XYZ is a great band and one of those few bands that got me on the road seeking them out in the early 90’s when they played the Astoria in London on a rare visit to the UK.It wasn’t until 2008 that I saw them again at Rocklahoma Festival in the US when Pat, Terry and Co signed my XYZ collection for me. Now they’re coming down-under to play the Melodic Rock Festival in Melbourne in March and a handful of other dates across the country including a date with Kip Winger in Perth. We caught up with founder member Pat Fontaine to talk all about the visit and so much more…
Pat Fontaine
Pat: Hi, Mark, we’ve met before, am I correct?
Mark: Yes we have!
Pat: Excellent, it’s good to see you again!! How ya doing?
Mark: I’m well, thank you Sir. It was a long time ago back in 2008.
Pat: We did a few things in 2008, the first thing we did was, I believe, Rocklahoma.
Mark: You’ve got it!
Pat: That was a special one for us, because it was the first time we’d played together after years and years of nothingness really!
Mark: It was a great festival. We have so much to talk about, and the main thing is your visit to Australia in March for the Melodic Rock Festival, in Melbourne, and also your gig in Perth too!
Pat: Yeah, it’s fantastic; I’ve never been to Perth, XYZ has never been to Australia, but I’ve been to Australia a few times, as I have a good friend in Melbourne, and I believe Perth is the city of Bon Scott, we all have a soft spot for him in our hearts. Let me ask you, is he buried in Perth?
Mark: He’s buried in Fremantle Cemetery, Fremantle is south of Perth.
Pat: Is it a little bit like for example in Paris, and Jim Morrison’s grave, where people go to sit and drink and smoke pot, and play music?
Mark: It is, it’s set out a bit nicer than Jim’s grave, it’s bigger and certainly a destination. There’s also a statue of Bon in Fremantle too.
Pat: I’d certainly like to do it, if we have time and the weather is nice, I’d love to go. I’ve been to Jim Morrison’s grave, never been to Jimi Hendrix grave, I’ve always wanted to do it and of course Bon Scott, it’ll be like a pilgrimage.
Mark: OK, let’s talk about XYZ, and your story, for people who don’t know about it, it always struck me as an interesting one a bunch of guys moving from France to LA, take us all the way back to that.
Pat: Well I believe my first XYZ rehearsal was just me, and that was in 1980!! I just always wanted to do a trio thing, because of Motorhead; I was a big fan of Motorhead. So, I bought a 4001 Rickenbacker just like Lemmy had, and then I recruited a guitar player and a drummer eventually, and then we were XYZ, a trio. One day we were in the studio doing a demo, and my manager at the time said there’s this guy, Terry, who’s a really good singer who just wants to swing by and check it out. At that time we had a bit of a name in our home town and Terry was curious about it, why is it, that this trio of punks have managed to get a little bit of a name here, so he came by and we were singing, I was singing, so I said ok, you have a great voice do you want to do something a little bit different and step behind the mic and just do anything you want, and he did! We all kind of thought, OK, it’s going to mess the trio thing up, but he had such a great voice, he was so good at it he never missed a note, and what he did that day, there was no preparation, no rehearsal, he just sang, and we were stood in the control room thinking, shit, that’s actually pretty good!!!
So, we recorded the song and that was it, we didn’t think twice about it, and I thought we’ll carry on as a trio, and I’ll keep the demo as a souvenir. I would then play the demo to people and they would say “Oh my God!” your singer is fantastic, and I would say he’s not my singer he’s just a friend of mine, and eventually everybody just said the same thing, forget the trio thing, you’ve got to get that singer! So, I called Terry again, and he was against it at first, we were very heavy at first and he didn’t want to go heavy, he wanted to be more melodic, and so eventually we decided to meet half way, we would let go of the Punk heaviness, and we’ll meet him half way with a melodic pop sound, and we joined forces in 1983, and very quickly I said, Terry if we’re going to do something, let’s do it big. So, if you’re serious and you want to do this then let’s go where it’s happening, and at that time, California was where it was happening, and we thought we’ve got to get there, so we did, we got on a plane with nothing in our pockets, and landed in Los Angeles at the end of 1983, a little bit before the Olympics, if I remember. The two guys who were with us at the time thought we had no chance in hell, they didn’t want to do the LA experiment, so it was just Terry and I, and eventually we recruited a few guys here and there, on the Strip, walking Sunset Boulevard on a Saturday night, all the bands were out there, Quiet Riot, Warrant, Guns n Roses, Poison, all those guys were there and we just wanted to be part of it.
Eventually, a gig at a time we managed to put our name on the Marquee at the Whiskey, and we became the Whisky band, and in 1986 we were signed to Atlantic records. We were so excited, but eventually that deal didn’t make it, so the record we recorded for Atlantic, was to them, not “Heavy” enough. We shelved it, and continued on for a couple of years, and then with Enigma/Capitol that was in 1989 and that was the story of the pre signed XYZ. After that we got a deal, when you’ve got a deal things kind of get a bit bigger in a quick period, a lot of it is a bit out of control, because now you’re losing control and you give it to the record label! So from first rehearsal in France in 1980 to a major corporation deal in California in 1989 that was it!!
Mark: Wow, it’s an incredible story, and what a great time to be there, you mentioned some of the bands around at the time, and to be playing The Strip with guys like that would have been amazing!
Pat: It was fantastic! We kind of didn’t know for sure at the time, when you’re there you don’t know if you’re going to make that much of a mark on the world, but now that I look back the fact that we lived in Hollywood, we lived in a small apartment next to the Guitar centre, next to Sunset Boulevard, there was like 10 of us to one apartment, I always thought “my God, this is a tough life”, but now that I look back, it was a wonderful life! We were lucky enough to hang out with all those guys, Don Dokken, Slash, and Brett Michaels; it was just a fantastic time. At that time we weren’t famous, we were all just trying to climb the ladder, so there was a sense that we were all in it together, it was a friendly thing, a party thing, it was drinking contests with Jani Lane every night! It was a great time, and now that I look back, I no longer live in Hollywood, I live in Las Vegas, but when I go back to Hollywood, which I did last week, it’s such a different world now, the Strip is dark, the clubs are gone, only The Rainbow remains and the Whisky, the last of the last so to speak! It was a great time; the 80’s in Hollywood, California was just a fantastic moment in time, and I’m so glad that we stuck it out. There were moments when Terry and I thought this is never going to work; we’re going to go back to Europe, they don’t like us here, it’s not going to work out, and I’m glad we stuck it out because we lived through a period of time, I think, 1983-1990 that was so special musically and artistically. Spending weekends with Tommy Lee, Nikki Sixx and all those guys, it was mad really when I think about it and so I’m so delighted that we didn’t bail out!!
Mark: Well, yeah, and you produced some great music as well!! Those first two albums especially, which I’ve still got on vinyl, I’ve also got somewhere an EP that you produced prior to the album.
Pat: We released a couple of demos in Europe, and then we released a few demos prior to those records in the US, some people grabbed them and pressed them, so some of them are really cool, I come up to people and say don’t mind me, but I want to buy some of your bootleg records!! I’ve bought a few here and there, but the first official record we made was in Europe, it was the EP “Four Storms”, and after that it was a bunch of demos that people somehow managed to press and ship out! In fact during the war there were some cassettes that were called XYZ, during the Iraqi war, when America decided to invade Iraq, but there were some cassettes circulating in the soldier’s backpacks, and it was a version of “Inside Out” that pre dates the single, so it was a different verse, different lyrics, it was very interesting!!
Mark: Things do change over the years and like you say there’s still only the Whisky and the Rainbow left in Hollywood, and I actually read this morning that the Hard Rock Café in Vegas is closing too! You live in Vegas?
Pat: Yeah we moved here in 2014, Hollywood was just too expensive, everywhere was unaffordable, and the small apartment that we lived in became such a valuable property that the landlord offered me really good money to vacate and get out of there, so I took the money and ran! Hollywood became like the new Manhattan, if you like, everyone wants to be there, so the prices are nuts! In the time that we were there 83-89, it was a very affordable place, every artist, every musician lived in Hollywood, it was very “artsy” and very low end, and dangerous at the same time, there were a lot of drug dealers on the streets, drag queens and prostitutes, it was an “edgy” place! Now, it’s like Disneyland!! The Hard Rock Café is actually closed now, it’s closed for 6 months, they’re going to reopen, but under what name, what format, I don’t know. I remember The Joint and The Vinyl were two big venues there, they were fantastic. I was shocked to see that The Scorpions are coming to Vegas for a residency, but they’re not playing The Hard rock, they’re playing another casino which is bizarre! Things change, my friend, nothing stays the same!! Maybe in some ways it’s better that things change because if things stay the same it would be a bit of a bore!!
Mark: Well, yes, you could look at it that way! The thing I loved most about XYZ was the first two albums, “XYZ” and “Hungry”, but I did collect a lot of the other stuff over the years and I have got a signed copy of “Forbidden Demos” that you all signed for me in Rocklahoma in 2008. You obviously stayed good friends over the years, and of course Terry had that period with Great White, I actually saw his first rehearsal with the band at The Brixton, in Redondo Beach, we were going to see the band that night and just popped in, there was a note on the door that said Jack had been taken ill, and Terry would be stepping in! Has there ever been any talk of writing again?
Pat: Yeah, Terry and I, we actually wrote a few songs as ghost writers for a few artists, so we can’t talk about that, but we were hired a few times to write songs for people that have a writer’s block, or people that just couldn’t go forward with a project, so we finished a few records for major artists. It’s always a great time, we haven’t written for ourselves, and in fact we are in the process of producing the first couple of songs that we will possibly record in the summer when we come back from Australia, we’re going to go in the studio, and start to see if we can get along and play a few songs and see where it takes us. There’s nothing really concrete yet, but yes, we do have a few things in the back of our minds and yes we do plan on recording new XYZ material sometime in the summer.
Mark: Fantastic, that’s always wonderful to hear! I was talking to Kip Winger the other day, who you are playing with in Perth, he was also looking forward to coming over to the west coast as well, and I always remember George Lynch describing Perth as like California without the people!!
Pat: That’s funny, I’ve never been to Perth but if it is, it’s a really good thing!!
Mark: The big question for us is what are you going to be playing??
Pat: I’m not sure! A few months ago we toured the US, and did four songs from “Hungry” and four songs from the first record, and that was it, then in the middle of the set Terry does a little bit of an acoustic thing where he tries a different thing, sometimes he does something completely unexpected from another band or another artist, it’s up to him. But typically what we are trying to do is recreate the past, let’s face it, we don’t play any new material, we just play songs that people want to hear! If somebody in the audience screams loud enough, then we’ll play that, but really it’s about four songs from both albums, and a little bit of something in between. We never know what’s going to happen!
Mark: That sounds great! 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 that album be for you?
Pat: Well, if I was lucky enough to be able to do that I would’ve absolutely loved to have been there when Pink Floyd recorded Dark Side of the Moon. That’s it, done!! I would’ve killed for that! I’ve heard stories from people that were there and they say it was actually quite boring, but just to hear the music fresh like that coming back from the speakers, Pink Floyd were I think one of those true, original bands, everybody copied everybody, but nobody’s ever really copied Pink Floyd. They had that true originality to their music, and I would’ve killed to be there!
Mark: It’s quite a frightening proposition to try and copy someone like Pink Floyd!
Pat: Yeah, it’s funny, a lot of people copy AC/DC and Guns n Roses, and even Jimi Hendrix, but to copy Pink Floyd, good luck!!!
Mark: We’ve booked you a table at an imaginary restaurant and you can invite four people, either living or dead (or a combination), who would you invite? Who would you love to have a conversation with over dinner??
Pat: That’s a great question. That’s a lot of people! I’d love to sit down with Desmond Morris, he’s an anthropologist, I don’t know if you’re familiar with this older gentleman, he wrote extensively about human evolution and our kinship to animals and I would love to sit down with him and talk about rock and rollers and our kinship to animals! That would be fantastic to get input from him, because I often think of us as a bunch of monkeys on stage with guitars, and I’d love to entertain that thought with him!! The other three people, I don’t know, I’d love to sit down with Jimi Hendrix and see what triggered that music, and Eddie Van Halen. I sat down with him once for a cup of coffee at Sound City in North Hollywood, but he was very quiet, not talking, so he never really answered my questions. As for the fourth guy, I don’t know, I think I’d need a little more time to invite my fourth guest!!
Mark: OK, we’ll leave that seat vacant for now! Let me know when you get to Perth! The final question is the easy one, what is the meaning of life?
Pat: The meaning of life? That’s a deep one! In fact I would entertain that one with Desmond Morris! I think the meaning of life is really basic, we are physical people with a spiritual view of the world, and I think we have to please ourselves and then please others, and perhaps that’s why music is such a force today because it pleases people. Art is always a bit of a mystery, why is it that we evolve to like art? And why is it that we evolve to listen to music? It’s bizarre, but I think it reminds us that there’s beauty out there, and sometimes you have to sit down and smell the roses and open your eyes and absorb the beauty that is there in front of you
Mark: That’s a beautiful answer, that’s great. Thank you so much for your time today Pat, I really appreciate it.
Pat: Thank you for your time, Mark, I can’t wait to shake your hand, come and introduce yourself, see you soon.
