Some bands deserve a to be the subject of a documentary because of the status they have achieved within a cutthroat industry where only the strong or insanely dedicated survive; others because they have a story to tell that defies both logic and reason. Bang Tango don’t really fall into either of those categories.
In those pre-internet and social media days Bang Tango was always the type of band that were easy to overlook, so easily lumped in, when they were at their peak, with scores of others, into the LA Sunset Strip Scene of the late eighties: a scene they geographically fitted into, though musically they hardly fitted at all. It was hard to tell of course when all you had were the magazines to read.
Bang Tango had so much more then: a band that even now is often misappropriated into convenient Genre-labels like ‘Hair Metal’ or ‘Glam’ or ‘Sleaze’. Some of us of course always knew, always believed… Man you just have to hear them to know that they were something special!
Drew Fortier’s documentary will hopefully redress that and at the same time allow the faithful to look knowingly at each other, and maybe even mouth ‘I told you so’.
‘Attack of Life: The Bang Tango Movie’ though is so much more than that; it’s a story with so many crazy elements at play: a group of insanely talented individuals cast into a melting pot of label disinterest, clashing personalities, initial highs and slowly building lows, but always great music. The story has it all from searing enthusiasm and packed out clubs, monumental songs and great albums all the way to through to car crashes, no-shows at gigs and afternoon slots in empty amphitheatres; but more than that too. And through it all despite everything there’s the struggle of one man to keep putting one foot in front of the other, with a self-belief that would put Anvil to shame.
The documentary mixes rare live footage and interviews with the band, past and present, as well as musical contemporaries and fans alike to create a compelling story that both makes you wonder why these guys weren’t huge and at the same time lays out the reasons why they weren’t. Introduced by Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider it’s a ride that you can’t take your eyes off as it charts the history of the band to date taking in all the twists, turns and bumps along the way.
Rather than spoil it all for you though here at The Rockpit we were lucky enough to have been part of the evolution of the movie, we’ve not only seen all those trailers(!); we’ve been lucky enough to have also seen a few ‘directors cuts’ during the incubation process. A few weeks ago when the final cut landed we loved it and we know that whatever your flavour of Rock and Roll you will love the journey too. Whatever happened to the 97% of Rock bands signed in the 80’s that didn’t make it? – this is the story of one of them!
We’ll be catching up with members of Bang Tango old and new over the next few months as the movie gets ready to roll, but first up there was only one thing to do – talk to the film-maker himself Drew Fortier…
Mark: Hey Drew, I guess the first question is why Bang Tango?
Drew: Bang Tango is a band if brought up in a music discussion, people would normally go, “Oh yeah, I remember Bang Tango… Someone Like You… cool glam/hair metal band”. But in reality, as told in the film, they were much more than just a cool glam/hair metal band. They were their own entity, they had their own look, their own style, and they are all extremely talented collectively as well as individually. What I would really like to accomplish with this film is to really have Bang Tango shown in the proper light they deserve. As you’ve seen in the film, it shows off they’re diversity and talents as musicians, but the real heart of the film is the story.
Mark: What is so compelling about the story of Bang Tango in particular?
Drew: Everybody’s mindset throughout the film is fascinating. The types of personalities, multiple personalities, and characters that these guys are. The way everything unfolds with these characters etc. It truly does play out like a movie, which I think is why I kept it titled The Bang Tango Movie. Also it’s not your basic Rock Doc. Typically you got a band. They get signed. They get a chance. They fail. They continue on. That’s the basic format for so many of these films. But with this movie, it’s not the band that failed, it was everyone else who controlled their fate that failed them: their record label, rock mags, management etc. etc. Pretty much everyone slapped “glitter cookies” on a package of “filet mignon”.
Drew: They were and are a great band. They wrote some amazing stuff. Everything of theirs that should have hit hard to the masses was overlooked by the powers that be. They were the type of band that could have championed alongside any passing trend at the time. They really are a universal band.
Drew: They could, and still can be one of those bands that no matter what kind of music you are into, you’ll still go see them play because you know it’s going to be a high quality show with some kick ass performances. The way the tale unfolds is quite a journey. From the original line-up to the current line-up, only so much can be said about that story, you definitely just have to sit down and watch it.
Mark: Who did you first pitch it to and what was the pitch?
Drew: Actually Joe Leste pitched it to me! I was bartending on the Southside of Chicago 4 years ago, and Bang Tango had come through to play, I just happened to have a video camera in my hand and Joe came up and said “hey duuuude! What’s that????”… I said “…it’s a Camera” LOL. Then he said “We’re recording an album in Chicago in a few weeks, why don’t you come out and shoot a studio documentary for us???” and I said “I don’t know what the hell I am doing, but I’ll give it a go!” LOL. So then the time came, I had bought some camera equipment earlier in the year with my tax return money, I had no idea why but always wanted to get into filmmaking.
Drew: Then myself and high school friend, and now producer of the Tango Movie, Joe Placzkowski, started hanging with the guys, shooting copious amounts of footage, and really getting to know them. It was an amazing time. I remember we introduced alcohol into the setting. Figured it might spice up the already great footage we got, We bought a couple of cases of beer at first, everyone would take a break from recording later on in the day and have a couple, but later on in recording, we all started drinking more and more, earlier and earlier, and the next thing you know it’s like 10am and we’re doing shots of Jager! LOL! It was great. So I made some really good friends out of those guys, Trent, Scotty, Lance, and of course Joe Leste’. Man what a character Joe is. He doesn’t live in his own little world; he lives in his own little universe! I love them all though. And those recording sessions came out to be the great “Pistol Whipped in the Bible Belt” album. They even had me play guitar on a track for the album, Scotty, their guitar player at the time was sent home a few days too early and they still had guitar parts to record, so I do all of the lead guitar work during the choruses of Live Life. That was a lot of fun and an extreme honor to be on a Bang Tango album. I also helped out with backing vocals on ‘Boombox Seance’. And the funny thing, only about 2 or 3 mins of the 100 hours of studio footage was used in the film. LOL But anyways, I heard stories from Joe about the original members and was very intrigued, and then he would tell me about the great lost Bang Tango album “Love After Death” and I was even more compelled to find out more.
Drew: So I got in touch with Mark Knight. He happened to be visiting Chicago at the time so we met up at a bar downtown and did one of MANY interviews I ended up doing with him over the past 4 years LOL. Mark then became a close friend of mine and got me in touch with the other original guys. They all did interviews, what they had to say was so compelling and real. I knew I had something great here, and realized maybe instead of doing a Studio Documentary, maybe I can get away with doing a full on Rock Doc?? I then started getting in touch with other people involved with the band, Howard Benson, Riki Rachtman, other former band members, Danny Aon, Alex Grossi, Mark Tremalgia etc. and it all really started coming together. I also put out a press release for fans to send me in interviews and through that I met Anu Gunn, who is an amazing musician and amazing filmmaker from L.A. He actually shot a lot of the interviews for me in L.A. when I couldn’t afford to fly out there; he also receives producer credit on the film because he has done a lot for the movie. Great guy.
Drew: Then on a whim I sent Dee Snider’s manager a message to see if Dee would want to do a narration for the movie, and Dee said yes. That was so cool. He does the opening narration for the movie and even adds his own little opinion in the middle of it that I left in, it’s hysterical. I went on the road with the current line-up of Bang Tango a couple of times, got great footage, I went on the road with Mark Knight a few times, got some more great footage. Then I ended up with over 400 hours of footage LOL. I’ll get into the nightmare of what really happened with the making of this thing a little bit later.
Mark: I must admit that I always personally saw something different about Bang Tango when they were heaped in with all the Sunset Strip wannabees at the end of the eighties, those first three albums shone with LAD the peak and looking back that difference is all the more apparent?
Drew: Absolutely, if you look back now, especially with watching the movie, you really see how different they truly were. Their look, their sound, their attitude. Nobody really had what they had. Love After Death is a great example, had that album come out in the states, I don’t think we would be talking right now because Bang Tango would be up there with Alice In Chains in my honest opinion. Mark and Joe actually helped write a song for AIC. Joe was dating Mike Starr’s sister and him and Mark would hang out at AIC’s rehearsals a lot. Mark and Joe would jam a little bit and had a cool riff and a vocal melody that the AIC guys liked, and that became the song Fear The Voices, which was a left out track for the Dirt album that eventually got released on the Music Bank box set. But if you look in the Thank You section of the dirt album, Joe and Mark get a thank you. I don’t know if I was supposed to tell you that, but at this point in the process, officially no fucks are given. LOL. Just a cool bit of info that not too many people know about. Mark: The clash of personalities and different memories of certain incidents along the way adds some spice and interest to the whole narrative, when you add to that the whole uncertainty of MCA when grunge reared its head and the band’s eventual dropping by the label you still can’t help but feel that if they had held on Bang Tango in its original format still had a lot more to say?
Drew: I believe the original line up ended for a reason: ‘Life After Death’ not coming out, MCA dropping them, their conflicting personalities, etc. You could only take so much before you just have to move on. But I believe if it had come out in America and got the proper push it deserved, I think The original line up would have worked out their differences to continue on for at least a few more years and maybe another album or 2, either way I think they would have had a lot more to say. I can’t even imagine what the album after LAD would have sounded like with the original line up. But I know it would have been great! But they were all growing as musicians, Mark Knight was heading in his own direction as a singer/songwriter, Kyle Kyle had his ears in a different place as well, he now has his band Mona Lisa Overdrive which is amazing. Joe is a road warrior so he just kept Tango alive no matter what. Kyle Stevens grew up and wanted to take a break from music, and now he’s very successful outside of the music business, but still plays music still. And Tigg is in Mark Knight’s new band, Mark Knight and the Unsung Heroes. Amazing band. I’ve shot a couple of music videos for them as well. ‘Sink Your Teeth Into’ is my favorite, had an amazing time shooting that at this cool dive bar in L.A. Out of all the music videos I’ve done I’d say that’s my favorite so far.
Mark: The band’s personalities come across well in the cut and it’s clear, like most bands, they are quite different people; but what came across most of all was that collective sense of the real belief and love of the music the original band made together?
Drew: The band’s personalities come across well in the cut and it’s clear, like most bands, they are quite different people; but what came across most of all was that collective sense of the real belief and love of the music the original band made together? I agree, all they wanted to do was write great songs and play together. They were all such talented individuals. They really had the “it” factor. They had the right songs, right look, right mindset, their label just failed them; picked the wrong songs as singles. “Attack of Life” and “Love Injection” should have been the lead singles from ‘Psycho Cafe’. “Soul to Soul” and “Midnight Struck” should have been the lead singles off of Dancin’ on Coals, and “New Generation” and “My Favorite 9” had it been released, should have been the lead singles from Love After Death. But instead, “Someone Like You” came out, which was a strong single, great song, great video, built amazing momentum for the guys, but then “Breaking Up A Heart of Stone” was released, with literally a carbon copy music video (Instead of neon lights, it was black and white lights in the video). And it just seemed redundant. Then for Dancin’ On Coals, “Untied and True” got its video and single release. Love the song but if you ever see the video, it makes absolutely no fucking sense! Asian broads with lightsabers, a helicopter, Joe in bondage straps, a boxing ring… sounds like I’m describing an art film rather than an MTV music video!! That was one side of their slope into obscurity unfortunately. Just the tip of the iceberg. The rest is featured in the film.
Mark: Do you think they would ever appear together again? And this documentary might be the driver? Drew: I have a feeling you might see a show or 2 pop up along the way. If this movie gets its message across, I’d love to live in a world where Original Bang Tango plays shows as well as Current Bang Tango. They all deserve to play the music; they’ve all put their time into the band. I’ll put it this way… Bang Tango is an extremely memorable band that has been forgotten, for the most part. I hope that the film will give them the staple in rock history that they deserve, rather than another notch on the “Shoulda been, Coulda been” Belt.
Mark: Joe’s story is an interesting aspect of the whole film, whatever your take on Bang Tango then and now it’s undisputable that without him we probably wouldn’t be talking now?
Drew: If it weren’t for Joe we definitely wouldn’t be talking right now, after all he was the one that asked me to do a documentary for him LOL. He is a unique personality and as I said earlier lives in his own universe. He has a hard time expressing himself sometimes and can come across the wrong way. But he’s a good dude. With a great story. I give him nothing but credit for keeping the name a live after all these years, it’s not an easy thing to do. He’s had his “Rockstar” problems. The drinking etc. but some people look at is as a sad thing, while others see it as rock n’ roll spirit of Jim Morrison on stage when Joe’s up there wasted. One thing I would love to make clear, about a year ago metal sludge posted a news item stating that Joe said he has nothing to do with the movie, and that he doesn’t know why there was a guy making it, and that all he did was be interviewed for it etc. Joe called me up right after that article was released and told me he never said those things etc. etc. but either way, so everyone knows, Joe knew what I was doing from the start, and has been behind it 1000%. He’s done many interviews over the years, he and I have hung out and toured many of times, spent almost too much time together, but had a ridiculously fun time. It’s like a dysfunctional family with him and I, but we sure do put the FUN in dysFUNctional. I love the man though.
Mark: Some of the later interviews with the current band members are particularly poignant especially with Scott and Lance and their take on being a working musician – that’s the whole other aspect to the film?
Drew: Oh yes, Lance has been in the band for 10 years now, Scotty has since left but left his mark on the Pistol Whipped in the Bible Belt album. Same with Trent, Trent really did A LOT for that band. More than people could even know. He’s got a great business mind and really took care of a lot of the behind the scenes business. Lance is a great dude, funny as all hell and very prank savvy. Scotty is awesome; I call him my big brother. He has a new project called Super Troup which is a supergroup, they are doing very well I hear. Trent has a band called Sushi Roll that is blowing up. All great dudes and friends. And extremely hard workers. Now Timmy Russell is playing drums for Tango again, also a great dude, and also has the amazing Rowan Robertson on guitar, who is absolutely one of the funniest, kindest, talented souls on the planet. I keep touch with everyone involved; this whole experience was like High School. Do it for 4 years hanging out with your buddies etc. then afterwards all you can do is keep in touch. I love them all.
Mark: You set the rise of grunge as one of the markers in the documentary but there is also a real sense of what it is like for bands like the current Bang Tango line-up today like the Pine Knob show and the RV’s and Tour buses – is there a way back for not just Bang Tango but the whole 80’s rock scene?
Drew: I think Bang Tango is its own entity. It’s good and bad that they are tied into the 80’s rock scene. It’s good because it gets them shows still; it’s bad because they deserve more than to just be another 80’s nostalgia band. I believe their songs are still as fresh today as they were 25 years ago. As for the 80’s rock scene itself, it all comes down to the powers that be. Management etc. The fans are still out there, but it’s up to the powers that be whether or not the fans get exposed to the music, the shows etc. You can find anything you want on the internet, nobody watches MTV anymore, and the only way to really get through to the fans is through the shows, so it’s a vicious cycle.
Mark: The process of making the film probably took a lot longer than you originally anticipated? Tell us about that – I’ll bet it’s as intriguing as the documentary itself?
Drew: Oh yes, It has actually been the best and worse 4 years of my life. Here’s why… Well here’s the short run down version, I don’t want to ramble too much here… All of this took place from 2011 till now…
Drew: Late 2011, I get married, very quickly, in Vegas… lasted a year, ended up having a stress heart attack, I quickly removed myself from that situation, and we went our separate ways which was the best for the both of us. I then moved into the basement of the bar I was working at – at the time and became a major alcoholic. Up to a case, maybe case and a half of beer a day. Ask Mark Knight, or his producer Tom Lavin, every time I came out to L.A. I was drinking CONSTANTLY, LOL. I didn’t see anything wrong with it at the time, but looking back now, it was a bit much. So through this all I had going for me was my alcoholism, basically being homeless, my bartending job, and the movie, which was insanely overwhelming.
Drew: I had 400 hours of footage and had NO clue where to start or how to edit together a movie. I had shot and edited many, many music videos, promo videos for the likes of Vince Neil, Slaughter, Kix, of course Tango. I did like 5 music videos for those guys. But that stuff was easy for me at that point. To have to rifle through 400 hours of footage was just terrifying to me. But I knew I wanted to do it myself. I would dabble here and there but wouldn’t get much done. I just needed my motivation. All I could accomplish was making trailers for the movie like every 6 months. I got a lot of shit for having so many trailers but no movie LOL – especially from Stevie Rachelle from Metal Sludge, who hopefully after reading this will understand why it took so damn long. So while in my homeless drunken stupor, I got into contact with my High School Sweetheart. We reconnected and the magic was still there, more than ever. She was battling with her own personal demons as well, but together, we gave ourselves reasons to pick ourselves up, for each other, and ourselves. So we moved in together, we kicked our problems to the curb, a year later we get married. Best thing to ever happen to me. Amazing woman. Then I get her pregnant. I never pictured myself as a father, but the second we found out, we couldn’t have been more excited. We were ecstatic about it. I then found my motivation for kicking myself into full gear on finishing the movie. So I began the rigorous edited process, and finished a rough cut of the movie a few months before my wife was due.
Drew: I wasn’t happy with the ending, and found out that Tango was playing a big show in Michigan at Pine Knob in August 2014. My wife was about 9 months pregnant at that point. We drive out to the gig from Chicago, had a great time. Naturally my wife was a bit bored in the dressing room and had the urge to play a prank on a rock star. So her and Joe Leste’ cooked up this plan to grab (I don’t want to reveal his name, but he’s a pretty well-known vocalist) and play this prank on him… So my wife is sitting down in the dressing room, wearing black, you can’t really tell that she’s pregnant. And Joe goes up to “Unnameable” and tells him to come to the dressing room, there’s a girl that really needs to talk to him. So the vocalist walks in with Joe, looks at my wife and goes “OH hey!!! I remember you!!!” (They have never met before, so it was a funny typical “Rockstar” thing to say to a pretty girl). Then my wife goes “Well I would hope you remember me… *she stands up to show off that she’s pregnant* “This is yours!”… The look on that singers face was absolutely PRICELESS. He almost fainted… and ran out of the room… AT THE SAME TIME! Then myself, Joe and my wife just crack up like crazy. It was an amazingly legendary prank. The singer thanked me and my wife for being so cool to do something like that. He was a bit on edge the rest of the night, it was so funny. The last shot of the movie is actually in that dressing room and you can see my pregnant wife in the background. So Tango play the gig, doors opened at 6:45pm and Tango played at 7pm. So there were barely anybody there, but as you can see in the film, the footage was used tastefully.
Drew: So Wife and I drive back to Chicago, and the next day she feels like she’s going into labor, we drive to the hospital, they give her an ultrasound… and we find out she wasn’t going into labor… it was foetal distress and our son had passed away. Note that throughout her whole pregnancy, her doctor only scheduled us one ultrasound and that was very early on. Every time we asked about getting another one, the doctor wouldn’t let us for some reason. Also my wife wanted a C-Section to begin with, due to her having scoliosis and such medical problems, but the doctor wouldn’t let her schedule one. (If scheduled it would have been about a week prior to this event). Also my wife didn’t feel our baby move once for about 10 hours. We called her doctor, doctor said “No worries, you won’t feel the baby move for long periods of time towards the end of the pregnancy, sometimes you won’t feel him move for 18-24 hours, you have nothing to worry about”. Also note we were going to be first time parents, we had no idea what to expect. We trusted our doctor. So there we were. On the darkest day of our lives. 9 months of extreme happiness, hopefulness, productiveness and planning… gone.
Drew: The hospital made her wait 8 hours over night with our deceased son inside of her before they could remove him. Which was morbid and sick on the hospitals behalf. It turns out our son suffered from a True Foetal Knot. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice, under his arm, and in a knot. Something like this just doesn’t happen overnight and had our Doctor given us ultrasounds like we demanded, we both feel that this issue would have been absolutely resolved earlier on. Once again, we were first time parents and trusted our doctor. Once removed, we both lay together in her hospital room. Just absolutely out of our minds hysterical. The nurse then brought in our son for us to spend time with, and hold. We see him and it was the most beautiful baby. It exceeded our expectations of what we thought he was going to look like. And I will tell you this, THE hardest moment of my life… of our lives… was holding our son… seeing how beautiful he was but knowing that he was gone. We wanted to name him something with an “A” because I am “Andrew” she is “Athena” and months prior we decided on naming him “Axl” as suggested by my mother. We loved the name, not too many other people did though. But thus began an intensely hard road for the both of us. It made us stronger as a couple. It’s not the things that happen to you that make you who you are; it’s how you handle them. We had a wake and a service for him. It went beautifully. But we didn’t know how to grieve something like this… we had each other and that’s all we cared about. The fact that we were able to create something so beautiful together is all we could hang onto. We told each other that Axl could be whatever he wanted when he grew up. A guitar player like his dad, an astronaut, a ballet dancer etc. We would be behind him 100% as long as he was passionate about what he chose. But we have comfort knowing that he chose to be an angel to watch over us. And that is something we will always have.
Drew: From there she found that her coping mechanism was working so she went back to work, and I give her nothing but respect for being able to pick up her head every day and live life, because I was devastated by what happened. What my poor wife had to go through was just unbearable. Not to mention the Post-Partum depression etc. I love my wife so much and have nothing but respect for her for being able to deal with the scars left upon her but still function every day. I on the other hand, went back to bartending. I then began to go inward rather than outward with my grieving. I started becoming distant with everybody, including my wife. I then got to a point to where I had to check myself in to a Psych Ward. My wife was behind me for it 100%.
Drew: Everybody has their different ways of dealing with things, and you can’t prepare or be ready to deal with something as horrifying as this. They didn’t put me on any medication… I just talked. My stay there was amazing, I got so much out of it and learned how to approach things and emotions a lot better, not to mention the food there was amazing LOL. So I get out, I was finally at peace with what had happened. The scars will never heal, but I had comfort in knowing how to deal with the situation better. Which lead me to appreciating what I had, the people I know, and how much I love my wife, which led to me finally having the patience and headspace to finish the film. My wife and I are doing amazing now. Sorry for going on and on but it felt good getting that out there. And we love that fact that regardless of the outcome, our son brought mommy and daddy closer together and closer to their dreams and that our son got to play a legendary prank on a rockstar. But that was the last 4 years in a nutshell.
Drew: There were good times too, which I’ll go into now because I don’t want your readers going away depressed. One of the funniest experiences with Bang Tango was when I was on tour with them in the summer of 2012. They played Halfway Jam, and a few shows around Minnesota, and we all had to fit into a tiny car, with the equipment, to do the shows. 5 guys in a 4 door sedan, crammed with equipment. But we get to the grounds, awesome stage, really cool. We had to go back to the hotel for something, and Joe and I were heading to the car, we walk through the catering tent… and Joe being Joe… stops… looks around and proclaims “If anybody sees a large woman with a sore on her mouth… she’s mine tonight!”… little did Joe know not 5 feet away from him was actually a large woman with a sore on her mouth. I then begin to whisper in Joe’s ear about the faux pas that had occurred, he grabs me and says “Drew… I know… let’s get out of here… right now”… we then go from a walk… to a light jog… to an all-out run to the car. We couldn’t have gotten out of there quicker, and he had to come back to play that night! LOL. Pure comedy.
Drew: Another fun story was in August of 2011. Bang Tango was opening up for Whitesnake for one night in Kansas City MO. We were told by management that when we are backstage, we can NOT talk to David Coverdale, can NOT make eye contact with David Coverdale, can NOT think about David Coverdale, can NOT have dreams about David Coverdale, you name it, we couldn’t do it. Not if it had anything to do with David Coverdale. I guess a well-known 80’s band had opened up for them a few shows prior and totally made asses of themselves in front of Mr. Coverdale so Tango’s management were very nervous which I could understand.
Drew: So it’s myself, Joe Placzkowski (Friend and Producer of the Tango Movie) and Scotty (Tango’s guitarist at the time) just dicking around backstage. And who do we see in the distance walking toward us? DAVID COVERDALE. So at that point we’re shitting ourselves… Scotty: “what do we do?!” Me: “I don’t know, ignore him?!”. Joe Placzkowski: “No dude, that’ll just make us look like assholes!” So in pure comedic fashion, all three of us line up against the backstage wall, with these big awkward smiles on our faces. Then David walks up to us and goes… in his awesome British accent… Excitedly… “ELLO!!! My name is David Coverdale! What’s your name?” Scotty tells him he’s in Bang Tango and David goes “OH! I love Bang Tango!! Where’s Joe at???” and at that point, for all we knew, Joe was kidnapped and in somebody’s basement. “Oh we don’t know where Joe is.” David goes “Well that’s a shame! I would really like to speak to him!!” Then David asks who me and Joe Placzkowski are, we tell him we’re doing a documentary on Bang Tango and David goes “Oh nice! Making a lil rinky dink video are ya!!?? That’s GREAT! Can’t wait to see it!” Then we exchange a few more pleasantries then he walks off, we all look at each other…instead of “DUDE we just met David Coverdale!” it was “Dude… we are going to be in SOOO much trouble!!” LOL!
Drew: We found out from Trent (Tango’s drummer and business mind at the time) that he talked to management and that everything was all good. So THEN we were like “Dude we just met David Coverdale!” it was fun. Then later on Joe resurfaces, right before Tango’s set and he’s upset that David was looking for him and wanted to talk to him. Joe hadn’t met David Coverdale at that point. Then Joe asks “Drew, was he taller than me?”. I say “Joe, everybody’s taller than you!” It was classic! I’ve got TONS of Bang Tango stories if you wanna hear them! LOL. I may seriously write a book about the past 4 years. “What the Hell was I Thinking?” is what I would call it!”
Mark: What was your favourite part of the whole process?
Drew: My favorite parts were being on tour with Mark Knight and Mark Tremalgia, they did an acoustic tour in the south, and actually had my playing guitar with them as well as shooting footage. Amazing time. I actually convinced them to do an acoustic version of Someone Like You, which you can find on Youtube. Another favorite part was all the laughing, whether it was hanging with Mark Knight and the other original guys, or the current line-up of Tango, it was just pure fun. Lots of laughing, lots of drinks, it was great. Best times of my life. But the most amazing part was sitting down and watching the finished film. I had the best and worst times of my life the 4 years leading up to finishing it, and it was ridiculously therapeutic being able to finally sit down, and watch it all the way though!
Mark: The ending changed subtlety over the process of making the film – what is the overall feeling you’d want an audience to walk away with?
Drew: That’s a great question, I’d have to say I hope they walk away with a feeling of hope, inspiration, and satisfaction with what they have just witnessed.
Mark: Who is this movie going to appeal to?
Drew: I hope it appeals to anybody who enjoys sitting down and getting lost in a story and a true story at that! I’ve managed to keep the film 100% honest and still being able to please the original line up and the current line-up. It wasn’t easy but I was happy that I didn’t have to hurt my creative integrity at all throughout. I have shown the film to some close friends in the music business and film business. So far the reviews have been fantastic. My one friend Alan Rowe Kelly who has an amazing horror film coming out called “Tales of Poe” Starring Caroline Williams (Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2) wrote a great review for it, absolutely loved it, and it just feels really good knowing that people are enjoying it so far.
Mark: What’s next? Where and when are we going to see the documentary unveiled?
Drew: I have been talking to quite a few platinum selling bands about doing films for them. One is a for sure, but I can’t announce it yet, but the 2 others are extremely close to getting a green light. I think everybody is going to be very happy and surprised. I will say this, they aren’t 80’s bands, and they are quite heavier. Where and when are we going to see the documentary unveiled? Currently, the film is being submitted to as many film festivals as I can afford, from there it will find its proper distributor. So I will keep everyone updated as to when and where they can view it. Right now I’m just trying to build momentum for the project. Maybe I’ll put out another trailer? LOL. But people will be seeing it very soon, I’m going to announce a private test screening in Chicago extremely soon. It won’t be a world premiere because that would affect the film getting submitted to certain film festivals.
