JR: The last time we talked you were working on the next Johnny Lokke cd, then Scot (Goacher, drums) had an accident and you got sidetracked. Give me a brief rundown on what happened.
JL: Yeah, Scot and I had a good run with "Wrecking Ball", and we were about 6 songs into the next cd when he decided to go and break his hip! He had 3 big screws put in to hold it together and was confined to his bed for a long while. Needless to say that threw us into a standstill. Worse than that, though, was the fact that as a full-time drummer, Scot was losing a lot of income. I decided to put together a benefit cd of sorts, which became the "The New Breed - Bound by the Thread" cd, which featured friends of mine and Scot's that wanted to help out such as Stefan Leibing of Primal Fear, Al Atkins, who sang with Judas Priest pre-Rob Halford, Mike Campese, and Chris "WahWah" Watson who are both great guitarists. We raised some money for Scot and his wife, and had a blast doing it.
JR: You must have, as you are getting ready to release another New Breed cd.
JL: I am. It's called "Evolution" and once again I have friends helping out such as Tim White (ex-Future's Child) on bass and Solomon DeWitt on drums. Also contributing four guitar solos to the project is Robban Olsson, who is an awesome guitar player out of Sweden. He has a completely different style than me and he just rips.
JR: Why didn't you finish up the Johnny Lokke cd first, and then do another New Breed cd, or why not combine the two into one solo release?
JL: For one thing, the songs I write for The New Breed stuff are different than what I write when Scot and I play together. The New Breed stuff is more straight ahead "American" metal like a Dio or WASP with a little Black Label Society thrown in for good measure, whereas what Scot and I do is more "Euro-metal" in the Maiden / Priest style with the harmony guitars and the high, screaming vocals. They wouldn't really fit together. Secondly, Scot wasn't ready to record yet. He was still doing some serious rehab work and getting back into his teaching, but to ask him to sit down and start doing 5 minute double-kick songs just wouldn't have been possible. We recorded a few things just to test the waters, and although it sounded killer to me, he said he wasn't quite up to speed yet. So while he was exercising and getting his chops back, I decided to do another TNB cd and kill some time with that.
JR: So the next solo record is still underway?
JL: Oh definitely. I'm doing some PR things for "Evolution" and enjoying Christmas, then we'll start back up and have something ready to go for late spring or early summer. The new Lokke songs are fast and heavy, by the way, really killer stuff. I think with Scot being held back for so long, he is just going to kill when it's time to turn loose on the new stuff.
JR: Tell me about "Evolution".
JL: Well, it has a lot of songs that start with the letter B (laughs). Not sure why that is, but it just happened. It's a pretty good mix of songs really. It's got some up-tempo stuff, some mid-tempo crunchers, and then the lead off single "Back to Black" is a slow vibe. It has that 90's Tony Martin-era Sabbath feel. I didn't expect to have it be the lead off single, but it's the song that everyone went "I can't get that out of my head!" and it was my favorite too, so I just picked it. The other thing is the overall feel of the cd. It has a lot of energy to it that the last one didn't. It's really the closest you can come to a live cd without actually doing one. The rule was that if the song had the vibe and the energy, it was a keeper. It didn't matter if there were missed strings, or a flat note here or there, we weren't going to work it to death, and it really comes across. The songs also have different sounds to them. Microphones got kicked over, or I changed amp settings, just stuff I never do when I'm working on a solo project, but stuff I always think about trying, so it's a great outlet for me.
JR: And you mentioned a new cast of characters involved as well?
JL: Yeah, a whole new group on this cd. Again, it's fun for me to mix things up and work with other people for a change, so The New Breed will always be a revolving door. Tim, Soloman and Robban were absolutely fantastic to work with though. The only thing I missed was having Stefan Leibing on there. He's worked with me on my last two releases, and when he plays on a song it's just magical. He is such a great guitarist as well as one of the nicest people. I hope someday he gets the recognition he deserves, because he is light years ahead of 99 percent of the players out there right now.
JR: Did you ask him to be a part of "Evolution"?
JL: No, I knew he was busy. I talked to him a few times and he was doing the new Primal Fear cd and touring plus trying to be a great new father, so I didn't even put him on the spot. He had enough on his platter without helping me out too.
JR: Speaking of other bands, what are you listening to right now?
JL: There is so much crap being released right now that I cherish a good cd when it comes out, but it's few and far between. I picked up "Rapture of the Deep" by Deep Purple the other day, and it's very good. In my car stereo is the new TNT release "All the Way to the Sun", and I loved the Helloween release "Keeper of the Seven Keys III - The Legacy". I'm not sure I would have lumped it in with the other two "Keepers", but it is a very good cd. Primal Fear's "Seven Seals" is excellent, as is the new UFO live cd "Showtime" with Vinnie Moore doing some amazing things. Others include Machine Men "Elegies", Jon Oliva's Pain, Saxon's "Lionheart", and Tribuzy "Execution". Other than that I stick to a lot of old classics by Maiden, Priest, Sabbath and the like.
JR: Do you think the overall metal movement is coming back around in the states?
JL: I hear that all the time."It's coming back, it's coming back!" but you know what? It isn't. Maybe someday it will, but right now it just isn't. There are loyal diehard fans out there that love metal music, old school metal music I'm talking, not the new crap that they call metal with the growling and no guitar solo's, and they keep it alive. They support both the old classic bands and the independents like me. I'm one of those people myself. I love to find stuff by new bands that do metal proud. Just like I mentioned a little bit ago, the German band Machine Men. A guy that was interviewing me told me about them, so I looked them up and ordered a cd, and they are great. The hard part is that most bands in our genre are based overseas, and getting their stuff is hard. People don't like paying 25 or 30 dollars for a cd by an established band, let alone band they haven't heard. I'm the same way. That's why with my stuff, I do free shipping, whether it's to Georgia or Japan. I want people to be able to hear my music wherever they are. Sometimes I make some good money, sometimes I lose money, but it's cool getting an e-mail a couple days later from someone in Hong Kong or Denmark or wherever telling you how much they like what you are doing. I've made some really good friends over the years through my music, and wouldn't change it for the world.
JR: So does that make the digital download wave like Itunes appealing to you? Will that make it easier and more profitable to get your music out?
JL: First of all, profit should never be the motivator in art. They don't mix. Gene Simmons will argue until he's blue in the face, but he's wrong. 99 percent of the artists I know, whether it's music, painting or whatever, they will tell you as long as they make enough money to keep doing what they are doing, it's all good. The one percent that try to make the fast buck and get rich quick are here today and gone tomorrow. They don't survive, and that's good. That's how it should be. So are digital downloads good? Yes and no. I like the fact that someone can listen to a clip of my music 24 hours a day anywhere in the world and decide if they like it or not before they drop ten bucks on the cd. On the negative side, I don't like the fact that you don't get anything tangible for your money other than an mp3 file. I like buying a cd. I like the anticipation as I open the cellophane, I like checking out the disc art, and I like looking through the booklet. I like the whole package and I think it adds to the music. Nowadays, you pay your 99 cents, download a song and file it away on your hard drive. Where's the art in that? Plus a lot of mp3's sound like crap. People are just getting used to it, but if they took all their mp3's and listened to them back to back with the cd, they would be shocked at the quality difference overall. My stuff is on all the big download sites, and I make more money when someone just downloads a track from me, but I wish they wouldn't. If you want to do one or two songs to check me out, fine. But if you are doing the whole cd, buy the real thing and get the whole package.
JR: That's interesting, I had never really thought of it like that.
JL: Most people don't, but the whole download thing is really just a way for the music industry, the guys in the offices, to make more money. It's so much cheaper for them to throw a low-quality mp3 out on a download site than to invest money on a nice complete package.
JR: So let's move from legal downloading to illegal downloading. Where do you stand on that?
JL: It doesn't really affect me as an individual, but it does affect the music community as a whole. It hits the mid-level artist the hardest. Artists like me who have a small but established loyal fanbase aren't really downloaded much. My fans talk to me on a regular basis and buy the product when it comes out, enabling me to then turn around and re-invest that money into another release, and I'm ok. Same with the mega-stars. They are downloaded left and right, but still have enough of a fanbase that buys their music and tickets to their shows that they make a bundle no matter what. Do they want more? Sure they do.they want every penny, or at least their record labels do. The ones file-sharing really hits hard are the artists that have decided to break out of the "underground" and want to take it to that next level. They are using every bit of money they get from cd sales to stay on the road and put food on the table, because they aren't getting much help from the labels. Every time someone takes a song from them instead of buying it, they are literally helping to put that band out of business, which is very sad. What kills me though is how the musicians are complaining about all of this without taking any of the blame. So much junky music is released now, so many cd's that have one or two good songs, that people don't really care if the band lives to put out another release. The people I talk to that download, and I have this conversation a lot with people being a musician, they tell me that they wouldn't buy a lot of the music they download anyway. They download it, listen to it and realize it's a load of crap, then forget about it. If musicians would put more effort into what they write and what they record, they would survive. The strong survive, whether it's in the desert or in the music industry. Put out strong material and people are going to support you. So musicians need to be more proactive and make sure they are releasing strong material, then give people samples of the whole cd so they can make an objective decision without having to go find an illegal download site somewhere. It would also be nice if they offered money back guarantees. I do. People I talk to about that say "Oh I couldn't do that. People would buy my cd, record it and send it back and get their money back." That's BS. I've offered a no questions asked money-back guarantee on all my releases for 15 years now, and you know how many refunds I've given? Zero. I'd sure like Metallica to give me my 15 bucks back for St. Anger, though!
JR: Well Johnny, it's been informative and enjoyable. I want to thank you for talking with me, and good luck with "Evolution".
JL: Thank you, and a Merry Christmas and safe New Year to you and all the folks reading this.