are taking you seriously, so you have to say something serious. If you go out and sing about getting drunk, and raping women, and killing people, it has to have some effect on your fans. So I wanted to sing about something that was positive, and optimistic, and happy. Peace, love, dope and all like that,” he laughs. “But I really believe in all that goodness. I believe in people.”

It’s a nice sentiment, but somewhat unusual, in Keel’s field at least. Keel’s (the band’s, not the man’s) first two albums, The Right To Rock, and Lay Down The Law, established them as future shining stars in the metal genre. Peace, love, and dope are not nearly as popular lyrically as murder, mayhem and messing around, but then that’s just par for the course. Ron isn’t a typical metal guy. Although he does see his outfit as a hard rock band, their latest album, The Final Frontier, isn t exactly a headbanger from start to finish. In addition to the requisite kick-ass tunes, there’s a ballad (“Tears Of Fire”) and a couple of pop (I kid thee not) tunes. Not to mention the first single from the disc, “Because The Night,” written by those two closet headbangers, Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen. Not exactly the stuff you might expect from the people who brought you “The Right To Rock.”

“Everyone wants to know why we did that song,” says Ron with a grin. “It was on my list of songs that I wanted to do. I have this list of songs that I want to cover. When I think of things that I want to do, I write them down. Like ‘Satisfaction’ or ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand.’ I have a four-track studio at my house, where, to amuse myself, I’ll record those songs. I recorded ‘Because The Night’ and I thought, ‘Wow, this is pretty good.’ It really suited my voice. It felt like I had made it mine. Like a song that I had written. So l played it for Gene, and he liked it too.”

Ah yes, Gene. Another reason that The Final Frontier is not just another metal album. The record was produced by the man with the longest tongue in rock ’n’ roll—Gene Simmons.

Ron Keel grew up listening to Kiss, and is admittedly a fan (if you had any doubt, the proof is on the Kiss-sounding tunes, "No Pain, No Gain,” "Raised On Rock” and "An Arm And A Leg”), but Ron claims that he was less than awed by working with the tongued one. Apparently Simmons make a less than amazing first impression.

Keel explains: "The thing that made it easy with Gene was that he wasn’t the Gene Simmons I had always known—-the guy with the make-up and the long hair and breathing fire. When I met Gene, he had just cut his hair for a role in a movie, and he was dressed very nicely. I didn’t even recognize him, and walked right by, until he said, ‘Ron, I’m Gene Simmons.’ For the longest time I never realized that I was working with Gene Simmons. Until he stuck out his tongue. Then I knew. By that time we had already become friends, and were working together, and had this good vibe happening.”

So much for meeting idols. But then again, Keel did get to know Simmons real well. The Final Frontier took almost four months to record, partly because sessions had to be scheduled around the Kiss tour. Even if it had taken a year, Ron Keel would be giddy with the result. Not only is the disc his second for a major label (the first was an indie), but had proven all the naysayers (and there were plenty), wrong. The man is living proof of dues paid.

Now living in Los Angeles, Ron was raised in various spots across the country, including that bastion of hard rock— Nashville. Keel arrived in El Lay a young dude with a hot band (Steeler, which later served as home to little-known Swedish guitar monster, Yngwie Malmsteem) and a lot-o-dreams. Keel soon learned that Hollywood was not all it was cracked up to be. His "welcome to the real world, bucko” came hard and fast.

"After I left home, I was sitting on the streets starving. I had nowhere to sleep, and nothing to eat. Literally,” he shakes his head. "For a while all I had was a little bag from Texas Tech. I had everything I owned in this bag. There were literally times when I had no place to stay, and I couldn’t afford anything, I’d put this bag behind a dumpster in a Safeway Supermarket parking lot, and put my head on it to sleep. If I’d have given up that dream, I’d have had nothing,” he states fiercely. "I’d have had nothing but the bag. But I had the bag and a dream.”

When it became obvious that Steeler was a dead-end, Ron folded it, turned around and put together Keel the next day. (It must have taken him overnight to come up with the name.) It was probably a good move.

This band is, as they say in La La Land, happenin’. He had a minor hit with the title track of Right To Rock, which he wrote as a response to those lovely and charming Washington Wives. Strangely, though, he doesn’t sit as far from the D.C. women as one might imagine. A proud dad himself, he can understand the PMRC’s objections to certain music, but disagrees with their tactics.

"I never really worried about them shutting down rock ’n’ roll,” he laughs confidently. "Or censoring lyrics. I just threw my hand in to say, ‘Look, I don’t like what you’re trying to do. I’m not scared of you doing it, but I don’t like what you’re trying to do.’ Because the right to rock is worth fighting for. Something I felt was worth calling an album, and worth singing about. So I felt I should stand up and say something while I had an opportunity. I was never worried about it, because I believe in America. It was just part of the process of debate that makes America so strong. I made people aware of the situation at hand. I think there are lyrics that are written that should not be written, I think they should not be listened to, and should not be bought. But that’s my opinion, and I will choose whether I will buy them or not, or I will let my children buy this or not. Not you. That’s my business.”

His other business, of course, is Keel. And he’s now busy establishing the group as a versatile rock band. At least that’s what he tried with The Final Frontier (so named because he had always wanted to be an astronaut and still wants to go up in the shuttle. “I want to be the first rock musician in space,” he claims, seemingly unaware that some of us feel others

may have beaten him to the title). "There are songs on there that aren’t heavy metal, that defy classification. I think that people will realize that these songs come straight from the heart, even if they’re not all bone-crushing heavy metal. It’s an entertaining record. I hope it’s the kind of record that you can listen to three years from now and still enjoy. That’s the problem with a lot of heavy metal—it’s like fast food. You can only eat so much, and then you’re full. Heavy metal is like that. You’re so full of this hard aggressive music that you don’t want any more. You’ve got to be a little more diverse, to keep ’em interested, and the music excited. I’m in this for the long run. I want people to know that the Keel Quest is something that you can sink your teeth into for years and years.”

And, if major league success doesn’t happen with this band, Ron’II just start over. It’s that hippie optimism of his. It matches his hair.