Ken Mary’s music career has seen him cover a wide range of musical genres, not only as a drummer, and writer but also as an engineer and producer. His drumming can be heard with artists as diverse as Alice Cooper, Jordan Rudess, Northern Light Orchestra, House of Lords, Don Dokken, Bonfire, Impelliterri and… The Beach Boys. But it all started with his first band – Fifth Angel, who are now back with a new album after a gap of a mere 29 years. We caught up with Ken to talk all about the stunning new album ‘The Third Secret’ and also about some of the other highlights of his career so far…
Mark: Hi Ken thank you so much for taking the time to talk to The Rockpit today, how are you?
Ken: I’m doing good, how are you today?
Mark: Very good thank you Sir. I was sat at the desk the other day when we set up the interview thinking to myself that I’ve listened to and loved an awful lot of music that you’ve been involved in over the last 30 years or so.
Ken: That’s great that you enjoyed it (laughs)! Are we going through a speaker system there seems to be little delay?
Mark: No just through the computer, we are in western Australia though so that means we are about ten years behind the rest of the world!
Ken: (laughs) that’s a good thing right though sometimes!
Mark: It is, it’s just a shame that we can’t crank it up to 30 years!
Ken: If we could just build that time machine! Then we’d have this whole mess solved! (Laughs)
Mark: And we’d get it right next time!
Ken: (laughs)
Mark: Well getting down to business I must admit I was rather pleasantly surprised when our local publicist down here got in touch and told me that Fifth Angel were putting out a new record. Leafing through the collection I dusted off the original vinyl of your first record and gave it a spin, and it brought all those memories back of the first time I heard it, and I found myself after a gap of a few years since I last gave it a spin, still wondering why you guys weren’t huge. And there’s only a handful of bands of the same vintage that I can say that about.
Ken: Well we kind of look at ourselves too and think what happened? Yet at the same time there were some forces going on in the industry that we had no control over. Once grunge hit it was kind of all over and not only for Fifth Angel but for tons and tons of other bands, and even producers. I had some producer friends who were hugely successful and sold millions and millions of records and after the grunge thing hit they couldn’t even get a gig. It was a weird fashion trend and it was weird in the way that they just lumped everything that wasn’t grunge but had some sort of Rock edge to it in the same category. People always ask if I’m bitter about it and I just say “Well, not really, you just have to look at it and say, it’s just the music business, and if you want stability maybe go and work for Microsoft or something”
Mark: And things do come around again, I guess that the impetus for the new record came from a place where the interest on Rock music has always been strong – from Germany back in 2010 at the Keep it True Festival? Is that really what lick-started all this again?
Ken: It really is. I mean a lot of bands will say ‘We do this because of the fans’ and you know they do, and I’m not saying they’re not telling the truth but in the case of Fifth Angel it is literally 100 percent fact that it is because of the fans. I think the first time that we really realised that we really did impact people was when we realised that years after we split there were still people who were talking about and who loved what we were doing. That was a huge eve-opening experience for the band playing that Festival we had 5000 people singing along with the words to every song. It was stunning and it really gave us the energy to move forward. Literally it would not have happened without those fans.
Mark: You’ve kept yourself very busy over the years of course, but it must be extra special revisiting something like that, but there’s plenty of people that never forgot – as soon as I heard you had a new album on the way the words to ‘Midnight Love’ just popped straight into my head!
Ken: That’s great to hear!
Mark: And now that I’ve had the chance to listen to the new album what can I say? You’ve completely recaptured the sound like no years have passed at all. What are your plans? A tour? Festivals?
Ken: You know we’re joking around a lot in the press, we always say ‘Time will tell’ (the title of course of their classic second album on Epic from 1989) (laughs) So far the response has been kind of stunning to be honest with you especially in Europe, we’re at the Top of the charts for some of the sound checks from respected reviewers and we were number 1 on three of those, number 2 on two more. We’ve had ten out of ten reviews, 9.5 out of ten’s – overwhelmingly it’s just a massive outpouring of support for the record. But you know here’s the thing, when we recorded the album we were a little anxious as we knew that the first two records were considered classics by most of the fans. So we were like, how do we approach this? So we had two simple rules – 1 was it has to sound like Fifth Angel and 2 was we have to love every song that goes on the record otherwise we’re not going to release it and we followed those two rules and so far it’s worked out very well. I have to say that we’re very happy with it, the label’s very happy with it, the press is very happy with it but you know the biggest voice is going to speak shortly and that’s the voice of the fans. And if they love it then we’re gonna take every opportunity we have and if that’s Festivals or Tours, we’ll take the opportunities as they come. But we’ve been gone a long time as you noticed (laughs) so we just kind of have to see what the demand is, and if the demand’s there then we’ll certainly take the opportunities.
Mark: There’s certainly plenty of festivals in Europe that would be perfect for Fifth Angel.
Ken: well we’ll be playing a few of those so we’ll see if it transcends that and turns into something more. We’ll see.
Mark: Release date is now here in Australia, our review is up, let’s hope that groundswell increases amongst fans.
Ken: I have seen a couple from Australia so far and they were great, there’s always a few people here and there that just don’t get it, but even they haven’t been bad reviews they just weren’t great. Overwhelmingly though I’ve been stunned. Some of the statements like “album of the year” and “the comeback of 2018” they’re saying some really positive stuff. And it’s always great to hear that we put our hearts into this and we loved doing it, but were really interested in hearing from the fans now who matter the most.
Mark: Well you got us, as soon as I saw the video to “Can You Hear Me” I thought we were looking at something special. You’ve certainly hit my albums of the year list.
Ken: Awesome!
Mark: Whilst we have you hear Ken I’d love to remind our readers of some of the other great music you’ve been a part of over the years, just a little snapshot really. Let’s start off with TKO, we spoke to Brad (Sinsel) recently to talk about the band and what he’s been up to recently but you were involved in two of those albums even before Fifth Angel?
Ken: Well TKO was another great time, but Ted (Pilot), Ed (Archer) and had actually worked together even before TKO so People go what was your first band and I consider Fifth Angel my first ‘band’. But TKO – we were super young and there was a lot of drinking going on so, you know we had a great time to be honest with you, those were fun days and I look back on them fondly. Brad and I actually talked three or four weeks ago, he as planning to go through some new material, and I have a studio, that I do producing and engineering, including the new Fifth Angel. So we talked about some new material he as trying to put together but what can I tell you about what I remember? It was fun, we had a great time, we did an album in Hawaii – ‘Below the Belt’ we certainly enjoyed that, I wish I could tell you more and I could – I mean we did destroy a condo when we were down there! (laughs) We did the rock and roll thing, we thought we were supposed to act like Rock Stars! But me being the person I am I woke up the next morning and started cleaning up! (Laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Ken: That wasn’t very Rock and Roll! But you wake up the next day and feel so bad about it!
Mark: One thing on your resume that I either didn’t know or had forgotten about over the years was that you played on one of my favourite albums of the late 80’s – Bonfire’s Fireworks!
Ken: Yeah that actually went gold in Germany and I have the record hanging in my studio. I could definitely tell you about that too, that was Michael Wagner who produced that, we did it at Amigo Studios which I don’t think exists anymore, and they called me in and Joerg (Deisinger) the bass player he would sit down and after I’d finished my drum tracks he would try and teach the other drummers my drum parts! They were just fans of the way I played and I just went in a tracked and pretty much played what I wanted to play. Everyone was very happy with it, and it ended up being a very successful album for them.
Mark: It must have been a wonderful period for you, you were playing with Alice Cooper and guesting on albums like ‘Fireworks’ which in Europe has this legendary status, but you were doing so much other stuff as well – those first two wonderful House of Lords albums – what a wonderful time and hopefully it’s continued to be so?
Ken: Well the music business is always filled with twists and turns and that’s for sure, I kinda look at it in an open way. People say “Why are you doing Fifth Angel, why that again?” And I think well it as my first band, it’s been a lot of years and as you get older you do get a little nostalgic for certain times in your life. And we’re all good friends, so that’s a great thing too. I think as you get older you start looking at that fun factor in projects – First you ask is it fun? And then you wonder – are these people that I want to work with? And if the answer to both is ‘yes’ then you tend to want to run it up the flagpole to see if people salute it! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) Is part of it also the unfinished business? As you said before, you consider Fifth Angel your first band, they were a great band, I just listened to that new record and thought “Oh my God, look what we missed out on for the past 30 years!”
Ken: Well I’m not sure if its’ really that, it’s really that we had an opportunity to do something again and that rarely happens, and it wasn’t even us it was the fans that made it happen. To me there’s no greater honour than when someone appreciates your art because they spend their hard earned money to buy your album then they spend their time actually listening to this thing you created. There is no greater honour than that. So I feel that for us we’d be disrespectful to not try and create something new and do something. I mean those fans have supported you for so many years and we didn’t know that until fairly recently. It gave us the energy we needed to breathe life back into the project so to speak.
Mark: That’s a great way of looking at it.
Mark: Can we take it all the way back now Ken? What was it that started you off on this path in the first place, what made you want to become a musician?
Ken: Oh that’s really funny! Now you’re going to go way, way back! When I was a kid at school I was always banging on the desk with pencils and when I got into the fifth or sixth grade they asked what instrument I wanted to play and for me there was never a question I wanted to play drums. So I started to play drums and learnt from some great jazz instructors and I learnt about drummers like Buddy Rich and Steve Gadd and you know, then fusion bands like ‘Return To Forever’, really young bands like Yes, my drum teacher exposed me to a lot of music like Salsa music and Latin music and a lot of different grooves and beats. But what kinda got me into Rock was when I was a kid, just like any kid between the ages of 10 going to adults at 25, if you lived in the United States in the late 70’s or early 80’s you were a Kiss fan! (laughs) The first concert I ever went to was Kiss and I looked at that and said “I wanna do that.” So that kinda started the Rock and Roll ball rolling and then I got into Judas Priest and Aerosmith and Iron Maiden and Def Leppard – they were the kind of bands that sort of moved us when we were young and that got the ball rolling.
Mark: So you kind of always knew from the time you picked up those sticks?
Ken: I always knew that drumming would be there somewhere but I didn’t know how much, at school I excelled at it so I knew it would be part of my future I didn’t know that it would be my future! Back in those days I think I only had one B on my transcript, so I was getting ready to go to college and be Pre-Law and the next thing you know I ended up touring the world with Alice Cooper! But the way I look at it is like this – school will always be there and you can always go back, but you can’t always go back and tour with Alice Cooper!
Mark: (laughs)
Ken: When the opportunities show up you have to take them. So when you say ‘when did you know’, I don’t think you ever know until you’re on that stage in front of 20,000 people (laughs) then maybe at that moment you think “Maybe this is going to be more than a passing thing!” (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) Lovely guy that he is, what’s your favourite memory of Alice?
Ken: My favourite memory, well I have a couple and there’s some funny stuff, but I think my favourite is and it just shows you what a great guy he is, because I look back on those times – I did two world tours with him and played for three years, those were some of the most fun times of my life, just because… you know there were some fun times later with House of Lords, and there were tours that were more important to me from a financial perspective, but the thing I most liked about touring with Alice was I was super young, I didn’t have a care in the world, I didn’t need to worry about where the album was in the charts or how many tickets we’d sold, or if the manager was ripping us off, or what was happening with the promoter, I didn’t have those kind of thoughts. I was just young and enjoying getting up playing every night. Later on when it was my own band all of a sudden you’re worried about how much are we paying the crew? How much is the bus costing us? What’s the manager’s percentage? How much is the promoter taking? You know all these things start weighing on you and the fund factor tends to go way down, because they do call it the ‘music business’ it’s not the ‘music fun festival’ (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Ken: If I look back on Alice my favourite stories were first of all just being young, I remember my fifth show with him was playing Joe Louis Arena in Detroit and I looked down on the venue from my four-star hotel, the Omni in Detroit, I looked down on this huge dome and thought I’m playing in the headline band two nights sold out, 22,000 people and broadcast live on MTV in front of 20milion more people. The biggest place I played prior to Alice was about 3000 people and I was going from there to that! So that’s one of my most fond memories. Another fond memory is later on in the tour the drumming started getting super complicated, it started turning into a bit of a drum solo during the whole show! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Ken: Because you know how it is when you’re playing 200 shows in the year, and we were playing nine months straight and you’re playing the same show every night so you know, you throw in a couple of thigs here, a couple of things there and by the time you’re a few months in it starts to kinda sound a little bit like a drum solo. So Alice kinda took me aside one time, you gotta remember this is ‘Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’ Alice Cooper we’re taking about he could have got angry but that’s not what he did he pulled me aside and said “Hey Ken, you know maybe you could just pull it back a little bit?” and it literally stopped me in my tracks because Alice never said anything about the music, he just never did, so I was like “Wow, I wonder what I’ve been doing” so I asked the sound man “Hey can you give me a tape from the board mix last night?” so he did and the drums were just walking all over everything! (laughs) But that was just one of those things that really shows the kind of guy Alice is, what an awesome guy, he didn’t talk to me like I was this punk kid, that I was, he didn’t talk to me with any disrespect he just said “Could you pull it back a little bit.” He’s a great guy, a great guy to work with and people don’t realise he’s a very intelligent man, but I guess you found that when you’ve interviewed him?
Mark: Yes, he’s a wonderful human being and very gracious with his time. And on that note I see we’re a little over I appreciate you’ve got a lot of people to talk to but feel like we’ve only scratched the surface. Best of luck with the album and thank you so much for the chat.
Ken: Well I’ve very much enjoyed it and let’s hope I get to see you soon in Australia. Thank you so much you have a great day.
Mark: Thanks Ken.
FIFTH ANGEL
YouTube links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3119Fnjzgbg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5Nkjoai-GY
iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/the-third-secret/1433848178
