Tony Harnell in Australia… I never thought I’d hear those words… But it’s true, the man with one of the best and most distinct voices in rock is coming down-under for a string of dates including the Melodic Rock Fest 2020. We had to talk!

Mark: Hi, Tony, it’s great to see you are coming over to Australia because one of the bands I have missed in the past has been TNT, I know you’re no longer with them, but I think of all the voices in Rock music yours is one of the most distinctive, and most memorable, how do you keep it in shape?

Tony: I get asked that a lot! I put it down to two things, I was lucky enough to have a great teacher from a very young age; my mom being an opera singer probably didn’t hurt. She was singing a lot when I was still in the womb, and starting her career when I was born, I was around that a lot, so I probably absorbed her going to her classical lessons and picked up a lot of that stuff. Also, I had been singing for about a year professionally, and my mom got me some lessons in New York City with a really great teacher that she found by accident who is now one of the world’s best voice teachers. I think that combined with, honestly, I think, I haven’t done a lot of really extensive touring and I think I would’ve been fine because of my technique, but I would have to say that’s probably also part of it, and I don’t know what else to say!! I’d say for the most part I’ve never really been pushed, for the most part like everybody, I’ve had bad nights and bad stints, but, I’ve never pushed my voice in a way that didn’t feel comfortable to me.

Mark: That’s the key I guess. You’ve been involved in some wonderful projects over the years, and I only really just heard the Lovekillers album, which had I heard it last year would probably have been one of my favourite albums of the year! It’s a wonderful album, some great songs; will you be playing any of that when you come over to see us?

Tony: I’ll try, I do have a Starbreaker song in the set list from the last Starbreaker album that came out in January last year, but I probably won’t be doing anything off the Lovekillers album, not on this tour anyway. The reason for that is I’ve never been to Australia, and I’m doing an acoustic show so I am doing things a little differently than I would with an electric show, because not all the TNT material really works in an acoustic setting. But, I’m trying to do as much TNT as possible because I know a lot of people have never seen me, and I do things in the acoustic show that I really think will work in that setting.

Mark: That’s great, there are so many people hanging out to see you, from the feedback I’ve been getting! You are up there at the top of the people they want to see at the festival!

Tony: I’m kind of blown away by that, it’s crazy! My first instinct is that’s not true, or you’re asking the wrong kind of people!!

Mark: I am trying to talk to everyone on the line-up, and you are the second last person I’ve managed to tie down for an interview. I’ve had about a thousand comments from e mails and social media, and I’d say a good 300 were about you.

Tony: Wow, that’s really quite overwhelming, and exciting! You know I’ve been trying to get over to Australia since I was a kid in California, I grew up skateboarding, and surfing was the big love of my teen years as well as rock music, and being absorbed by buying every issue of surfer magazine and really following the sport and taking note of the big Australian surfers through the 70’s and 80’s it was just a dream of mine from that age. To think I’m getting over there now at this point after so many years is amazing. I don’t know if I’ll have the chance to go surfing, but I’ll try, I think Bell’s Beach is near Melbourne? I think the big headline would be Tony goes over to Australia and gets eaten by a shark, that’ll be the headline!! (Laughs)

Mark: That’s if the spiders and snakes don’t get you first!! One of the questions I have, is how do you choose a project, what is it that makes it appealing to you?

Tony: Well, I choose them for different reasons; I had an iron clad rule for a long time that I would not take on too many of these side projects, I didn’t want to water down what I do, or over saturate. This was a weird year with these two projects that I didn’t tour behind because they are not actually bands, Starbreakers is something I’ve done before, so this is the third album that came out last year. But the Lovekillers project is something I wouldn’t normally take on, but I’ve had such a good long relationship with Frontiers Records, so it was almost like a thank you to the label, for all the years of support with other things and doing some really great records with them, I think to date it’s been 5 or 6 albums with them, I can’t remember exactly! They’ve been pretty cool, the Lovekillers, I didn’t choose it, I’d say it chose me, I didn’t do a lot of writing, I didn’t have as much as a hands on with that album as I would normally do, and the Starbreakers project was more hands on, I was very involved in the writing together with Magnus Karlsson, I really meticulously wrote every melody, about 90% of all the melodies and every lyric was really from my heart. On the Lovekillers album, the songs were written and I just changed a few of the things I wasn’t comfortable with, that I thought could be improved upon so I would call them re-writes.

Mark: Presumably, now that TNT is over….

Tony: Well nobody’s putting a nail in that coffin, there was a press release put out, I don’t know if you’re referring to that, by the label, and it really went to mostly press people, and there was something that went out that eluded to the fact that the relationship between Ronni and I was forever over, and it’s just not true! We spoke a few days ago and we speak regularly, we’ve always been like brothers, so I’ve never really understood this thing over the years with bands I’ve been a fan of, how it becomes exciting for people to stir this stuff up! What I’ve found out from my friends in bands is that often the press rhetoric about these things, most of the time, is blown way out of proportion! Sometimes Ronni or I would both say things to the press in moments of anger, maybe right after we’ve split up, or right after something had happened or whatever, but we are just like brothers.

Mark: That’s wonderful to hear because it was a bit confusing when I read the press release because it did make it sound like it was something it obviously wasn’t.

Tony: It wasn’t approved by me, the one that I approved for the public was much different to that one, and the one that went to the press I didn’t even know about, so I started doing interviews and I actually stopped doing interviews for the album when I heard that because I was pretty upset about it. Like I said I’m very thankful for the connection with Frontiers, but to me that press release was simply to sell the Lovekillers album and by saying there would never be TNT again with Ronni and I, that might not be true, as long as we’re talking, anything’s possible, and we both know that the best way to get all those songs out to the fans is for both of us to be on stage together.

Mark: Did the way that you write change over the years with new technology coming in, or was it always pretty much the same?

Tony: Ronni and I have a pretty special writing relationship, so we like to write in person, we have written things long distance or things where I have the music written for a whole piece, but most of the stuff that you hear on all the albums was a collaboration that started from scratch. We’d be in a room and maybe I’d have a melody or an idea for a title or whatever, and then he’d have maybe a riff or a chord progression and so we’d just start developing it together. That’s generally, in my opinion how our best songs have been written, but we’ve been successful writing in almost every possible way that people can write a song!

Mark: 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 album would it be for you?

Tony: Oh, boy! Probably “Abbey Road” by the Beatles.

Mark: Yes, great album, speaks for itself! If we’d booked you a table at Melbourne’s best restaurant and allowed you to invite four dinner guests, who would you choose? Who would you love to talk music with?

Tony: Oh, they’re probably all dead! Definitely Freddy Mercury, gee this is hard! Steve Perry and I think Robin Williams to liven things up, I think he’d be hilarious, and, I don’t know, let’s put Robert Plant at the table, there’s four just off the top of my head!

Mark: And the questions just keep getting easier, finally, what is the meaning of life?

Tony: Happiness!

Mark: As simple as that!

Tony: Yeah, it is that simple, and yet it’s one of the hardest things for most people to accomplish in life. Real, true happiness that generates from your own just being, you don’t have to do anything in particular to have it, I wish I’d realised that when I was about 20, life would be very different today, it took me a long time to get me to that place!

Mark: Well, I think you’re going to make a lot of people happy when you come over, if our feedback is anything to go by! Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today Tony.

Tony: You’re welcome, my pleasure. I’m looking forward to meeting you.

Mark: Looking forward to it, take care, see you soon, bye.

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