Falcon
Perry and Greg, ecept
that they are big chapters to our heavy metal music, are also 2 musicians
that you love to talk. You see I like that they still talk with enthusiasm
about their bands have influenced them, like the fans do. They are not
some like other musicians that when they succeed forget about their influences
and become egoist. By the way the debut album of FALCON is a great proposal
for those that love heavy/hard rock...
1. HOW DID THREE MUSICIANS WITH A GRAND METAL
PAST SUCH AS YOURSELVES FIND EACH OTHERS LOVE FOR PURE HARD ROCKIN’?
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Perry: I’ve been a Cirith Ungol fan for a very
long time and always respected Greg’s songwriting and musicianship a lot.
Frost and Fire is my fave Cirith Ungol album, and Greg wrote everything
on it. I’ve always thought CU was a product of the ‘70s. When I met and
became friends with Rob Garven, the drummer of Cirith Ungol, I wasn’t at
all surprised that he was heavily into some of the same obscure seventies
hard rock and psych bands I was delving into. Rob hasn’t touched drums
in well over a decade, but he’d always mention how he thought Greg was
itching to play music again. Rob put me in touch with Greg to initially
do an interview for Psychedelic Fanzine. Greg and I got to talking and
it was clear we were both on the same page musically. We started jamming,
and I was just flabbergasted by all this old Cirith Ungol material Greg
wrote that never made it on an album. The stuff definitely fit whole-heartedly
with the seventies style heavy rock tunes I had written and was in the
process of getting together. Greg was not only the perfect choice to be
the Falcon bassist, he’s also one of my biggest music heroes and a downright
cool guy to boot. I never have to worry about any bullshit with Greg. He’s
a no-nosense kinda person. Darin I’ve known since about ’97. When I first
heard his band, Pale Divine, I was just floored. Here was a doom metal
power trio with these incredibly fat and catchy seventies inspired riffs.
A little while after I got the Crimson Tears demo I got in touch with Darin.
It was very obvious we were both into exactly the same kind of music—both
heavily inspired by the heavy rockers of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
Just as I’m a Cirith Ungol fanatic, I’m a die-hard follower of Pale Divine.
Darin’s drum work was exactly the kind of thing I was lookin’ for. He had
a track record, with that EP/demo and an album under his belt, and I knew
he was exactly the right man for the job. This is pretty much the only
way Falcon could’ve come into being. I tried getting the band together
before with other guys, but it just didn’t work. I needed two dudes like
Greg and Darin to do it right, ‘cause I didn’t want to go into anything
half-assed.
2. THE SONG “SHELOB’S LAIR” WAS MEANT TO BE FOR
CIRITH UNGOL BUT INSTEAD ENDED UP BEING A FALCON SONG. IT SOUNDS PRETTY
HEAVIER THAN THE OTHER SONGS! DID YOU CHANGE IT ANYHOW FURTHER TO MAKE
IT SOUND MORE LIKE THE REST OF THE ALBUM?
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Perry: “Shelob’s Lair” is an old Cirith Ungol
tune of Greg’s that they used to play in the mid 1970s before Tim Baker
was their singer. The only thing we really altered about the song is cutting
out a few repetitions of riffs. It was originally about 8 minutes long,
‘cause it had a lot more repetitions of existing riffs.
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Greg: I guess our attention spans were longer
back then! The average length of a CU song was about 8 minutes, mainly
because Jerry (Fogle) would close his eyes and go off into his own world
on a guitar solo, and it took us that long to get his attention and get
back into the song.
3. THE SONG “ON THE SLAB” IS DEDICATED TO PHIL
LYNOTT AND OF COURSE SOUNDS MUCH LIKE THIN LIZZY! HOW MUCH DO THIN LIZZY
MEAN TO THIS BAND? DID YOU WRITE THAT SONG ON PURPOSE SOUNDING LIKE THAT?
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Perry: Everyone in Falcon is a Thin Lizzy nut.
That goes without saying. Phil was an amazing songwriter, and I felt the
need to pay tribute to him. Listening to Lizzy so much, “On the Slab” just
kinda flowed out of me. It was a semi-conscious thing. I was aware it had
those Celtic Lizzy-type melodies, but I didn’t sit there and consciously
cop Lizzy riffs.
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Greg: Lizzy is probably my favorite band of all
time, just for the quality of their songs throughout all the different
lineups. CU used to play “Return Of The Farmer’s Son”, “Gonna Creep Up
On You”, and “Vagabonds Of The Western World” in our early days. In fact,
I think any of those tunes would make a nice cover song for Falcon…
4. APART FROM THE ROCK’N’ROLL SPIRIT, THERE ARE
SOME SOUTHERN ROCK OF EVEN SOME BLUES ELEMENTS REGARDING YOUR MUSIC LIKE
THE SONG “CASTLE PEAK”. DID YOU WISH TO ADD SOME OF THAT STUFF AS WELL
TO YOUR MUSIC?
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Perry: Can’t say I’m a dyed-in-the-wool southern
rocker, but I dig a few bands like that. If you’re talkin’ about slide
guitar... A lot of my heroes played slide and made me want to do the same.
Folks like Leslie West, Joe Perry, Mel Galley and John Baxter (Buffalo).
Blues is what evolved into rock... It’s where a lot of this music came
from, so I can’t ignore it. Although, I admit I haven’t delved as far back
as some guys have. I grew up listening to white heavy blues rockers. But
these British and American white dudes got the majority of their licks
from black music. You just can’t ignore it. I think the blues go hand-in-hand
with being a working class person (which I and the rest of Falcon are),
workin’ your ass off just to scrape by.
5. YOUR SOUND IS REALLY GROOVY. DO YOU CONSIDER
IT IN PARTICULAR AND IN GENERAL DANCE LIKE MUSIC? WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT
FROM PEOPLE DO WHEN THEY LISTEN TO FALCON?
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Bang their heads, raise their fists... tap their
feet. All of the above? I dunno. It sure as hell isn’t disco or pop!
6. YOU HAVE A SPECIAL NAME HELPING YOU WITH THE
VOCALS ON “ON THE SLAB”, BOBBY LIEBLING. HOW DID IT HAPPEN, HOW DO YOU
FEEL ABOUT IT AND WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT PENTAGRAM?
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All three of us are big Pentagram fans. We recorded
with Chris Kozlowski at the same studio Pentagram did their last two discs.
“On the Slab” was the one song that we weren’t 100% satisfied with my vocal
performance on. Chris brought up the possibility of having Bobby sing it
instead. We weren’t sure if it’d actually happen or not, but it did. I
left the lyrics with a note and my phone number for Bobby just prior to
leaving Maryland for Los Angeles. Bobby called me a couple of days later
and said he’d love to do the track. He was honored to finally be doing
a song dedicated to his idol Phil Lynott, and I was stoked to have Bobby
appearing on the Falcon album. I’m such a huge Pentagram freak... They
were such an underrated band. I worship the 1971-76 lineups. Just one of
those bands that slipped through the cracks that should have been as big
as Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper or Blue Oyster Cult... The whole band was
killer—great musicians. Vincent McAllister and Randy Palmer are big guitar
influences of mine.
7. WHICH ARE THE BANDS THAT GAVE YOU THE PUSH
TO CREATE SUCH A BAND? WOULD NAMES LIKE THIN LIZZY, CREAM, DEF LEPPARD,
DUST, DEEP PURPLE AND BLACK SABBATH APPEAR IN THE LIST?
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Perry: You nailed it, but it goes even deeper
than that.. But, hell yeah, I love Thin Lizzy, Cream, Dust, Purple, Sabbath...
Budgie, Captain Beyond, Blue Cheer, Wishbone Ash, Mountain, Blue Oyster
Cult, Trapeze, etc. Leppard came along towards the close of the ‘70s, but
was heavily influenced by those bands. I dig their first two LPs a lot
(and the unreleased First Strike), but a lot of Falcon’s influences are
even more obscure. Australia’s Buffalo, Bubble Puppy and Demian, Lincoln
Street Exit, Randy Holden, Khavas Jute, Three Man Army, Hard Stuff, etc.
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Greg: From the early days, Rob and I were record
geeks (some people would say just geeks), we were always looking for stuff
a little more out of the mainstream. I remember for Christmas in 1972,
my dad took me down to our local record store and told me to pick out four
LPs, so I grabbed Black Sabbath Vol. 4, Budgie-Squawk, Dust-Hard Attack,
and Ursa Major. Not a bad bunch, and all for about $10!
8. YOU DON’T USE MUCH KEYBOARD ON THE ALBUM AND
WHEN YOU DID LIKE IN THE SONG “DOWNER” IT SOUNDED A BIT BIZARRE ALONG WITH
SOME ALSO FUNNY PERCUSSION ON “THROWBACK” . WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT
IT?
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Perry: You’ve just GOT to have the cowbell going
if you’re playing heavy rock. It’s like an unwritten law. I love the groovy
sound of the cowbell... Songs like “Throwback” are barren without cowbell.
As for “Downer”... that was an afterthought from Greg that turned out really
cool, a little piano underneath the bridge/solo riff. Greg just amazes
me. He’s great at every instrument he touches... He isn’t a drummer, but
he plays guitar, bass and keys really well. Some folks might not realize
it, but there’s some small keyboard parts on “The Crying of Lot 246” also.
My fave synth stuff on the Falcon album is on “Half Past Human”.
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Greg: We take our cowbell seriously! Darin actually
double tracked the cowbell on “Throwback” and “Redman”, so you have cowbells
in stereo. The Falcon sound is pretty much guitar, bass, and drums, but
a little bit of keyboard here and there adds some spice to the sound. I
would love to have a real keyboard player lay down some Hammond B3 on our
next album, if the song called for it.
9. THE ALBUM IS DIVIDED IN TWO WITH THE FIRST
PART BELONGING TO PERRY AND THE SECOND TO GREG. DO YOU THINK THERE ARE
SOME SLIGHT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN YOU? DO YOU AGREE THAT GREG’S SONG SOUND
JUST A BIT HEAVIER THAN PERRY’S WHICH SOUND GROOVY?
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Perry: Definitely. Me and Greg may have tons of
common influences and similar styles, but we also have enough of our own
idiosyncrasies to make our stuff sound different from each other. For lack
of a better word, Greg’s tunes sound more Ungolish. And rightly so! Greg
wrote or co-wrote most of the Cirith Ungol tunes, excpet those on Paradise
Lost (which would explain why that one has more of an epic/power metal
vibe than a ‘70s inspired one). I guess my stuff grooves because I’m such
a throwback to the old style. I even listen to plenty of stuff from the
‘60s that other people find to hippie-dippy. Greg’s stuff is usually slightly
less bluesy than mine for whatever reason. But, yeah, he was writing stuff
that was bludgeoningly heavy (like “Cirith Ungol” or “One Foot in Hell”)
before I was even born.
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Greg: Kinda ironic, because I’m willing to bet
that I listen to more bluesy stuff than Perry does!
10. YOUR LYRICS DEAL WITH A VARIETY OF ISSUES
LIKE SPEEDIN’ HIGHWAY LIFE, DRUGS THAT KILLED STARS, SOME DEPRESSING LYRICS
ABOUT LIFE ITSELF OR EVEN SOME EPIC J.R.R. TOLKIEN INSPIRED ONES! DO YOU
WORK WITH THE MENTALITY OF WRITING LYRICS ABOUT WHATEVER IS IN YOUR MIND
AT THAT TIME YOU GRAB THE PENCIL?
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Perry: Sometimes a certain song’s music will lend
itself to some kind of emotion or vibe that’ll make me want to write lyrics
on a specific subject. Other times I just write a set of lyrics totally
separate from the music and tweak the lines around to go more with the
riffage later. Sometimes I’ll have a song lying around for years instrumentally
without the lyrics (as in the case of one of my newer tunes, called “Careless”).
I don’t like to force lyrics out and would rather them turn out to my liking
than be rushed into something I’m not completely satisfied with. But I
usually don’t have to dig to deep for inspiration. Usually all it takes
is feeling strongly or being pissed off about something in the real world,
reading a particularly interesting book or maybe (in the case of “On the
Slab”) thinking about an inspiring person (in that case Phil Lynott from
Thin Lizzy).
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Greg: Perry’s really great at writing songs that
evoke a certain mood or feeling. I never know how my songs are going to
turn out until they’re finished.
11. ARE YOU SATISFIED BY THE FEEDBACK YOU RECEIVED
THIS FAR? WHICH STATEMENT THAT YOU READ DO YOU THINK DESCRIBES YOUR MUSIC
THE BEST WAY AND WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR SOUND?
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Perry: So far so good, I guess. We’re handling
all the promo ourselves. Sent out lots of promo CDs to Europe already,
but not as many to the U.S. I’m especially happy with the Greek response.
Have to thank all the Greek Cirith Ungol fans for sticking with us!
12. WHICH ELEMENTS AND EMOTIONS DO YOU THINK THAT
YOU'D LIKE TO EVOLVE MORE ON YOUR NEXT ALBUM AND WHY?
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Perry: I guess for me that would have to be getting
at least one fantasy-inspired tune on the next Falcon album. We’ve already
written most of the material for the second disc. We’re in the process
of arranging the stuff and bringing each other up to snuff on the new tunes.
So, I’ve actually already covered the ground I thought was a little lacking
on the first one... I wrote another Thin Lizzy-esque track called “Elfland’s
Daughter”, which was inspired by Irish fantasist Lord Dunsany’s epic/heroic
fantasy novel The King of Elfland’s Daughter. The rest of the stuff I’m
contributing deals with reality—a very bitter reality at that.
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Greg: There will be a couple more unreleased CU
tunes, including one called “Bad Scene”, formerly known as “Tight Teen”,
“Show You All”, and possibly “Flesh Dart”.
13. DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR LIVE SHOWS OR FOR
TOURING? WHICH WILL BE THE NEXT STEPS FOR FALCON?
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Perry: I can’t even begin to tell you how happy
I am that Falcon has been able to play gigs. That was something I didn’t
think we’d be able to do much of, since Darin lives in Pennsylvania, some
3,000 miles from me and Greg. But we managed to get Andrew Sample to play
drums for us out here in L.A., and we’ve played a half dozen shows already.
We’re hoping to do more soon. We’ve been entertaining the idea of doing
some shows on the East Coast with Darin playing drums. No plans yet, but
I’m hoping that everyone’s schedules will allow for us to at least play
a gig or two out there in 2005. We’d like to do one with the new Pentagram
lineup if possible. We’ll see. I won’t count my chickens before they hatch.
We’d also LOVE to go to Europe, even for a brief mini-tour. The obvious
problems with that are financial. It’s not as if we have some label investing
money in us, so that’s pretty much going to be up to whether we get brought
over to do a festival or whatever. It’s sad that there’ll probably never
be a Cirith Ungol reunion. Folks are just gonna have to accept that the
guys, aside from Greg, are just not able to make it happen. People can
have the next best thing, though, by seeing Falcon. We already play “Edge
of a Knife” off Frost & Fire live, and we’ll be adding more Ungol tunes
(aside from the 4 old previously unreleased Ungol tracks we recorded on
the Falcon disc) to the setlist.
14. THANK YOU. LEAVE YOUR MESSAGE TO THE READERS
OR SAY WHATEVER YOU WANT THAT I FORGOT TO ASK YOU ABOUT...
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Perry: We’d just like to thank all the European
Falcon fans for their support!
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Greg: Yes, thanks so much for your support. It
really means a lot to us!
George "Volt" Tassis
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