Chip Z’Nuff and Enuff Z’Nuff were over in Australia for the first time ever earlier in the year before Covid-19 changed the game for live music globally. Getting home was a close call – they flew back to the US the day before the borders closed! The band now has a new album ‘Brainwashed Generation’ waiting for take-off and it’s laden with surprises from a ghostly guitar from Ace Frehley to a vocal from Donnie Vie, but I wont give away all the surprises. Let’s just chat to Chip and see how his world has changed over the last few months since we last caught up.
Chip: It’s good to hear your lovely Australian accent again Mark.
Mark: (laughs) and great to hear your wonderful warm Chicago tones!
Chip: (laughs) I hope I get the chance to come back out and do the Melodic Rock Fest again next year. I certainly hope so. How is everything out there right now?
Mark: Oh it’s pretty good out here in the West Chip.
Chip: You’re pretty safe.
Mark: We’re very safe out here, we not only cut off the Australian borders but we cut off the West Australian border so I think we had just four cases in the last month.
Chip: That’s it? Oh that’s beautiful to hear that bro.
Mark: It’s a bit different to where you guys are at the moment, what’s it like there?
Chip: Well you don’t really know what to believe, I think a lot of the reporting is biased. If they say ten thousand people died from it, I’d say it’s five thousand.
Mark: So it’s over reported?
Chip: It’s over-reported, yeah. My doctor friend told me, inside scoop, he said if anybody has an upper respiratory illness or some kind of problem with their lungs, if they die they’re supposed to be reported as a coronavirus death. The Government gives them $13,000 for every coronavirus death and then another $39,000 if they were put on a respirator, its bullshit, everybody knows it’s a bunch of bullshit. And if you say anything about it people say “Oh you’re not sympathetic, you’re not a real citizen”, but the fact of the matter is it’s not that many people that it’s affecting.
Mark: I guess it’s different wherever you look all over the world. But we’ve got to get over it and we’ll make it through, but the worst thing for me is the loss of live music, I saw you guys while we were all in St Kilda I think I bumped into you guys pretty much every night in Melbourne – it was a great Festival as you say, but if they don’t bring you back next year I’m sure someone will, you went down that well. Give us the goods – how was your first time in Australia?
Chip: Oh absolutely incredible- I love your wine, I love your women, I love you food, there are just great people out there, everything’s so clean. I was told for years, my buddies in Cheap Trick told me Australia is one of the greatest places you’ll ever play if you get the opportunity to do something. And it’s taken us 30 years to get to Australia and when we finally landed on your soil I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was and how much respect there is in your country from everybody. I just loved the way everybody enjoyed themselves – I went to some of your restaurants, and I went to your second-hand stores and I bought suit coats and scarves and jewellery – so many wonderful things that I couldn’t find here in the United States, unique stuff. And then the shows – people just loved the concerts – every song the fans knew the words, they were smothering us like bums on surf and turfs!
Mark: (laughs)
Chip: And I took a couple of days off too which is unheard of because in North America you play a concert, you play the next day, you’re playing five, six, seven days a week. In Australia you play three, four days a week then you get three days off. So I got a chance to go out and hang out by the ocean, I saw my buddies from The Pixies, The Pixies were out there, Whitesnake was out there, Scorpions were out there. You have a lot of good Rock and Roll and Metal out there, good musicians, great players, we were all out there celebrating, and I just happened to be out there at a good time. And I was lucky I made it home in time because I returned to the United States and they shut down the border the next day.
Mark: It was that close wasn’t it!?
Chip: Yeah we got lucky.
Mark: Ironically the last live show I saw was Kip Winger a few days later who was over on the bill with you at Melodic Rock Fest. He came over to see us in the West.
Chip: Yeah, I’d seen Kip the day before he went to Perth and Kip was telling me how excited he was to go there and he was asking me why we weren’t on the bill in Perth. I told him I didn’t know, I didn’t book the shows, I’m just here to play, I’d go to Perth in a second.
Mark: Now that would have been cool.
Chip: Then when I got back Kip and I went to the studio and recorded a song ‘Better Days Comin’’ with Claus Meine from Scorpions and Alice Cooper and Richie Kotzen from Winery Dogs, that was pretty good. Kip told me Perth was one of his favourite gigs, he loved the sound.
Mark: And a heap of others too – it’s a great all-star video. So many great voices – Jeff Scott Soto, Mili Matijevic, Robert Mason, Tony Harnell and Terry Ilous (who sadly didn’t make it to Melodic Rock Fest), our mate Danny Vaughn, Michael Starr (from Steel Panther), Fiona Flanagan (who we just interviewed), Steve from Kix and a heap of others too. That must have been a wonderful thing to have been a part of?
Chip: As soon as I finished that project I got a call from the guitar player from Jon Anderson from ‘Yes’ asking me if I wanted to sing on a song on the new Jon Anderson record. So I did that and it will be coming out soon too as well. There’s a bunch of musicians around that as well. And then I got a call from Dave [Ellefson] from Megadeth – he and a couple of musicians have gotten together for another side project and they’re doing a song that they want me to sing on as well. There’s the drummer from Fear Factory, and the Bass player from Megadeth and the guitar player from Bang Tango.
Mark: Not Mark or Kyle?
Chip: No a guy named Drew Fortier.
Mark: I know Drew, the guys who did the Bang Tango documentary that you and I were in?
Chip: Yeah, I loved that.
Mark: I think I ruined it a bit though!
Chip: I don’t think so!
Mark: (laughs) you’re too kind. (laughs) It was a privilege to be on there with guys like you.
Mark: It’s a small world, I also just got sent Jon Anderson’s new album, which track were you on?
Chip: Oh it’s not out yet, it’s a brand new song not on the new record. It’s a “we are the world type song”, it’ll be on the next record. If I’m not mistaken Peter Gabriel from Genesis is gonna be on there as well, I know he was speaking to Robert Plant, he was trying to get Robert too, but I don’t know if that happened or not.
Mark: Oh wow, big names there! And connections all over the place, right after talking to you I have Ron Keel.
Chip: You saw Ron in Australia didn’t you? Good guy.
Mark: Yeah we had a great catch up. But let’s talk about the important thing, let’s talk about the new album ’Brainwashed Generation’. I love it, I mean I really liked the last two but I love this one. Tell us about the writing, this sounds like a band, you seem to have really clicked together on this one?
Chip: I appreciate that, yes the ‘Brainwashed Generation’ record started off in November I started recording with my producer Rob, a Punk Rock producer in Chicago. And we just started putting down the ideas over at my studio then I started thinking about what I could do to help lift the perception of the record and what I could do to make it bigger than it already was – I knew I had some good songs but I wanted to have some contributions from some big name guys as I thought that would really shine a spotlight on the songs. So I went out and I got Daxx Neilson from Cheap Trick, I got Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater, Winery Dogs and Sons of Apollo, Steve Ramone played guitar on a couple of songs – Joey Ramone’s nephew. Then I called Ace Frehley and asked him if he was interested in playing guitar and he said “absolutely” and I even reached out to Nuno Bennencourt and Neal Schon…
Mark: Oh wow!
Chip: They also said that they’d love to play on the record but they didn’t give me their parts in time so they didn’t make the fourth quarter on this record, but maybe the next one I’ll get them!
Mark: It’s fantastic, it sort of reminds me of when you did something similar with ‘Paraphernalia’?
Chip: Yeah I had Rick Neilson play on that record along with James Young from Styx.
Mark: The new record credits Ace Frehley as playing ‘inaudible lead guitar’, there has to be a story around that surely?
Chip: Well you couldn’t hear his solos, you couldn’t hear his lead guitar parts that he played on the record. I hung out with him in December and asked him if he’d like to play on the new Enuff Z’Nuff album and he said “Love to, send me the songs and I’ll play three or four solos on there”, I thought great. Then I went off around the Country, December with L.A. Guns, in January we were touring, in February we were touring including the Monsters of Rock Cruise with Extreme and Tesla and all those great bands and when I came back home the e-mail that I was sent back from his manager – there was no guitar on there, I couldn’t hear the guitars
Mark: (laughs).
Chip: So I called back, and at the time he was going through some other business so he didn’t have time to re-do the guitars. So I went to the studio, and I did my best ‘Ace Frehley’, I played lead – so that’s me on there. By that time though we’d already done the artwork on the record so I just changed it to ‘inaudible lead guitar Track 7’.
Mark: That’s a brilliant story (laughs).
Chip: But the story ends better than that – at the last minute I went in there and played the guitar, did one or two takes, just trying to do my best impersonation of Ace Frehley and when I’d done Ace got back to me to say he’d play on the next Enuff Z‘Nuff album so that’s cool.
Mark: I love a happy ending, great result.
Mark: I think my pick of the album at the moment is ‘Broken Love’, it’s wonderful.
Chip: Thank you. I lost my little brother a couple of years ago and I wanted to make something that was nice for him. He was a real angel, a great guy, everybody loved him and when he passed away over 2000 people showed up at his wake. My little brother, unbelievable. He was just one of those guys that left an indelible mark on your life when you met him. And his death was the life of that song.
Mark: It’s a beautiful song and a wonderful tribute to him.
Chip: I just shot a video for that track as well. Our first video will be ‘Broken Love’ and it’ll be out in a couple of weeks.
Mark: That would have been my choice too. And before I’d read the press release I knew that on ‘Strangers’ that was Donnie singing.
Chip: Yeah Donnie came in on that – he called me on the phone and said “Hey I want to do something nice for you. How about you and I do song on the new record?” I said I’d love to so he said he’d send me a couple of ideas to see what I thought, and that was one of his ideas. I said it sounds great bro, so I sang on it, I played bass on it, I played lead guitar on it and then I sent it back to Donnie and Donnie sang the lead vocal on it. Then when he sent it back I told the record company let’s pull a song off the record and put this one on there, and that’s how that came about. I think it’s a nice gesture, I think the fans will dig it, his pipes are beautiful on it and it’s good to hear that old Enuff Z’Nuff combination, we have a great chemistry together.
Mark: And there’s a nice Beatles connection on one of the songs too, you mentioned that Mike Portnoy guests on drums and he’s playing on a Ringo replica set on ‘All in Vain’?
Chip: Yeah, Mike pulled out his old Beatles drum kit. The Tama Ringo Starr kit. And he doesn’t pull that out very often, and boy he gave it the swing and the groove in the pocket that it needed. And that’s my favourite song on the record because that touches on everything that’s happening in the world right now – and there’s certainly a lot of subject matter to write about. A lot of fodder and I really think I came up with a good story on that song ‘All in Vain’ – and you listen to the words now and you think “Wow” but at the time I wrote it I had no idea that this thing was gonna happen. It turned out to be very profound.
Mark: It’s funny how things turned out. It is another great song, and I loved ‘Drugland Weekend’ too, just a little snatch of the lyrics reminded me of ‘Last Child’ by Aerosmith, not that the song sounds like that, just a little snippet.
Chip: You can’t go wrong there, ‘Dirty Honey’ just recorded a version of ‘Last Child’ and it is a great version by the way. But any time people talk about you in the same breath as Aerosmith that’s a win-win to me!
Mark: (laughs) Exactly!
Mark: So what’s next – the new single and video for ‘Broken Love’ are out soon I know.
Chip: Yes that comes out on Frontiers records on July 10th and then the first official show is July 11th for Monsters of Rock Cruise and you can check that out at monstersofrockcruise.com – go to their Facebook page and you can check out our first concert since coronavirus live! So that’s filmed in Cincinnati on the 11th and then the Enuff Z’Nuff Tour starts on September 6th in Los Angeles with Faster Pussycat – the 2020 Quarantine Tour. It’s gonna be great.
Mark: And let’s hope we get there and we all stay safe – that’s the main thing.
Chip: I think we’re gonna get there. We’re at a stage now when we can’t have concerts but we can have protests. If we can have a few thousand people in the streets there’s no reason why we can’t have concerts with appropriate measures if we go along with the guidelines and social distancing. And if there is a problem with that then it’s because we have some corrupt people in our government, and that’s just my opinion. You can go to a store and go shopping, you can go to Wal-Mart any of those big and great stores out there like Wholefoods and it’s no problem, but you can’t go to a Church or a Mosque or a Synagogue and pray. So I think the rules are a little bit questionable. And I don’t like to get political whatsoever but concerts shouldn’t be completely shut down.
Mark: You are so right Chip, to a lot of us out there music is one of the most important things in our lives.
Chip: There’s a way of working around this where we should be able to do shows. We’ve been hit, it’s our livelihood, but what should we do? Call concerts protests so that we can get three or four thousand people? It’s not fair. The people who run this country need to give our small businesses a hand, help the middle class small business owners who helped build this country – they need to get back on the horse again. And we need shows – it’s good for the people. If you can have a protest then you should be able to have a small concert.
Mark: Well we’ve just got them back over here so let’s hope it follows soon over there. Our first shows were seated, reduced capacity and distanced but when that worked now we can stand up and have greater capacities. So we’re getting there, in little steps.
Chip: That’s beautiful, I love to hear that Mark. Listen I’m a fan of rallies and protests, it’s part of our fabric in this part of the world, and I’m good with that. But I’m not a fan of rioting and looting, it’s not fair to small business owners. People of all different ethnicities have helped to build this country and we all deserve to make a living and have a life, especially these smaller business who live week to week, pay check to pay check. So I’m fine with any kind of rallies or protests that help build strength within our community – because when you have strength in numbers you have a voice; anything else I’m not interested in. We need to have concerts back, we need to open the world up, we need people to be able to pray in Churches, we need to do good things for people we can’t just suppress them and hold them back – it’s not healthy for our country. And Rock and Roll, and Heavy Metal and Pop and Alternative and every other kind of music that is out there – it’s all a big part of what we do and so important in our lives and we need to celebrate that and I’m not just saying that for me I’m saying it for all of us. And with the good Lord’s blessing we’re gonna get back on track again and get back to doing the things that we need to do as a nation – and that’s to live and to celebrate what we have.
Mark: You’re so right – I went 66 days without a show – the longest period in my life since I was a kid of fourteen! I didn’t know what to do, I was tearing my hair out! Everyone has things in life that they love and need and for me its music that is one of the most vital and life affirming.
Chip: So glad you’ve got it back brother.
Mark: Stay safe Chip and get back over soon!
Chip: I’d love to be over there with you right now playing! If we come back you’ll have us for shows in all the major Cities right?
Mark: Every State mate! Let’s make it happen!
Chip: All of them! That sounds good. Thanks a lot for taking the time out to talk to me Mark.
Mark: My pleasure Chip. Stay safe.
