The fire still burns... The Starr still shines!
Jack Starr shines again in the new Burning Starr album called "Land Of The Dead". Everyone should check this album and Crystal Logic talks with Jack about the album and very interesting tales from the past of this great musician.
Congratulations for “Land Of The Dead”! This is an
amazing album and probably my favorite one for 2011. So, what are you doing these days?
Thanks Andreas and the readers of Crystal Logic to
give me a chance to talk about our new album. As far as what I am doing these
days, I am working on new material with the same line-up
that I have done the last two Burning Starr albums with and for me and the
other musicians in the band, it is a time of great growth and rejuvenation .We
are all very pleased with the reaction to “Land of the Dead” which is fast
becoming the most successful in the history of our band. It is amazing that
some people like yourself, are telling us that LOTD is one of their favorite
albums of the year. This is what we hoped when we were making this album that
it would be strong enough to become a favorite album and not to be forgotten
because in 2012 there are so many heavy metal albums that are released almost
everyday that it becomes more and more difficult to stand out and be noticed
and we are extremely grateful that this album is making a lot of friends in the
world of metal.
Tell us a few things about the creation of “Land Of The Dead”
and what have you done since 2009’s “Defiance”.
The creation of “Land of the Dead” was a long and
difficult process that involved eight different recording studios, many remixes
and the re-recording of the album twice as well as remixing the album several
times. We are very happy that our record company Limb Music did not lose hope
with us and stayed by our side and also the album could not have been finished
without the help of our producer Bart Gabriel who was able to take all the
different parts and blend them into a cohesive and excellent sounding album.
Since “Defiance” came out in 2009, I have been
rehearsing and writing songs with Ned Meloni the bass player of Burning
Starr and we have been in close contact with Todd Micheal Hall the singer who
has been contributing lyrics and melodies to the new material ,and also we are
pleased that Rhino the drummer has moved to Florida making it easier for us all
to get together and play. It truly is an honor for Rhino to be in our
band. The brilliant drumming that he did with Manowar is remembered with great
love and respect by legions of metal fans through out the world and now we
are very pleased that he has brought his considerable talents to Burning
Starr and helped make “Land of the Dead” a great album.
Let’s go back in time. What do you remember from your cooperation with legendary singer Rhett Forrester back in 1984 for “Out Of The Darkness” album.
Let’s go back in time. What do you remember from your cooperation with legendary singer Rhett Forrester back in 1984 for “Out Of The Darkness” album.
I remember Rhett Forrester like it was yesterday.
First of all we began by talking on the phone and getting to know each other
and it was strange because Rhett and I are very different people and we had to
learn to trust each other. I remember one day playing a song on the phone to
Rhett, the song was called “Concrete Warrior” and when I finished playing
it, Rhett said "Jack ,you must have wrote that song for me because I am a
Concrete Warrior and when I walk in the streets of New York City I fear
nobody". I though that it was great that Rhett was making the songs come
alive and I even wrote “Wild in the Streets” for Rhett because it was crazy
hanging out with him, it seemed that women and trouble followed him wherever he
went. In 1984, I invited Rhett to live in my house on Long Island it was during
the summer and my ex wife had gone back to France to visit her family and I
thought that I could practice a lot and write songs with Rhett but little did I
know that Rhett had other plans which included a lot of drinking and partying
and different beautiful woman coming to the house everynight. It
was a time that I will never forget, Rhett was like the “blond god”
in the movie “Almost Famous” and it was hard not to envy him but at the
same time I was so proud that he was in my band.
When we got to the studio for the first day
of the vocals for “Out of the Darkness”, Rhett showed up late with a
bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand and a couple of words that he had written on
a napkin, he turned to the engineer and said “I am ready and make sure
that you are ready because I don't like to re sing the same song twice” and he
was right because most of the songs were done in one take and when the church
choir came in to sing the backups on the song “False Messiah”, Rhett
looked at me and said “this song makes me feel good because it's calling out to
God”. Later Rhett told me that he loved Elvis and that some of the best
songs of Elvis were his Gospel songs because they were the most sincere and
spiritual. Rhett, like Elvis, was a southern boy that could be wild
and tough like his song “Hard Loving Man” but he could also be sensitive
and reflective. It was a great honor working with Rhett Forester. RIP.
Take us back to your early days with Devil Childe and Phantom Lord and share with us a few memories from that period…
Take us back to your early days with Devil Childe and Phantom Lord and share with us a few memories from that period…
The albums Devil Childe and Phantom Lord have very
interesting stories When Burning Starr use to rehearse in the studio, sometimes
we would like to start the rehearsal with playing thrash music for fun, and I
would like to play the song “Ace of Spades” by Motorhead and it would make us
all smile because the song was so fast and hard. At that time Burning Starr had
the great drumming of Joe Hasselvander who had a very wide musical taste
and he could play this music with a lot of fire and passion as also Ned
Meloni the bass player, so what started almost as a joke became a reality
because we realized that we loved this kind of music and so I went to the boss
of the label that we were on and said I wanted to make a thrash record. He
thought I was crazy because it was so different than the metal of Virgin Steele
but he said yes and we made the first Phantom Lord record in two days! Some of
the songs were written in the studio a few minutes before they were re-recorded
it was very cool.
The owner of the label was so happy he asked us to
make some more albums and Devil Childe was born and now more than thirty years
later it is amazing that people still love these albums.
Albums like “No Turning Back” and “Blaze Of Glory” are
among my favorites. They are powerful and melodic, with amazing riffs and
solos. Plus, there is the unique voice of Mike Tirelli. I don’t think you would
have done better if you had stayed with Virgin Steele...
Mike Tirelli was also an amazing singer like my singer
now, Todd Micheal Hall. Both of them have very powerful voices and perfect pitch.
I found Mike when I walked into a club on Long Island
and heard him sing “Heaven and Hell” by Black Sabbath. My mouth dropped open
because he looked so young and yet he sang with so much maturity ,I had to meet
him so after the set I walked up to him and introduced myself and he said I
know who you are Jack and I am a big fan of Virgin Steele and I love your
singer David DeFeis. I told him thank you but that I was no longer in Virgin Steele
and I needed a singer. Mike looked at me and said “I don't know if I am ready
to be compared to someone like Dave” and I told him that I thought he was great
and that he had his own style plus that if he could sing like Dio than he could
do anything he wanted.
I had to finish some projects and contracts that I had
but two years later, I called him and I said “Mike are you ready because I want
to make some Heavy Metal history”. He laughed and said “I will do the best I
can” and we made four albums together. “No Turning Back” which was produced by
Dave DeFeis and then “Blaze of Glory” which I produced and then the Orange album and lastly in 1991, Mike and I recorded an
album called Strider. We did not call this one Burning Starr because the band
had already broken up and only Mike and I were featured on it, but it had some
great songs on it including the last complete Burning Starr song called “Under
the Influence”.
In the 90s you were lost somehow. We’ve shared a few
thoughts about the difficulty of being a heavy metal musician in United States
during that period, but where were you back then?
Heavy Metal music in the nineties was very forgotten
in America.
It seemed that no one was playing it and the clubs that featured it were now
closed or doing another type of music. The big new trend was coming from Seattle and it was called
Grunge and they did not have guitar solos or great musicians and I personally
did not like it. I had a band at that time with the bass player of Foghat who
had been a very successful band in America selling over twenty million
albums and now their bass player Craig MacGregor was playing with me and my old
singer David DeFeis on lead vocals. We were called Smoke Stack Lightning and we
were a very good band but the labels were not interested in us because we were
not part of the Grunge movement, so after that I became disillusioned and
started to play blues and classic rock and was happy to play in small clubs
.During that period I had several female singers and one project we were able
to have Bobby Rondinelli play drums with us It was cool working with Bobby
because he was such a great player and had many cool stories to share with me
of his time in Rainbow and Black Sabbath. He was actually the second
drummer of Rainbow that I have played with the first was Gary Driscoll who was
on the first Rainbow album and played on “Out of the Darkness” alongside
Burning Starr's bass player Ned Meloni. I will always remember what Gary
Driscoll told me one day “Jack I have played with a lot of great guitarists in
my life including legends like Ritchie Blackmore, but I think your playing is right
up there with any of them” and he told me to never give up and that is what I
am doing because I love making good music and I will keep doing it as long
as I can.
“Under A Savage Sky” was released in 2003 from
Greek-based Cult Metal Classics Records under the band name Guardians Of The
Flame. For me, this is among your best releases and it also includes a couple
of songs written in 1997 at your Reunion of Steel with David DeFeis. The tracks
you wrote together back then were split in Virgin Steele’s “Book Of Burning”
album and “Under A Savage Sky”. How did you joined each other before that and
what happened and you didn’t work together at last?
Thank you for the compliment. I agree that “Under a
Savage Sky” was one of the best releases that I have done and both Ned and I
are very proud of this album which was the start of us getting back together in
2002, I was very happy with the great work that Cult Metal Classics did for us
and they were responsible for helping us make a comeback because they signed us
back when many people would say “Jack Starr is he still around, can he still
play” etc. I had not made an album in
ten years but I had made some demos on a very small budget with my good friend
Chris Collins who some of you may remember as the singer of Majesty the band
that would become Dream Theater. The quality of the demo was not good
but despite that, Cult Metal Classics said that they heard the potential
and would sign me and it is thanks to them that I have returned to
the world of metal, so I can say that I owe a big debt to CMC and my Greek
heavy metal brothers and sisters.
A couple of years after Guardians Of The Flame you
came up again to Burning Starr. What did you do those years?
I play gigs and mainly recorded as well as writing
songs for the “Defiance” album, it was Joey DeMaio's idea to go back to the
name Burning Starr. One day he called us and said we should go back to the name
Burning Starr because we had created a lot of good will with that name and that
the old albums are still remembered so we should be proud of who we are. I
think that he was right and now we needed to make sure that the new albums
would be as good as the classic albums like “No Turning Back” and “Blaze of
Glory”. I knew that this would be difficult but when we all heard Todd Micheal
Hall for the first time in 2004 we were sure that the singing would be just as
good. Now with the addition of the great Rhino on drums we have great drumming
as well as Ned Meloni's very tasteful and precise bass playing. In fact, in the
last few years Ned's songwriting has become more predominant and I am thrilled
that he has been bringing great songs to the table like “Warning Fire” and “When
Blood and Steel Collide” as well as co-writing with me.
So, as Jack Starr’s Burning Starr you released “Defiance” through Magic
Circle Music. How was your cooperation with Joey DeMaio?
Like any relationship, there is good and there is bad
and our time with Magic Circle
was no different but we choose to remember the good times and the big step
forward that we took by coming to Europe to
play the Magic Circle Festivals in 2008 and 2009. Also we learned a lot by
working in the studio with Joey DeMaio who is very strict and very demanding
and actually this prepared us for working with Bart Gabriel who is also very
hard to please. So I can honestly say that the saying “what does not kill us,
makes us stronger” is true. We have learned to give 100 percent and to not be
satisfied with a guitar solo or vocal melody or a bass intro that is not the
best that can be done. When we record, we have very high standards and some of
the solos I had to redo ten times to please Ned and Rhino who would sometimes
hear a wrong note that I did not even hear!
Rhino is also very hard on himself even though I did
not hear one mistake but he was not satisfied and kept redoing tracks
until he said “okay I am done with the drums”. I did not think that it would be
possible to play better but Rhino did it and as far as I am concerned, Rhino is
one of the top five drummers in heavy metal today.
And now, a new album is out from another record label.
For me, “Land Of The Dead” is among the best releases of
the last years. The “Jack Starr” trademark sound is here, Ned Meloni and Rhino
are a great rhythm section and Todd Michael Hall’s voice is outstanding. What
is the response of fans and press so far?
The response of the press and the fans has been
incredible and this album is only our for one month. I am sure that it will be
the biggest selling album in Burning Starr history and will open many doors for
us. I think that the secret is that everyone is playing without any
restrictions. It's like when Bart Gabriel, the producer, told me “Jack, I
love the old Burning Starr albums. I want you to play with the same passion and
fire as before, but I want to make the album so well produced that it can also
appeal to the new generation of metal fans who are use to high standards of
production”. And this is what Bart did, he took the classic Burning Starr sound
and updated it so that a new generation can appreciate it.
The album is released through Limb Music, produced by
Bart Gabriel and you are also managed from him. How easy or difficult is to
work with a European partner? Do you think that Europe is the best market for
Heavy Metal and how are things nowadays in USA for traditional metal?
Right now Europe is the best place for metal but I
think that South America will continue to grow and maybe one day metal will
come back to the U.S.
We love working with Limb and they seem to really understand the kind of music
we are making and Limb personally is very knowledgeable and loves power metal.
He can be trusted to give an intelligent opinion and sound advice and that is
what he has done and also the manufacture of “Land of the Dead” is great and it
comes with a 16 page booklet with pictures and lyrics and it really is a
beautiful package, so we are very proud that Limb has made such a great album
presentation for us.
Which are your plans for live shows in 2012?
Our plans for the year
2012 are to come to Europe and of course Greece. Our new manager, Bart
Gabriel, is talking to promoters and there is interest in Burning Starr to come
to Europe and I believe and I am sure that
this will happen. In closing, I want to tell all my friends in Greece that we
will be coming and we hope to see them at the shows and share a drink together.
Keep the Metal burning!
Jack Starr, January 2012
