A new Burning Rain album is always a big thing in these parts and I’ll make a big call here by saying that ‘Face the Music’ may even be the best yet. Since forming in 1998 the partnership of Dog Aldrich and Keith St. John has always delivered the goods and their bluesy take on the hard rock template we know and love has always had us wanting more, sadly in the case of live shows they have always been few and far between, but the good news is that this year Keith and Doug are taking it on the road. If you want to know more about that then read on…
Keith: How you doing Mark?
Mark: I’m great thanks Keith, I hope you’re good. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to The Rockpit today, what can we say? ‘Face the Music’ is great, I love it, I’ve been playing it all week and it’s got “album of the year” stamped all over it.
Keith: I’m glad you like it! (laughs)
Mark: It’s always well worth the wait for a new Burning Rain record, but has it been frustrating over the years not being able to get out there and play it live?
Keith: Well the good news is that with this new record we are getting out and playing this live. We’ve got our act together, we’ve got a fresh rhythm section, who have been in the band a little over a year making the record together and that’s what this record is all about for Burning Rain – it’s all about getting out there and hitting the road as a band. So I’m really excited about that. But times in the past it was frustrating, the first record we got out there, but the third record, the last one we did, we got out there far less than we both would have liked: we were both just at really, really busy times in our lives and that’s kinda what happened there, but now we can go out and we can tour both records at the same time!
Mark: That’s fantastic, and it’s always good to be too busy, and over the ears you’ve been involved in making some fantastic music – from some of the names I grew up with like The Sweet and Nazareth to more recent projects like the only time I ever saw you on stage with ‘Raiding The Rock Vault’ in Vegas.
Keith: That’s cool, obviously with those Vegas shows it’s pretty much the same set every night but they mix up the players and that can change things drastically, even just before we go on stage someone might not feel well and you might get asked to sing a new song, it can lead to some exciting stuff being thrown in the mix, so hopefully the show you saw was pretty cool and you had a good time.
Mark: It’s always good to see Rock Vault, such a great cast. But let’s get into the album though, there’s so many great songs on there, how did this one come together? Was it written any differently to previous albums?
Keith: Not really, obviously the first record came about from Doug and I getting together for the first time, and at that get together we demoed two or maybe three songs and sent them over to Pony Canyon in Japan and that got us the deal – and then we had to write the rest of the record. With the rest of the records, Doug and I both live in Southern Cal. About 15 minutes apart in the Valley in L.A. so Doug and I, we get together in our off times because we both love to write. So when we do we get together and we’ll write stuff, and we’ll mess around with riffs so that by the time making a record rolls around, yeah we got stuff we’ll write fresh, but we also got kind a backlog of stuff that we’ve already worked on. So we might have either six or seven songs or parts of a riff here, a verse here, a chorus there, stuff that we can develop. So a little more than a year before the record was released we got together and started sorting out, you know, what we got, what’s good from the past that we might want to put up on the chopping board, and I’d say that after maybe putting up about 25 ideas on that chopping board. We wound that down to the eleven that wound upon the record.
Mark: And I was taken from the first track ‘Revolution’ is a great way to open with that burst of energy but I think it was ‘Lorelei’ the second track that has that feel of the music that I love most that vintage Aerosmith feel of the late seventies. That kind captured the feel of songs like ‘Kings and Queens’ from ‘Draw the Line.’
Keith: Yeah, it’s got that really trippy feel. That guitar, when I first heard Doug play it, we were at his place and just putting it down and he was playing it for me in his studio, I was like “Man, that is so swampy and heavy” I felt like I was in a row-boat in a swamp of molasses man!
Mark: (laughs) Now that’s a great description!
Keith: I loved it, it had such a vibe to it! And when music gives me that vibe man, the lyrics just kinda pour out, it makes itself, the vocal, the melody, I just kind hear it. It does have a hypnotic feel, certain songs in Rock history have that, and if you’re ‘in’ and the vibe is something you dig, you’re then on a journey and you can’t get out! (laughs) OK I’m in the ‘red room’ for the next ten minutes man!
Mark: That’s right, and there are a lot of songs on there that do take you to another place. Later on in the album for example there’s a song ‘This Is Love’ and that to me was like trying to crawl through a steamy hot summer night!
Keith: Right on!
Mark: And your vocals on that track are absolutely fantastic.
Keith: Thank you brother, I really appreciate that. You know some songs you look at as an artist and, you know, you can’t use the demo, because the sound quality isn’t there because you might have used an old cassette deck or your cell phone, but I’ll tell you Mark that was one of the songs that when we did the demo the vocal just was really, really in the pocket and just had a vibe to it. And I don’t know what I did the night before, but for whatever reason when I woke up that day it was just so strong. And I tried to come close to it with the cut I did on the record and its close man, but hopefully live when we go out and I sing that song I’ll always be shooting for that original time on that first demo. Overall I’m happy with the way the record came out and that’s just a little titbit abut that particular song. But thank you for the compliment.
Mark: It’s just one of many great moments and there’s so much variety packed in there, I get bits of Aerosmith here, bits of Whitesnake there, and then you’ve got a track like, one of the ones that blew me away at first listen was ‘Hideaway’ which has almost got that funky, early 80’s Stonesy, ‘Miss You’ type thing going on. I love the rap you do on that track, it sounds so free and off the cuff!
Keith: Absolutely, and that was one of the ones I didn’t try and beat the demo ‘cos we demoed that on a Pro Tools rig and believe it or not 99.9% of that, maybe we replaced a word or two, but that was the first scat, hearing the song, that was the first thing that came out of me, but man that is so ‘flow of energy’ there is no way I could ever cut or overdub into that, just leave it man! And we did, we kept listening to it, both of us, and there was a ‘well’ and a ‘maybe’ then a scratch of the head and a ‘just leave it man’ (laughs).
Mark: Wow, and it worked beautifully.
Keith: It was all in there just right off the bat.
Mark: It’s also an album when you draw to the end wondering if you can keep up the quality, but I think it ends up with three of my favourite tracks, ‘Is It Love’; ‘Hideaway’ and then at the end the huge Zeppelin-like song ‘Since I’m Loving You’ which is a fantastic showcase for your vocals and Doug’s guitar, and I guess the fact that you’re now singing for Kingdom Come too is a nice connection there.
Keith: Absolutely I can’t lie, I definitely grew up cutting my singing chops to all the great old Rock and Blues singers: Paul Rodgers from Free, old Glenn Hughes, Sam Cooke and Steve Marriott, all those guys are just fantastic. They were pioneering man, they were listening to the old Bluesers and they were just turning what Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson and all those guys had been doing and turning it into this rebellious Rock, heavy screaming deal, which was still Blues, and I dig that. I just call it screaming ‘cos it’s a certain type of howling’, but a really, really cool take on it. So if I can capture just a little bit of that in some of the stuff I do, even now and gain, it turns me on, and hopefully works for the listeners too?
Mark: That’s great, I honestly think that this is the best Burning Rain album so far, it has all that we’ve loved about the first records, maybe even a little more variety, but it just delivers with every song. I just hope if you take this on the road you pack out the houses because this really is something special, new music that really proves that Rock is alive and kicking.
Keith: Well the response has been great, we’ve had a lot of interest from all over the world really and just because as band members we’ve been kicking around a while, we’ve not even signed up with an agency as yet. We’re getting calls ourselves from individual promoters asking us to come play here and there. So the initial wave of reaction that we’re getting is really cool.
Mark: I think people have waited a long time for it, if they’ve heard the albums and caught any of the other stuff you and Doug have been involved in, it’s almost the perfect storm now – you’re both free and there’s a great new album out!
Mark: Now for someone who has been involved in making some great music over the years take us all the way back where did it all begin for you? I’ve read all the stories about the demo tapes that got you that first deal but what was it that sparked things for you? When did you realise that this was going to be your life?
Keith: Honesty I still don’t think I know that! (laughs) To be honest with you I’m such a ‘fire sign’ as they say, Aries, Leo, Sagittarius people, I hate to get into that goofiness, but I really do exist in the moment. I love things that happen in the moment and that’s why some of those first time demos they hit you with a magic that you’re not gonna get if you work too hard on recrafting everything. I’m just that kind of guy, in my life and in my choices so I really don’t think like that, it’s not in my mentality to lock everything down and think ‘OK, I’m this guy on the music business’ and now I’ve got to really organise it, and I should that’s probably a short-coming, and the shortcoming of a fire sign you know, but the big strength we have is that you could throw us off a cliff and we’d land safely. But even to this day I still feel flexible in my mind, and I have branched off here and there outside of music, I’ve done a few things here and there that could maybe be considered second careers or ongoing careers at the same time. So saying that I don’t know that there was a point where I could say ’OK man, that’s it, I’m a music man specifically, that’s my life, that’s the Rock and Roll story.’ I never really, probably internalised that the way that maybe some people do. And like I said ‘not planning’, I wouldn’t put that out there as the secret to success that’s for sure! But us fire signs are kinda notorious for just falling into things, and so many of those things that I’ve been involved in that you might have heard about I felt like they just fell into being and there it is.
Mark: That’s crazy, but it also sounds a little familiar to me!
Mark: So who were the guys that really influenced you? You already mentioned some great names, amongst them Steve Marriott who I think is probably my all-time hero, but who was it that influenced you most of all?
Keith: Yeah, you know I did not grow up a rocker, as a kid in school I was into classical music, I was into a lot of instrumental music. I grew up in New York around Broadway so I heard Andrew Lloyd Webber, Rogers and Hammerstein, Gershwin, all these kinds of composers; and my parents were kinda baby boomers too so I heard a lot of Folk music – Dylan, Peter Paul and Mary, The Woodstock stuff, Crosby Stills and Nash all that Romantic-era Beatles stuff: ‘Strawberry Fields’; ‘I Am the Walrus’; ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ all of that. Then that whole Russian orchestral movement – Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich with all the drama in the music – the majors and minors and all that stuff. So when I started listening to the radio those type of bands would appeal to me – you know the later Beatles, ELO, and the more out there stuff but not over the line where it was sarcastic and atonal. And then somewhere along the line someone walked into my bedroom, with more than music, but with the music stuff they put on Zeppelin I and I went ‘Holy Shit what is this?!’ and that started me on a whole new track, and I was late teens or something at that point. Then when I got out into the clubs first time, because I thought it would be really cool to get out and do that kind of thing on stage with a band that 70’s stuff was out, and they were playing mainly the 80’s Metal stuff – and I was learning a lot of Maiden and Priest, Van Halen, Black Sabbath and all that. And I was pumping some Zeppelin and Free and stuff into the set and there was still a certain following in New York that was still way into that. And just in my little circle just because I was doing that when it was ’out’ seemed to be a bit of an attention-getter, and then just by chance I walked into my first real record deal not even trying or planning to do it. So I guess the answer to your question is – I think I’m more influenced by music and all the different compositions that I’ve heard that really turn me on, and flip my emotions, than I am necessarily about particular singers.
Mark: I get that completely.
Keith: But once I started fronting bands rather than playing any other instruments and I started hearing some of these vocal Rock Gods and what they could do – old Coverdale, Tyler, like I said before early Glenn Hughes, all these kind of cats, I was like ‘Wow’ it just turned me on to another world. And I guess at that point in time it was like training to be a fighter, you’ve got to do your running with your weights in your hand, you’ve got to do so many push-ups and sit-ups and in a way I was training to be a better singer by putting on an old Aretha Franklin record and belting out to it till I’m good at it! And if I think I can do that I can do anything. And with the music, you know I’m into everything musically from classical composers to all the old classic Elton John, old Elvis, all that stuff you know.
Mark: I think you’re right it’s all about the song. To close we’ve got our traditional two questions for you, the first is: If you could have been a fly on the wall for the creation of any great album just to see how the magic happened what would it be and why? What’s the album that still resonates with you?
Keith: ‘Fly on the wall!’ There’s a million of them but I’m gonna have to say (pause) I’m gonna have to say ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ by The Beatles.
Mark: We get a lot of Beatles records but never, I don’t think, ‘Mystery Tour’ – what is it about that particular album?
Keith: Well that’s the one “I Am the Walrus’ is on and there’s also a couple of real great, I think I’d have to say, George Martin-influenced tracks on there too. I’d love to see how all that went down man.
Mark: I think I’m going to have to dig that one out and give it a spin, the album with ‘All You Need is Love’ on it! If I recall correctly it was half the film soundtrack and half singles. The last question is even easier – what is the meaning of life?
Keith: (pause) Whew! The meaning of life is to live every day to the fullest while you are in that day. You don’t have a future, you don’t have a past. Music is the only true art.
Mark: I like it, and thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today.
Keith: No thank you so much Mark, I enjoyed it man, I’m glad we could connect and appreciate the conversation, any time you want to talk just drop me a line and we’ll set something up.
Mark: I most certainly will do. Hope the tour goes well, it’s great to see you guys hitting the road.
Keith: Than you my brother.
