Ross The Boss
I Don’t Do Anything That I’m Not Proud Of

31.05.2020

For a musician of his age and stature, Ross The Boss has been surprisingly active in the past few years, releasing two full-length studio albums nearly back to back and playing all over the world with a set of classic Manowar tracks that he contributed so strongly to back in the 80s. On top of that, as you will learn from reading this interview, he keeps being involved with a few more bands such as The Dictators, which the fans of his punk side will love to hear. We were dead sure when we were talking to Ross that we would see him very soon in Russia again, but sadly due to the corona crisis this is not going to happen in 2020. However, we all can still enjoy his newest record, “Born Of Fire”, and look forward for the touring to come back as soon as possible. When (and not if) this happens, Ross will be among the first to be out there.

Your band has done a huge amount of touring in the past few years. Most likely it’s more than you did with Manowar or other previous bands. Is it comfortable for you to spend so much time on the road? Is it something you always wanted, or is it more like you have to do it to keep the band visible and going?

The way I am, I’m just a rock’n’roll animal. I’ve been doing this since 1975, and playing to me is an honor, it’s a great thing to me. I love to be on stage, and the band loves to be on the stage, too. It’s hard getting from show to show, we just did 26 U.S. shows last month, but the reason why the record sounds the way it does is because we were so tight before the studio, and the whole thing – being on the road and playing all those shows – really helped us.

You played in Russia in 2018. What are your impressions from that visit? It’s not your first time in Moscow, but anyway...

Yeah, that show was on a Monday night, correct? It was a great show, a classic show, and I think the people who were there were amazed by the band. The Russian metal crowd is extremely dedicated.

We both attended the show in Moscow, and we liked it a lot. But the question we both had was – why only one solo song in the set? Don’t you think it’s a little bit too little?

Yeah, that’s what a lot of people say. But the promoter is hiring me to play the old Manowar stuff. I would have liked to play two or three originals but people are expecting from me old Manowar my era classic stuff, and there’s not a lot of time to play everything. At least we played for two hours.

Less than two years have passed since then, and you already have a new album out. Do you write music on the road? Or did you manage to have some downtime in between?

That’s an excellent question. At the end of the last cycle we had a tour in Europe, a pretty successful tour, that was two years ago, and we were told that if we wanted to come back in 2020, we’d have to have a record. And now it’s just two years since “By Blood Sworn” was released. I was a bit taken aback with it, because I’d just made this record. I was like, “Are you kidding me? No, you can’t possibly think I’m gonna do another record!” And the record company goes like, “If you wanna tour, then you’d better”, and my agent said the same thing. So I said, “Oh my God…” The prospect of going into the studio and doing another record right after that was… man, it was a challenge. But I said, “You know what? We’re gonna do it! If that’s the case, we’re gonna do it!” And that’s what we did.

In your opinion, how much does the new record differ from “By Blood Sworn”? Everyone can now check it out, but we would like to know your opinion...

Well, as I said before, we were on the road for so long, we had played so many shows that when it came to writing songs, we were much tighter, we were much freer with each other, we knew each other better, and our drummer Steve Bolognese had played with us many many shows. Unlike the last record – my nephew Lance Barnewald played on it, but this time we had our real ongoing drummer. When it came down to writing the songs, we did it completely different than the last one.

What is the role of Mike Le Pond (bass) in the band? Some people believe he’s only a hired gun, because what he does with Symphony X is so different, but he actually wrote quite a lot of music on “By Blood Sworn”…

Yes he did. And Mike LePond is just… I can’t do it without him. He’s been such an amazing brother, and amazing songwriter, and amazing arranger, and not to mention that he’s probably the best bass player in the world. I couldn’t do it without him.

We think everyone agrees that Marc Lopes is a great singer. But how did you discover him? We know that originally there was a different singer who was supposed to sing on “By Blood Sworn”…

Yes, Mike Cotoia was supposed to sing. He amazed everybody at the Keep It True festival, and everyone thought, “Oh, that’s the guy! That’s the singer!” And then all of a sudden my Euro agent says, “I’ve got 28 shows booked, do you wanna do it?” I go, “Of course we wanna do it!” Then I spoke to the band that I had then, and they said, “No, we don’t wanna tour”. 22-23-year-old metal guys don’t wanna tour in Europe? I was pretty amazed. So I said, “You know what? You guys are fired!” I fired the whole band, I put the phone down, I called Mike LePond, and I called Rhino (former Manowar drummer – ed.), and then I had this guy in my head, because Marc, I’d seen him opening for me a couple of times with my best friend’s band. I saw him singing Accept, I saw him singing different metal classics, and this guy had some stage presence, he had some pipes, he had an amazing voice. So I said, “I don’t wanna think about this too hard, I think this guy can do it”. So I go to Mark and go, “Mark, do you wanna go on tour” – and we had a tour coming in something like two weeks – “singing Manowar stuff”? He goes, “I’ve never sung Manowar in my life”! I go, “Well, you are now!” He says, “OK”. You know, he was up to the challenge. He’s not Eric Adams, of course, and no one is, but he’s done a great job with it, and he’s gotten better and better. He’s an amazing frontman, a great singer, and he has his own style. I think that’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Is Marc completely free to write lyrics about whatever he wants, or do you discuss the lyrical content of the songs with him? Songs like “Denied By The Cross” are pretty aggressive lyrically-wise…

Yeah, it’s about “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”. He is free. I told him, “You know what? I’m giving you total freedom to do this. You’re gonna get up there, and you’re gonna sell this to everybody. You’re gonna write it, you’re gonna sell your own lyrics”. I’m glad I did. There was just one caveat in the whole thing - I said, “Every song has to be a hook, a metal hook, to be sung back at us”. Too many bands play music, and I can’t remember their songs – I go see them live, and I can’t remember a thing that they play. It sounds the same, and there’s nothing separating the songs. Therefore I said, “Our songs are gonna be totally different. They’re gonna have hooks, and it’s gonna be memorable”. And so far so good.

Somebody commented on “Denied By The Cross” on YouTube – “Everything your parents warned you about metal music all in one song”. What do you think of such an opinion? Do they have a point?

You know what? It’s pretty damn fucking scary if you really think about it, and that lyric video is scary to begin with. But in the end, it’s just a fantasy. It’s a story about Dracula, it’s a fictional story that was portrayed in the movie. People go like, “You’re antichristian!” I’m like, “I’m not antichristian, please stop it”. People go crazy with this stuff, but it’s just a story. What can you do, you can’t please everybody. (laughs) But it’s just an amazing song, and it’s an amazing lyric video, I must say. AFM did a great job on it.

Have you considered re-recording more Manowar songs as bonus tracks this time? They worked really great on the previous album!

I’m kinda done recording Manowar songs. I’ve done enough! (laughs)

We have just one more question about Manowar for this interview, because you’ve also done enough of such questions…

You guys can ask me anything you want!

Alright. Speaking about bonus tracks – when metal bands reissue their early classics, such reissues are usually back with live material, or demo versions, or even unreleased leftovers. But it’s not the case with Manowar reissues. Do you really have no leftovers of good quality from the 80s?

From Manowar – no. I think when I left, Joey used everything, and he strung it out over 30 years. Whatever you’re hearing, it’s just… I’m not gonna say it, I’m not gonna confuse anything, but there’s nothing left, as far as I’m concerned.

There are quite a few bootlegs from that era of Manowar, we even have one ourselves – from Ipswitch 1984, but it’s probably not of commercial quality. But if you search around, it might be possible to find some good-sounding stuff, isn’t it?

I’m sure it’s out there somewhere. And that’s the strange thing: there were no great live recordings of that line-up, because to me that was the best line-up of Manowar ever. I’m sad that there weren’t any better live recordings. The one failure that I thought was being fired, or asked to leave the band, right before “Kings Of Metal” (1988) came out. That whole tour would have been insane if I had been there. It would have been the biggest tour, it would have put the band up where Metallica is, and sadly it didn’t happen. A live record off that tour would have been amazing. That’s something I look back at as such a loss. That’s just the way I feel about it.

Now let’s go back to “Born Of Fire”. The song “Maiden Of Shadows” for which you shot the video, was written by Stu Marshall, with whom you worked in Death Dealer. Is it a leftover from the Death Dealer days? Or maybe something intended for the third Death Dealer record?

Well, the third Death Dealer record is complete. It’s in the can ready to come out. It’s called “Conquered Lands”, it’s all finished. But when I was going to make this record, I needed songs, I didn’t have enough, because it was just too soon after the last record. It’s not like songs just drop out of the sky for me. So I asked Stu what he got, and he sent me a whole bunch of stuff. The one song that I chose was originally titled “King Of Scots” – Mark changed the title – it really caught my ear, and I said, “This song is a winner”. I used that, then Mark had four songs, Mike had two songs, and I did the rest. That’s how this song came about. When I listen to that, I’m just so proud of the whole band, and of course, of the great Michael Romeo of Symphony X on orchestration and of Seeb Levermann of Orden Ogan (who did the mix – ed.) Everyone involved was a superstar here, including my engineer CJ Scoscia. Everybody did their thing, that’s why this record is so fucking strong.

Last year you performed again with your very old French band Shakin’ Street. Was this something like a one-off thing, or do Shakin’ Street have more plans with your involvement?

Actually it wasn’t a one-off, we did 15 shows in France, and if everything gets back to normal hopefully, at the end of the summer we have some shows in Europe – Belgium and France. Also the original Dictators are recording now, too. That’s what I’ve been doing now with my time off – I’ve been recording with my original Dictators band, and that’s gonna be huge. THAT is gonna be a huge tour when we start doing that. The people are really waiting for that. Everything’s going – Death Dealer, Ross the Boss band, Shakin’ Street, The Dictators. It’s a pretty good time, let’s just hope everything gets back to normal with this bullshit, let’s hope everybody stays safe and healthy, and I’m sure when it comes back, it’s gonna get bigger than ever.

When you joined Shakin’ Street in the early 1980s, they were from France, and you were based in New York. How did this alliance happen?

It’s a good story, it’s a classic story. My manager, who managed The Dictators, Sandy Pearlman, he discovered The Dictators, he discovered me, and he was managing Blue Oyster Cult. The Dictators had already made three albums, it was the end of 1979, and The Dictators took a hiatus from touring for a while. Sandy was in Paris, and he discovered Shakin’ Street. Fabienne (Shine, vocals) and Eric (Levi, guitar) went up to speak to Sandy, they wanted to meet him, and they became friends. Shakin’ Street was already on CBS France, and Sandy was hugely involved with CBS with Blue Oyster Cult, he had already produced The Clash for CBS. Fabienne asked him to manage them, to help them, and then Fabienne goes, “Oh, Sandy, our guitar player, Armik (Tigrane) sold his guitar to heroin. Do you know any guitar players?” And Sandy goes, “Well, I happen to know one of the best. Do you know The Dictators? Do you know Ross from The Dictators?” Of course she knew who I was. And the next day I was on the plane to Paris. That night I was on the rehearsal, I think I auditioned for about five seconds, and I joined the band that day.

We heard that in New York you had or maybe still have some sort of bar called The Cage. Could you tell us a little about it?

Well, The Cage is not a bar, it’s a sports facility, it’s my baseball sports facility, and we’ve had it for 15-16 years now. We really built it up. Unfortunately now there’s no business anywhere, but I think it will be alright when it all stops, when everything gets back to normal, when major league baseball starts. Everyone’s just waiting on it. We’ll see what happens, there’s nothing anybody can do. But we’re very proud of The Cage, and as a matter of fact, we have 11 travel baseball teams, they’re called The Cage Warrior.

You have done quite a few guest appearances with other bands, for example, Pegazus, or Burning Witches, or Doro. What does it take from a band to have Ross the Boss play on their record?

First of all, you gotta ask me. Sometimes I do it for free if they need it, but usually there’s a fee there. I’m good with everybody, I’ll play on anyone’s record, I don’t really care, as long as I can somewhat like the song. I’ve done quite a few of that, quite a few.

How do you look back on the first two Ross the Boss albums – “New Metal Leader” (2008) and “Hailstorm” (2010)? Are you still satisfied with them, or would you do them differently now?

Well, you know what I’m saying? I think the first two records are quite good. I think the first one was a little heavier than the second one, but I think the band that I had, the German boys, were very good. It was just a period of my life and my career. I thought the songs were fantastic on those records. I don’t do anything that I’m not proud of, I won’t put anything out that I’m not proud of, so looking back, I wouldn’t have changed it.

For “New Metal Leader” you re-recorded two songs you previously did with Brain Surgeons. What was the reason?

The reason probably was that I didn’t have enough songs. I wanted to do all the songs myself. And the Brain Surgeons record never came out on a major label, so I said, “Listen, why are these songs just laying there?” “Constantine’s Sword” and “Plague Of Lies” were really classic Ross rocks, and I think the band did it justice.

You were one of the founding fathers of punk with The Dictators back in the 70s. What were your feelings when punk became household music in the U.S. in the early 90s, with bands like The Offspring and Green Day?

That’s kind of like the second wave of punk. The first wave in the 70s obviously were The Dictators, Ramones, Stranglers, Sex Pistols, Clash… It was obvious that this was gonna happen, because once the mainstream embraces something, they’re usually gonna get something like that. The Offspring was good, I liked The Offspring, so I wasn’t surprised of that at all. And of course, The Clash did it very well.

Do you check out what younger guitar players are doing? Are there any new musicians who have impressed you lately?

We were on tour, and there was this band from Canada, called LunAttack, this one band in Calgary that was fantastic. The guitarist’s name is Faith Alexis Danger, and she’s really great. You should be watching out for a band like that. They’re more rock’n’roll than metal, but we loved them when they opened for us last month.

How do you like the present-day music business and the world in general? Are you comfortable in it, with all the new technologies, or were you as a musician happier in the 70s or 80s?

You know, I would say that making records back then was totally oldschool. You’d had get into the rehearsal room, work up the songs in the rehearsal room, go into the studio… When I started, there was multitrack installed, there were 16 tracks in 1974 at CBS. There was overdubbing then, which was a lot easier than having to do it like The Beatles did it – you just had to go in and do it live. But The Dictators did do a live record - “Bloodbrothers” (1978), our third record, was a live record in the studio, and all my leads were done live, no going back and changing anything. It was great to do it oldschool, you had to come up with great takes, you had to listen to all these takes and go through them. With the Internet, with Pro-Tools, the way we record now, it’s a lot easier, and a lot more economic, but I’m not sure it’s the best. But for “Born Of Fire”, I think it was the best.

For us as listeners it’s also a huge change. When we were starting to get into rock music, back in our school days, we couldn’t even think about approaching the musicians to whom we were listening to, because the distance seemed enormous. And now our daughter says before going to a show, “Hey, are we going to get our CDs signed tonight?”

You know, the kids today, I kind of sympathize with them, because they didn’t see the greatness of the 80s. Obviously the 60s, the 70s and the 80s were the greatest decades for music, especially rock music. It’s kind of sad that they haven’t gotten it. To their credit, when we play there’s a lot of young kids all over. In Canada, there were more young people than old people, which was really good to see. We’re out there, we’re playing, and Iron Maiden is playing, and Judas Priest is playing, Symphony X is playing… Ozzy was playing there for a while, Black Sabbath was playing there for a while… A lot of the bands are getting older and not gonna play anymore, but we’re ready to go. We’ll take up the slack. Slayer is not playing, but my friends in Anthrax whom I produced are still playing, Testament are still playing, there’s a whole bunch of bands.

You will hopefully return to Russia in July to perform at the Big Gun festival. What are your expectations from this visit?

From the looks at the line-up there, it’s gonna be quite a day. I mean, Accept is playing my day, and it’s gonna be a lot of fun. I would have to say that any band that’s playing with us better come and do their best, because we’re gonna be there, and we’re very competitive, and very friendly though. We’re gonna kill.

We were at the festival last year, and if it happens this year, we’re gonna be there for sure!

You know what? I’m hoping everything’s gonna happen. I have a feeling about this whole thing, I don’t know. We’ll see, we can only hope and pray for the best, but so far it’s not looking too good. Maybe the whole thing will open up by the summer, but we shall see.

Well, Ross, thank you very much for this interview. It’s an honor, because one of us has been listening to your music since 1990…

When people tell me that, it’s amazing – 30 years! And then people tell me, “I’ve been listening to you since 1975” – that’s 45 years already. People are coming to my shows, bringing their children and grandchildren, and they say, “You look amazing! You look like you have just started!” It keeps me young – music, the fans, the love of the fans, the dedication, the fact that everything is moving forward and growing and the fanbase is getting bigger and bigger. We’re very excited about it. And let’s not forget the great artwork of the new record – the artwork is fantastic, it’s by Stan W. Decker from France, and this time I have a strong powerful woman on my cover, not a big ugly guy with a sword! (everybody laughs) I’ve had enough of that. This is what I want, and I think the fans want it too, especially our lady-friends, they can dig a strong powerful woman.

Ross The Boss on the Internet: https://www.ross-the-boss.com/

Special thanks to Irina Ivanova (AFM Records) for arranging this interview

Interview by Roman Patrashov, Natalia “Snakeheart” Patrashova
Photos by Scott Brown, courtesy of AFM Records
March 19, 2020
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