Interview с Ross the Boss : DARKSIDE.ru

u used to play cover versions of Manowar songs. How did it happen that you got involved into Ross The Boss band?

It’s very funny and honestly it was very easy, because we started playing cover versions I think in 2000. We did it for four or five years and we actually wanted to stop, because Manowar didn’t do any new albums and we just said, “O’k. These were great five years, so we stop right now”. And about four weeks later we received the phone call from Oliver Weinsheimer – he is the organizer of Keep It True festival in Germany. He called us and said, “O’k, we want you to play at the festival.” And we said, “O’k, Keep It True is a great festival, we’re gonna play there”. “But you can leave your guitar player at all, we have a different guitar player for you. His name is Ross The Boss!” We said, “O’k! O’k, we’ll do it of course, because we wanna do that very much.” The reason was that a friend of us is a friend of Oli – so it was very easy. They sent Ross the demo tape and he said, ”Yeah, guys, it sounds great, let’s do it!”

You have another band Ivory Night which released already two albums. How much will your activity in Ross the Boss band affect another band of yours, . I don’t think that you have as much time as you used to have.

That’s a very good question! That’s one of the top questions for me so far. Actually I must say the whole thing that the Ross the Boss band is doing right now is mainly Ross is in New York, we are in Germany, there are a lot of e-mails things, a lot of organization things that we can do over the e-mail way. Actually as a band Ross the Boss band doesn’t play at all now. So right now I and other Ivory Night members meet as usual two or three times a week, we play concerts, we write songs for the third album which hopefully be out in February or March 2009. For nor everything is o’k, I have time for two bands. I have to work, of course. I don’t know how it’ll be later, but right now it’s no problem.

Do you think that contemporary modern young people need such a face-to-face heavy metal? Don’t you think that this music is for older generation?

Yeah, I would sa

y that contemporary young people don’t listen to heavy metal that much. It is right for Germany, but I don’t know about America, but I’d like to say that we played in Romania some time ago, and there were 12 thousand people there, very young people waiting for Judas Priest, really enjoying Ross The Boss show, really going crazy of Primal Fear – and all these bands are traditional heavy metal bands. So I think maybe in Germany it’s a little bit different, but in other countries really a lot of young people listen to face-to-face heavy metal as you said?

Who is the author of the songs on the new CD? Did you contribute anything to the debut album. What is the situation in the band in general – is there any distribution of duties, or there is only one boss – Ross The Boss?

(everybody laughs) No, I must say – I know it sounds strange – but this band is a real band. Ross would record some things on mp3s, and he gives us to listen to it via Internet, then he gives us the song titles and then we don’t do anything, we just wait until he is there. We drink a couple of beers, go into the rehearsal room and play everything. In the end the band works as a true band can work – just playing together. Ross wrote all the guitars on the album, except for one song “Immortal Son” which has been written by the bass player who is the bass player of Ivory Night as well. And I wrote most of the lyrics and melody lines except for one song which Ross and I did together, and two songs which had been written by other members. So everybody is welcome to contribute as much as he can. And every time Ross says, “Hey, do something”, I answer, “O’k, that’s good! Let’s do it this way!” So it’s very very easy, it’s very relaxed. It’s like we’ve known each other for many years and we know each other only for two years, but it’s all very very simple.

Do you think that people will percept this new band as a real band and not as a band of one of Manowar band members? Do you think one day you’ll be able to get rid of this shade of Manowar and to become a separate unit?

I think it’s very interesting, because the four of us, even Ross, say, “Hey, th

is is a real band”, and we really want it to be a band. And he wanted from the beginning it to be a band. He says, “of course, I could add some musicians, I could take a new singer, but I wanted a real band, and we’re a real band, that’s what you already are – a real band. You are friends for many years, we play together and the four of us will stay as a unit of course.” But when we did the interviews at a release party in Hamburg, and the Germans said, “Oh this is your backing band”, he said, “No, WE are a band”. Let’s say backing band or support band any stuff like this, and I know that journalists expect us to be as a hired gun, and I think that I lot of fans actually think the same, because you have the same David Shankle Group, another ex-guitar player of Manowar group. He’s got two albums and he has his third singer I think, and that’s the usual way things happen. But I hope that in our case it’s gonna be different. And when we are on stage, people can see that we are a real band and not a project, because everybody, each of us is doing the best job he can do. And I think when people see us live, they’ll understand that we are a real band, one unit. But I know that always there’s gonna to be a comparison with Manowar, because they are so old and so legendary and they’ve made so many great albums especially in the 80-s. Everybody would always know that Ross The Boss is always a symbol of Manowar, the legacy of Manowar, whatever you call it. It’s always gonna be this Manowar connection of course.

You sing in this band, you have your own band Ivory Night – and do you work somewhere else?

We have so many things to do within the band, so in this aspect I would say that music is quite enough. But I spend 40 hours a week for my regular job and I have two more bands, so I have pretty much work to do right now. But I can say that with the beginning of August I reduced my work to four days a week, from five days to four days, and step by step I think I’ll be able to cut the work down and maybe live totally from music, I don’t know for now. Because you anyway have to live and you have to compromise. And in the band we don’t do it only for t

he money. We always do it for the music. And I think that’s a good thing.

What song off the debut album wad the most difficult in terms of recording and why?

Oh, it’s an interesting thing. First of all I would say that these are the two epic things - “Immortal Son” and “God Of Dying”, because they have the eight string bass guitar, and it’s very difficult to play, but it sounds very good. It’s very difficult to play two strings at a time and there is always a danger that it sounds a little bit out of tune. These epic songs acquire very much art work, there are a lot of keyboard arrangements, and very very much quires on the album, a lot of keyboard quires. We spent many hours in the studio doing one line, then another and stuff like this. But I think it’s not really difficult, because we play the way we like it, but of course it was hard work.

As far as Manowar is concrned. There is an Italian band called Nanowar. Maybe you’ve heard about these guys…

Yeah, I’ve heard about them, yeah!

Have you had a chance to hear their albums and what do you think of such parody and mockery at the “gods of metal”?

I haven’t heard the album, but I’ve listened to a lot of clips on YouTube, a sort of playing live, and I think they are quite funny of course, ;like a parody, and musically wise the are not really bad. They really can play, they really can sing, and they really can entertain the people. So I personally think it’s not bad. I don’t have problems with the parody, because parodies are made around great personalities. Nobody makes parodies to the bands that nobody knows. So I think it’s a great thing. I don’t have any problems with that.

And maybe you know – what’s Ross the Boss’s attitude to such a tribute?

I really don’t know, but now I will definitely ask him! (laughs) I don’t know, if he knows them, but I think he knows them. But I think “The Power of the Power of the Power...” isn’t bad, is it?

No, it isn’t! I love this ”longest metal hymn in the history of heavy metal”! (everybody laughs)

Yeah!! And I know that Joey DeMaio

is very serious about what he is doing and about himself, especially on stage, but Ross the Boss is not the same. He is always laughing, he is always having fun on stage, talking jokes and I think he would like Nanowar!

Why did you finally chose AFM Records? Did you get other offers?

It was very easy, we didn’t look for a label. We just did a demo CD of two songs, we recorded the demo and sent it to AFM Records, or actually Oliver Weinsheimer gave it to AFM. And he said, “AFM would be the best company for you, they really believe in the music of the bands, which is not typical today, because usually they believe in the money that the bands can make.” I personally said, “AFM would be the best thing, because first of all they are in Germany, very close, if there are any problems, it’s not a long way to go. Moreover they have bands like Pain, U.D.O., Doro – actually a lot of bands that everybody knows in Germany and in Europe.” So I said, AFM sounds great! And to be honest, I’ve never heard anything bad about them and usually you know at least something bad about a record company. We just gave them our demo, and we didn’t give it to any other company. We just said, let’s try AFM, and they said, “O’k, let’s do it.”

Playing in a cover band, I think you happened to play in rather small venous like clubs or bars with a lot of drunk people. I know that sometimes the most die hard fans (especially drunk) of the bands you play cover to, react inadequately to cover bands. And have you ever faced such attitude to you from the side of such people?

Yeah, actually it usually happen. I remember one concert in a club somewhere between Norway and Germany. It’s funny – the club was extremely professional, very large, there were about thirty people, I don’t know. And we were there as Manowar cover band, and we played there, but one thing was wrong and we wondered – people were very strange, none of them had long hair, all of them were with short hair, or better some of them had no hair at all. And when they got drunk they began demanding some dancing stuff, like Screwdriver, some nutty dance, I don’t know. I don’t know, but

somebody told them that we were a very very very natty band, almost stupid. (laughs) We began to explain to them, that we are Manowar cover band and we don’t play anything different (laughs), and then one large guy came to us and brought us Jack Daniel's – I don’t remember, but some strong kind of alcohol, and I don’t drink alcohol at all. And I thought, “Oh, God, what should I do?!” I drive, I have my car outside and if I drink I would not drive any more, but if I don’t drink – maybe he’s gonna kill me! (laughs) And I did some trick with the drummer, I went behind him, and threw it away, whatever it was. And when we played the last song, I just said, “O’k, let’s go to the car quickly and leave!!” (cracks)

Entering Ross The Boss band you made a great step forward in your career. What step are you going to make next? Maybe you have some plans to collaborate with some band for a tour?

I hope so, yeah. Actually with Ivory Night we’ve been playing for about ten years. And every year we said, “O’k, this is a successful year, because this year we did several thing better when we did last year.” Those were small steps, but still every year we stepped a little bit higher. The same is now with Ross, we said that the first thing is to have for example two managers, then a label, then a booking company – whatever, and the next thing that we should do is to play a long tour for the album. So every time we step a little further. We don’t know where we can play, but we said we wanna play everywhere, because one of the best things that you can do is to meet the people, to communicate with them. So the said, “Let’s have concerts, as many as possible. Maybe Ross The Boss is gonna be the headliner, maybe Ross The Boss will be a support band or special guest or the single band which would be the best thing that could happen.” We would like to play with Shakra maybe, because I think that Shakra is a great band and they have a lot of followers. But I think that we should go as far as possible and we have to work as much as possible. And that’s what I wanna do.

What are the so-called global problems that worry you the most of the day? How ofte

n do you think about what’s going on in this world? If you knew people would really listen to youwhat would you advise them all?

It’s a top question. I think everybody worries about such problems every day and I think money is one of the major problems. People work a lot and usually people don’t have much money, everybody has problems and looks whether he can just save the money, people use less money on good food and buy bad food, because it is less expensive than the good one, but in the end it may cost health problems. Money is the global problem, why for example the USA is right? Only because of the money. And when you go down in the countries like Arabia that has very different beliefs, but they also think that they are right. I don’t think that it’s gonna be war, but everybody knows that there is great danger for war, and I don’t want a war anywhere. These are problems that I worry about. And in the end the planet is going down, because of the environment. And if I were to say something to the people of the world I would say, “Don’t go out in fight and try to escape wars. Don’t fight – better talk about it”. Maybe it’s a little childish, but I think it’s the only way to move anything.

Are there any countries you wanted to play in, but couldn’t because of some ideological reasons or a difficult political situation?

Of course it wouldn’t be possible to play in countries like Iraq right now maybe, South Africa is always a little bit dangerous, but in the end I wouldn’t have any problems to go anywhere. As long as we know that there are no current crises or current war I wouldn’t have problems to play anywhere, because I play right for the people and only to the people, and this is beautiful and I would never have a problem like this.

There is a kind of motto for modern rock musicians “sex, drug and rock’n’roll”. Do you think that it’s like some kind of PR for these musicians or rather a real motto of their life?

I think it still exists, yeah. I can only say that nobody in our two bands takes drugs. Some of them smoke, yes, and this is the only thing. They don’t even smoke marihuana, just ci

garettes. Of course they all drink alcohol, except for me, but as far as the drug side is concerned, no – they are really nice guys. But in the end “sex, drugs and rock’n’roll” was very popular in the 60-s, but today I don’t think so. And having sex with many different people in the world … well we all know that we’re gonna have some problems after all, you understand me (laughs). And the bands today focus more on the business side and on the playing side and don’t have as much free time on all this stuff. But I think the motto is alive of course.

I just said that you don’t drink alcoholic drinks at all. Why is that? Not even a glass of wine or a bottle of beer?

I really tried a lot of alcohol, but in the end I didn’t like the taste of it. I don’t like the taste of alcohol – I don’t like wine, I don’t like beer, I don’t like other things for which I don’t even know the English word (laughs). So I tried, but I don’t drink any alcohol.

So you don’t have to restrict yourself in alcohol before the show as many musicians have to do in order to keep their voice in a good shape.

Yeah! And I don’t have any secrets of saving my voice, I pnly learned how to sing. I’ve been having vocal lessons for two and a half years now and I really can say that it changes everything. I used to have a lot of problems some years ago when first we played two shows a month and then suddenly we began playing two shows in two days. I really had to change the way that I sing. I was training how to sing in the right way – you just need some warm up, and at the end of the concert, when the concert is done you do some exercises to calm your voice down. It’s the only thing I think. There are always things like this. And you should always keep practicing every day. And if you do that -it’s ok. Just don’t talk too much, don’t go to the rooms where people smoke too much, maybe don’t drink alcohol – some people drink milk and honey as Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden does. So there’re a lot of different opinions, but I think in the end you have to sing in a professional way, and then there is no problem.

And what do you in some

unpredicted and unexpected cases on stage? For instance when somebody begins to hiccup…

I think we just don’t think about such things. We once played in Romania and there used to be a very funny thing, because Ross wanted me to play the introduction on the keyboards for our new song “We Will Kill”. I said, “o’k”. I don’t like the keyboards too much on stage, I’m not a piano player, but I said, “o’k, I will do it.” And I play guitar on this song as well. We have two guitars on that song, and so I picked up my guitar, plugged in the cords, and I suddenly remembered, “Oh, the keyboards!” And I jumped to the left of the stage, but the cord was too short! (laughs) And I nearly tore down the amplifiers. It must have looked very unprofessional (everybody laughs) And in the end I couldn’t go as far as the keyboard was, and so I walked to the microphone and began to count the rhythm “one, two, three, four” and we started paly. We just improvised, because it always happen. A lot of bands practice every detail and then they don’t have as much trouble that can happen except for maybe technical difficulties, but in the end we are very spontaneous on stage and if something happens we just do something else. So it’s no problem.

What human qualities do you appreciate in a person you communicate with?

Oh! I think I have to think about it. A very good question. In the end I think it’s honesty, maybe humor, I like people who are very positive, that really want to laugh the whole day long, and not sit the whole day thinking, “Oh, how can I go farther?” I like just funny people, positive people – these are the qualities that I really like about people.

And what kinds of women do you prefer? Which trades of character, appearance?

In women? Heh! Long hair!

A lot of girls have long hair!

Yeah, but a lot of these girls cut them down. I don’t like it. And of course it’s always about the character of people, that you read in the magazines. When you see somebody is very good looking, of course it’s a natural, effectual, but in the end when you like together with somebody for many years you really have to get alone, it’s like in a band. Of course there are people who can play the hell on the instruments, but in a couple of years his band mates say, ”Hey! Let’s get this mother fucker out if the band!”, because he is just impossible in communication, in some human things. I think you need to talk for about two or three sentences with a person to understand, “Hey! This person is cool!” And then you know it’s a great one.

This summer Manowar made a kind of record, they played five or six hours at one festival. Wanna to repeat this record?

I must say right now that I don’t want to repeat this record. It was at Magic Circus (Germany) if I remember – the thing is that the band Manowar is a very big and famous one, and they always have to do something that is bigger than the last year’s performance. Last year they played about two or three hours, and they played of course a lot of old things, and a lot of new things, and they had those burning bridges on the stage and this year they had to do something bigger of course. O’k, they wanted to play their first 6 albums, the only albums that Manowar played with Ross The Boss, and I think they played them in the order in which they are in the record. I don’t know. And I think it’s not about saying, “Hey, it would be great to play six albums running!”. I think it’s more like, “We should to play six hours to attract more people”, and that’s maybe not the thing that I wanna do.

All children have dreams, what have you dreamed of?

Oh, you know when I was a child I wanted to be a man who is driving the train as almost all the boys! But I think some years later I discovered music very early, and while a lot of my friends of those times listened to some children songs about weather and stuff like this, I already started listening to Whitesnake, Queen. So I really really early discovered the wish to be a professional musician. I don’t know why, but I really had it. I always said, “I’m gonna be a singer! I AM a singer!” I don’t know why, but I really thought so. I can really say that there’s no compromise, I’m very happy about the way things happened, and I’m really really happy, because it was a dream, it has always been a dream, and I think it’s always gonna be my dream to do that.

You first concert that you visit and the first band you listened to?

The first band I myself first listened to must have been Queen I think, and shortly followed Billy Idol. And the first concert I ever visited was Billy Idol in Manheim (Germany) on the 15th December 1990 and I remember that it was really really great, because at that point of time I was one of the youngest people that I know that have been on that concert. It was really strange. And when I saw it, I said, “Oh, my God, this is really magic”. He had those huge puppets on stage, and the whole show was wonderful.

Thank you for the interview and good luck!

Thank you, it was a pleasure to talk to you, and I hope one day we’ll play in your region. So see you soon!! Thank you so much!

Interview by Ksenia “Wolfin” Khorina
20 ноя 2008 the End


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