| Batttttty
spends a divine afternoon with |
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HIS HOLINESS BISHOP POPE REV JONES THE FIRST will be known to SITN readers as the crazy bassplayer in MSG. He doesn't sit still very often, so it was too good a chance to miss when I found myself lying on the next bed to him at the tattooist's. He was, of course, having "www.strangers-in-the-night.com" pricked painfully onto the only blank area left on his body ... (Dairve Wood was gonna have that done once, but ... I'd have had to change the name of the website to "www.com" )
Anyway, it looked like it was gonna take a long time, so while
I lay there waiting for the swelling on my own artwork to go
down, I took the opportunity of interviewing him for SITN. |
| First of all, congratulations on the successful MSG tour of America. Schenker fans had their hearts in their mouths before the tour started, but once the first few gigs were underway, and we could see everyone was firing on all six, we felt a bit more relaxed about it going the distance. Reviews have been pretty stunning, even though the venues were a mixed bunch. So... did you enjoy yourself? |
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YES!!!! It was great.... I don’t think that there was even one bad show - a couple of shows the sound on stage was terrible, a couple of the stages were a bit small, and one show a guy shook his beer up and it sprayed the stage and hit Michael and myself, but even those shows were great shows, and the band was tight, and Michael was on fire every night...... Tell us some of your personal highlights from the tour. And any dodgy bits! The one thing that we’ll never forget is the fact that LOGAN got all of us very sick (with the flu) during the tour, so everyone now refers to being sick as "having the LOGAN", or "I think I caught the LOGAN", or "I think I stepped in some LOGAN"...... So to get back at him, at the last show of the tour (Chicago), we duct-taped his mic stand down to the stage. It took him half the first song to get it loose, then during the bass solo in "Into The Arena" my bass tech Roy came out and changed Chris's mic stand with one that was covered in hot pink silk (Mark, our sound guy, went out & bought it just for Chris), plus he taped the mic onto the stand real tight, so when Chris came back on stage to sing he had to hold this pink 80’s poser-looking mic stand for a whole song before he could get his mic off it to change back to his normal one.... Oh yeah I also had my anti-LOGAN symbol taped on the front of my monitor so only the crowd could see it.... that was a great night..... |
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Hahahha! OK, now on to this whole tatt'n'plait thannngggg... It's a bit of an understatement to say you have a huuuuuuuuuuuuge stage persona. For someone with such a small area of their scalp devoted to having hair attached to it, you have a very acrobatic way of making it go all over the place. Michael has said in recent interviews that Pete Way's frantic antics (some would call it Pete's 'lively stage presence') got on his nerves a bit. You certainly didn't seem to put Michael off his concentration during the tour, but has he ever asked you to stop whirling and twirling yourself around? NO.... I think he likes for me to be myself, I think the Pete thing was different in the sense that Pete would come up next to him when he was doing a solo and bump into him, and I never do any of that, I try to stay on my side of the stage and bump into Wayne and Chris instead, haha ...... And there were a many times Michael came and stood next to me and we jammed together..... Do you think he notices things that are going on around him while he's playing? YES.... he notices everything..... Yeh! |
| Many of the fan reviews have made comparisons between you and Flea. How do you feel about that? I think Flea is a great player and a great entertainer, I think the comparison between me and Flea is that we are both great bass players and we both act stupid on stage, plus we both look crazy.... so that doesn’t bother me.... although I did have some fans after shows tell me that I reminded them of ______ (I don’t want to bad mouth anyone - certain bass players I won’t mention), just because I play a lot of parts over the bass neck, and when they mentioned these guys it kind of made me feel like I must have sucked that night, then I realized they really liked those bass players so must really like me..... |
| Do
you think people pay too much attention to what you look like
and not enough to the subtle nuances contained within the spiritual
and emotional synesthesia created in the manifestation of your
music and its expression from within your soul (yeh... right...).
What was the question again? Oh yeh - personality versus musicianship. Which should win? Which does win? Or is it two sides of the same coin? Or what? I actually get more comments about my playing first, then I get the comments about being crazy on stage.... See, I think everyone should put on a show, I mean if the person is going to just stand there and play, why not just save your money, sit at home, and look at a picture of the person and listen to his CD..... Too many bands have got away from putting on a show - if the band doesn’t look like they're having a great time then why should the crowd have a good time.... All the bands I grew up with all put on real concerts, something that made you have fun when you seen them, and that’s what I try to do on stage.... It’s like a comic, like Eddie Murphy - when you hear him tell a joke, it’s funny, but when you see him tell a joke and he acts it out and makes faces, it’s really funny!!!!! |
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You'll be playing the UK and Europe soon - have you been here before? Well I’ve toured Europe a few times but I’ve never been to the UK. What are you most looking forward to about the UK? No, I mean apart from meeting Me, of course. Everything.... I’m really into places that I’ve never been before... On the last BLACK SYMPHONY tour in Europe, Jeff Martin and I spent every day walking around every town looking at everything, then we would go play our show - it’s kind of like a work vacation...... plus I love the Beatles ...... |
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I read in one of your previous interviews that you'd been 'Gene Simmons' in a Kiss tribute band for a few months. Tell us a bit about that. That was fun - it’s being a kid dressing up like KISS and singing the songs, except you're on stage in front of people.... The band was called DRESSED TO KISS... One real cool thing is that lots of people that know me saw us play and had no idea that it was me under the wig and make-up - I played a good Gene! Another thing that was great about that gig, was looking over at the rest of the band, it was like being on stage with KISS, without really being on stage with KISS.... Like my buddy Tommy Thayer (the guitarist in KISS) said, he grew up wearing the make up and playing the songs in his basement, and now every night he's on stage with KISS..... wow....! Why did you stop? Did the make-up interfere with your tattoos? It’s only fun being someone else for a little while..... It’s more fun to be yourself.... |
| Some of the great photos that our SITN fellas took of you on the tour show that you have a picture of Britney Spears on your guitar. Obviously when you play in the UK and Europe you will have replaced this with a picture of Me, but... why Britney? Because I couldn’t find enough SPICE GIRLS stickers to cover my basses..... Right.... but why Britney? What is the attraction there? Are you really asking that???? One time I was at a store buying a BRITNEY calendar, and the girl behind the counter said "Ooh, you like BRITNEY SPEARS, she can’t even sing" and I said "She sings??? I thought she just stood there looking good. Who would have known she had talent?' Although you were part of Be Aware Of Scorpions, it was Stu Hamm who played bass on Arachnophobiac. Why was that? I’m not sure what happened.... I talked with Michael before the recording of the album and he told me that he really wanted me to play on it, and he asked me to call the record company and let them know, so I did call, and they never got back with me.... Why did you tour in support of the album rather than Stu? I don't know - ask Michael! |
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OK, now in 10,000 words, describe Pete Way. Ooops, I mean in 10 words. (But if you need to use 10,000 that's ok by me!) I love Pete - he was one of my music heroes when I first started playing. That’s part of the reason that I jump around on stage and act the way I do.... When I first started playing everyone wanted to be like Pete Way, and you can see that in people like Steve Harris and you can see it a little bit in me.... Plus he is a great person. I really enjoyed the last MSG tour I did when Pete was out with us doing the PLOT. I got to know him pretty well, plus I got to be on stage with him every night playing "DOCTOR DOCTOR" which was very fun - he was on one side of the stage doing his thing and I was on the other acting just like him...... Blimey. I'm feeling Logan just at the thought of it, hahaha. |
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What are your favourite UFO and MSG songs? UFO songs "Love To Love", "Lights Out", actually all the old stuff.... MSG I really love all the songs on the first 2 albums..... And Live? I love playing all the UFO songs live. Because the crowd usually sings every word, and I get to do my Pete Way imitation .... My favorite MSG songs live would be "Into The Arena" (because I get to show off and it’s a great song), "Mad Axeman", "Lost Horizon", "Assault Attack", and "Feels Like A Good Thing". OK, now the obligatory amps'n'valves question. What do you use, and why, and when, and what for - and all that stuff? I play FENDER basses (there is no substitute) and FENDER mandolins...... I play CHAPMAN STICK (10 string) and MOBIUS MEGATAR (12 string)....... My amp, I use a LINE6 guitar POD, QSC power amp, DUNLAP rackmount crybaby wah, SENNHEISER wireless, FENDER 2x15 cabs, and G.K. 4x10 cabs...... and yes, all of my basses and stickbasses and megatars and mandolins are covered with BRITNEY stickers, for a better tone......... Hahahaha, oh yessssss, of course! |
| What’s going on with Black Symphony? We folded the BLACK SYMPHONY... We had finished the 3rd album at the end of 2002, then we had problems with our singer & keyboardist, so we decided to start a new band from scratch. The new band feature’s ME, RICK PLESTER (BLACK SYMPHONY) on guitar, PETE HOLMES (BLACK SYMPHONY, BLACK-N-BLUE, MSG) on drums, WAYNE FINDLAY (VINNIE MOORE, MSG) on guitar & keys, and this killer new singer WADE WILLIAMS (he actually got up at a MSG show and sung DOCTOR DOCTOR with us). We spent the last few months writing and recording an album, which should be out around summer time. As for the BLACK SYMPHONY, we will be releasing the 3rd album "TRUST" sometime this year - we are thinking about adding some old demo tracks that have the late RHETT FORRESTER singing. They were recorded in the early 90’s before he was murdered. {Check out the BLACK SYMPHONY website} |
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| Any other projects that you are working on? Yes... I also played bass on the new FORT’E album, which was kind of cool since I had not played with those guys in years (I played on the first two albums "Stranger than Fiction" in 1992 and "Division" in 1994), so it was kind of a reunion thing. If you hadn't become a musician what job do you think you'd be doing now? (You look scarily like our window cleaner) Movie critic!!!!! What have been your best achievements, both professionally and generally? Getting an interview on your website!!!!! Good man! What are your ambitions, again both professionally and generally? To keep doing what I do, until I can’t do what I do...... Are there any tatts that you consider as a MUST-HAVE, such as a bat, or whatever? I’ve been thinking about getting the logos of every band I’ve played with tattooed on one of my legs - that way when people ask who I’ve played with I can just pull up my pant leg and show them.... Oh dear.... Okay... Where
do you see yourself in 5 years time?
Doing the same thing I’m doing now, but on a bigger scale...
Like Jim Croce said "If you dig something, do it. If you
really dig it, do it twice".... Wise
words indeed! And will you still be spinning those dreads?
I can't control them!!!!! Typical!
Oh well, we'll just have to see if I can control cutting them
off when you come over to the UK. |
See Libby Wendt's stunning photos of Rev Jones HERE |
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Photos
on this page are © Axeslinger 2003 and wherever else I've
nicked them from. Thank you!
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