There are currently three albums vying for my favourite release of the year and all three of them are worthy of your serious attention, but whilst two of them you might say are by ‘household names’ the third is by this little old band from Melbourne Australia – Wicked Smile! If you love your late 80’s Rock but also love a harder edge like Skid Row or Savatage then ‘Wait For the Night’ should be on your shortlist too! Released on 23rd September this year – it’s must have for Rock fans! Mark caught up with Stevie to find out more about the album and to spread the word – Rock the way we love it is back and it isn’t afraid of huge choruses or wild guitars!
Mark: Hi mate, hope lockdown is treating you OK, I really feel for you guys in Victoria and how tough you’ve had it.
Stevie: It’s been tough I’m not gonna lie, we’ve done our best here but we’re at that point when things are getting a little bit annoying. Especially when you look at social media and see bands returning to touring and you think ‘We just want to do that too!’ (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) I know how you feel mate, and I just want to get over and see you. So let’s talk about Wicked Smile. The album came out 24th September in Australia.
Stevie: And 15th October on Europe and the UK, and then on 27th October in Japan.
Mark: And the U.S?
Stevie: Well at the moment we have some people distributing it for us. We tried to get some decent distribution deals but we weren’t happy enough with them so what do you do?
Mark: Well the best solution is to do it yourself like you are doing!
Stevie: Exactly – that’s the plan. It’s been really positive and with the labels that we have signed with in teh UK and Japan they’re distributing the CD for us and that’s what we wanted. We were offered a number of record deals in the last ten months, but really all of them weren’t good enough for what we wanted from a label, in terms of some of them wanting to own part of publishing, and others the money just wasn’t good so we thought we could do it ourselves.
Mark: Good on you. The album is a cracker – the ‘Delirium EP’ gave us a taste of Wicked Smile but the album is just wonderful. As someone who has loved your work over the years I have to say this is right up there and probably even the very best thing you’ve done. How does it feel for you?
Stevie: Thank you so much. It’s probably the thing I’m most proud of and it’s taken a lot of time. When I say a lot of time it’s been two years since I formed the band until teh release right now. The idea was simple I just wanted to write a collection of ten songs with no fillers. I just started thinking of some of my favourite albums just before starting to write. I was thinking of things like Rainbow ‘Rising’; ‘Black Sabbath ‘Heaven and Hell’; Skid Row ‘Skid Row’; Guns ‘n’ Roses ‘Appetite for Destruction’ – they’re all killer albums with no filler at all. And at the same time I wanted to tip my hat to the sort of music that got me into Hard Rock and Heavy Metal – it’s very 80’s based. Look I tend to agree, I’m very proud of the way things came together. I took a lot of ownership particularly in the beginning – I wrote about 4 or 5 tunes and I sent them to Paul Lane who helped me co-write the album and from that point on I formed the band and once I played the material to Danny who is a great singer and he does a wonderful job on the album that was pretty much when we started. We recorded ‘We Fall’ the single at his cousin’s house and my jaw just dropped at how awesome that turned out and that’s when we said “Let’s do this” and then on we recruited Glenn on bass, Jason on Drums and Dave on fellow lead guitar.
Mark: It’s a wonderful line-up and the sound is unapologetically retro yet so fresh and in your face. The think I most love about it I think is that it reminds me of back in the day when people didn’t care about labels – when music could be both Hard Rock and Heavy Metal and no one wanted to stick a label on it. Some of those bands that you name-checked I think most would agree pulled off that rare feat of creating and album without a hint of filler, but you’d be hard pushed to name many bands that have managed it in the last 20-30 years. Until now.
Stevie: Thank you.
Mark: Let’s talk about that lovely guy we know from Canada – Paul Laine – how important is Paul to this album?
Stevie: Paul is a fantastic guy. I met Paul just by reaching out on Social Media actually about 8 years ago when I was looking for a Producer for The Radio Sun and from that point onwards we just hit it off just as friends. But obviously as a song writer and a producer he’s one of the best. When it was time to play some of the Wicked Smile songs to somebody Paul was the first person I thought of. We’ve toured the world together – played shows in the United States and the U.K. and Australia obviously and I’ve been the guitar player in his band, so it’s more than just a working relationship. He’s a very good friend and he comes and stays with me whenever he comes to Australia. But to the album he brought so much, just having another objective person to listen and playing ideas off him was great, and him coming up with ideas that I’d never have thought about. Sonically he gets how I want the guitars to sound as with Dave and myself everything is recorded live on real amplifiers. These days a lot of bands go the digital route, but this is our actually guitar sound, so when you come and see us live this is the guitar tone that people hear. My biggest pet hate, and I’m not trying to be negative is that I’ve seen some bands, where I’ve loved the sound on the CD and then I go and see them live and it doesn’t sound anything like it. And that’s a fail in my book because you to at least be able to replicate an overall sound live. I mean we’re not trying to be Def Leppard or Tool or something – it’s more about “this is how we sound and we worked really hard to rehearse it and this is what you get.” So if you listen to our record the drums and the bass and the guitars all sound great – Paul did a great job with the production.
Mark: It’s all come together perfectly. I’ll ask the impossible question – do you have any favourites I know there’s no filler on there but I have a few I think I love just that little bit more – what about you after living with them longer than anyone?
Stevie: I do, but for different reasons. ‘We Fall’ I guess because it was the first song and it has that particular way it starts – I remember saying to Paul I want something to start that makes people think ‘Australian’ and so I love the way it starts, and it’s got a fat guitar sound with a little bit of flange and a Drop D Van Halen inspired tuning. So that’s a favourite for sure, and lyrically it focusses on the world but also in the first couple of lines we wanted to make the point of saying with the lyrics how Hard Rock and Heavy Metal kids today and back in the day were frowned upon just because you looked a certain way. You get judged and that’s what I wanted to bring up. I also am really happy with the song ‘Stronger’ because ‘Stronger’ is bout my daughter Cassidy Paris – she was given a bit of a hard time in High School because she would go into school holding a guitar and wanting to play Rock music, but everyone there was all about R&B and Rap – now that’s fine but when you start judging people that’s not, and being a girl I don’t think helped which absolutely sucks. How does that work? Back in the day if you were holding a guitar case going to school wearing your influences on your sleeve you would have been considered the cool kid. But she had a bit of a hard time particularly when she was younger when she’d get bullied, but towards the end of High School things started to change when a lot of the kids who were into music in year 11 and year 12 were asking her for advice, and these were some of the kids who were bullying her back in the day. It’s interesting how things change, so lyrically that song has a special place for me. And the last song we recorded which is going to be the next single ‘Date With the Devil’ – I wrote it with a bass intro in mind and that’s how it starts and then gets into the riff. I play lead guitar on the album and so does David, and I think on ‘Devil’ you really hear Dave shine as the guitar player – he’s an awesome guitarist and an awesome addition to the band. What were some of your favourites Mark?
Mark: Well, the best thing about the album I think Steve, and the sign of a really great record is that everyone I’ve spoken to has different favourites. At the moment, funny you should mention ‘Devil’ because that’s one of them, so great to hear that it’s the new single. But there’s one I find myself humming every now and again and that’s ‘Daze of Delirium.’
Stevie: Well that’s our encore song in Melbourne. We were very fortunate before lockdown that earlier in the year when you could play gigs we played four sold out shows and we had another sold out show that we owe as we went into lockdown. But at all of those shows it was really apparent that was a sing-along song with the audience, so by the time we played the third show we added it as the encore song. And the crowd would sing along and we’d stop and just let them sing with no instruments – that was just really cool! It was a great indication of which songs work in the live setting!
Mark: And with an album with such great rockers on there if you have a ballad you have to have a great ballad and I think that ‘Don’t Wait for me’ is that song.
Stevie: Danny is just amazing on that song.
Mark: Absolutely mate.
Stevie: It sends shivers down your spine. And that’s what I really love out of a Rock ballad and I remember when I got the recording I thought “There’s so much emotion there” and that I think is apparent on the whole album. We all know Danny can sing anything from slow heavy tunes to the up-tempo ones – getting into the Bruce Dickinson and Rob Halford territory, but on the ballad he just shines. Some people have even asked is that Danny? And that’s an awesome thing to say.
Mark: Great performances on the album, great songs, and fantastic to hear you actually got in a few shows before lockdown because we’d love to smuggle you over here to play for us!
Stevie: Oh we want to definitely want to. We have people message us from W.A. asking us when we’re coming over and that’s definitely the plan, it’s just who knows when things are going to ease? So it is frustrating.
Mark: I’ll put you on the spot now, I love asking this question and I don’t think I’ve asked you it before. I know your musical history and the bands you’ve been in over the years, but what made you pick up that guitar in the first place?
Stevie: I always loved music as a kid and I looked up to people who played instruments. And I had an older brother who would play a lot of Heavy Rock and Metal so that inspired me. My cousin played guitar and I remember some times going round to my cousin’s house as a little kid, I’m talking four, five years old and seeing a Fender Strat back when Deep Purple were the big thing. I remember not being able to touch it, not even look at it, like that ‘Spinal Tap’ thing, just be amazed by it (laughs). So I carried that with me up until High School and then it was bands like Dokken and Skid Row – particularly that debut Skid Row album – that was one of the reasons I picked up the guitar. I just loved Sebastian’s voice, but it was the songs – talking of no fillers – hearing anything from ‘Youth Gone Wild’ to ’18 and Life’, ‘I Remember You’ and ‘Piece of Me’ – wow that was cool! It was just that larger than life thing. That was probably the album, but before that there were bands like Van Halen, Kiss, Deep Purple, The Sweet, The Skyhooks, an Australian band – they were the bands that got me into music but Skid Row made me go one step further.
Mark: And I love how those influences come through on the album. I have to ask though as so many people are asking me, when is the next one coming out? (laughs) It’s not even released yet everywhere and people are wanting more! I guess people are wanting to know if you are using your ‘lockdown’ wisely and still writing?
Stevie: (laughs) Definitely. I’ve already got together about four or five ideas, they’re not songs yet by any means, but they’re there. I kind of write a little differently. I write with a chorus in mind first and foremost. Obviously I’ve got to like the riff, but to me if the chorus doesn’t sit well with me a day or two after I’ve written it then I won’t continue writing the song. I guess it’s just the way I write now I’ve become older – big choruses are king with me. So I’ve four or five ideas, but believe it or not we’ve spent a lot of time in lockdown working out how we’re going to market the album. I think a lot of problems musicians face are that they spend so much money on the recording that they run out of money to promote it. Because this time we are the record company we put aside some money and each time sales come through we put that into marketing. Because we are so proud of it and believe in it we don’t just want to rush to the next one.
Mark: How about touring the record Stevie?
Stevie: We’re already booked to play in the UK in 2022 in November – that’s locked in with about 12 or 13 dates so far. And we’re hoping that will expand to greater Europe, which it looks like it may do. But in between that time we’d love to play all around Australia and get to places like New Zealand and Indonesia – which is such an untapped market. I was fortunate enough to play there a few years ago with Black Majesty and there’s a great scene over there and a big appreciation for what we are doing. But Mark the best thing that has buzzed me out is the way that the album has been received – every review has been 9/10, 8/10, 10/10 or album of the year nominations – so you start to think all that work is paying off! It’s very humbling.
Mark: It’s certainly number one for me at the moment – you just have to hold out a couple more months and we’ll get you over the line!
Stevie: (laughs)
Mark: Now on to a few questions people have sent in – first up is “What’s going on with ‘The Radio Sun’?
Stevie: Jason the lead singer and I decided to have a little bit of a break about two and a half years ago – its still a band and we’ll get back to it when the time is right. I think we did 5 albums and 1 EP in five years and toured the UK three times and the US three times, went to Japan and played a bunch of times in Australia. So we thought it was time for a break from that. So Jason’s doing his own thig and so am I. But we’ll get back.
Mark: And time for another quick one. Post-Covid you can take four musicians from any time in the past to a nice restaurant – who are you going to invite?
Stevie: Great question. I have to say Ronnie James Dio as he’s my all-time favourite singer, Then George Lynch – even though I’ve met him a few times, he’s one of my favourite guitar-players. Randy Rhoads on the table as well and I have to have Eddie Van Halen too.
Mark: Nice choices.
Stevie: I’ll have to have one more though – Eric Grönwall.
Mark: Eric who used to front H.E.A.T.?
Stevie: Yeah a bit more of a recent one. I love the way he goes about things and it’s great to hear that he’s beginning to get batter. And again another of my favourite singers. You can hear that Sebastian Bach influence and he can sing anything.
Mark: Well I’d have to come down for that as he still owes me a beer from Melbourne a few years back!
Stevie: (laughs)
Mark: Always great to catch up with you mate, thanks so much and may the album go from strength to strength. I know you’d be taking on teh world already if not for this pesky covid. I just can’t help thinking what would have happened if we hadn’t been locked down as it really is world class.
Stevie: Thanks Mark.
Mark: Let’s hope next time we catch up it’s face to face and you’re up there on stage playing guitar and doing what you do best.
Stevie: Let’s make it happen. It’s been great. Bye, bye.
‘Wait For the Night’ is out now!