Vicious Rumors
We Really Rolled The Dice This Time

11.02.2011

The story of U.S. power metallers Vicious Rumors has never been an easy ride, and the band’s mastermind Geoff Thorpe had to go through a lot of tribulations along the way – line-up turmoil, label issues, and death of a singer/close friend are only the biggest and most frequent ones among them. This would be more than enough to take many people apart, but Geoff has proven to be a real fighter. Thanks to it, 2011 sees the release of the band’s 10th studio album – a sort of jubilee for Vicious Rumors. That was the reason why we contacted Geoff shortly before “Razorback Killers” hit the streets - and what a great record it is, we assure you!

Geoff, let’s talk about the newest album of Vicious Rumors. It’s been four years since the release of your previous studio album “Warball” – why once again so long?

Basically, you know, we went through two different singers – that was the longest thing, and there were also some personal issues in my life. My mother got very sick and passed away in 2009, so for most of the year I was really distracted with my family and everything what was going on with that. Switching two different singers and trying to find the right combination to go in and make a record took some time, too. So it’s really unfortunate that it took that long but we are very proud of the new record and we feel like it’s really gonna be a strong record and people will enjoy it. We’re back stronger then ever now; unfortunately it just took a little longer than we had hoped for, but we certainly gotta stay on top of the writing and make sure we have another album out within the next 2 years.

“Razorback Killers” is coming out on SPV Records. How did you get this deal? What are your expectations from working with this label?

We really rolled the dice this time, we financed the record ourselves and then went shopping for the deal. Actually it all happened very quickly – I’ve worked with Olly Hahn and SPV in the past and I had been in contact with him recently. I played him some of the new record and he really loved it, and we went right into negotiations. We’re very excited to work with a great metal label like SPV. They know this music and they are industry professionals. We have very high expectations. I think they’re gonna do a great job spreading the record all over the world. Vicious Rumors is the one of the last bands of our kind playing this kind of classic power metal and we’re holding the flag very high. We are looking forward to working with SPV and touring all around the world, making “Razorback Killers” regular at people’s CD players.   

Some songs on “Razorback Killers” such as “All I Want Is You” or “Let The Garden Burn” could fit easily in some of your records that you did in the second half of the 80’s. Did you use any old ideas for the new songs or is all the stuff brand new?

Actually I started writing for the record right at the end of 2007. I did refer to a few tapes that I had from earlier times, but I don’t even think I used any of that stuff. I would say all of “Razorback Killers” was written between 2007 and 2010.

You worked once again with Juan Urteaga. What you can say about him? Is he the right guy to produce Vicious Rumors albums?

Yeah, absolutely. Juan is an excellent producer and engineer and he is also a metal musician. You can go in and play him these songs and without saying a word to the guy he’s gonna get it like 90 % the way you want it. And then you just have to go in and make a bit of adjustments. Juan is really great to work with. He is actually very versatile, too, not in just metal, he does all kinds of stuff, but metal is his specialty. I think he is an excellent guy to work with and I plan on doing my next record with him also.

Tell us about your collaboration with Mark McGee (ex-Vicious Rumors), Brad Gillis (Night Ranger) and Eric Peterson (Testament). What was the reason behind this collaboration?

Well, all three of them are incredible guitar players, for one thing. I really love having a lot of guitar fire power on my record. I have very close relationship with all three of those guys. I just thought it would make interesting and very exciting record It’s funny - when you listen to the album from beginning to end it’s like all three of these guys did such a great job of doing the right solo for the song that it’s almost seamless. You can just listen to the whole thing, and it all fits together so well. Eric did an amazing job on “Murderball” with a harmony solo and then a shred solo and Mark McGee did some excellent shredding on “Blood Stained Sunday” and also on “Pearl Of Wisdom”, where he did a slide solo in the beginning and the second solo in the middle. That was a lot of fun, because Mark and myself were changing leads, doing harmonies together, kinda like the old days, it was amazing. And just luckily I caught Brad Gillis in town, he’s been so busy with Night Ranger, they’ve been playing all over the place doing huge shows everywhere. So I just barely got Brad and I was very lucky to get him on “Deal With The Devil” and of course he did an amazing guitar solo, this guy is such an incredible guitarist. We just wanted to color the album with these great players, and they’re also good friends, so it was just a real good thing all the way around.

What can you say about your new singer Brian Allen and his contribution to “Razorback Killers”?

Brian is a really talented singer, we worked with him very well in the studio. The songs were all written, basically I wrote all the lyrics and melodies and then had Brian to sing them. He came in and just did great job, he’s got a really strong voice. We also did a five-week tour of Europe and his voice sounded great every night. He’s got that natural strength built into his voice and it’s pretty easy for him, he’s just one of those natural kinds of tender singers, which also really helps with the classic Vicious Rumors material because he really has the range to sing those songs and not just in a falsetto but in a full voice. He’s a very eccentric kind of guy – he’s a very nice and a very good guy, but he is also sort of really eccentric frontman. He is a wild man, real crazy type of performer, he brings a lot of energy to our live show and that’s something we had been missing a little bit over the years. It feels really good right now to have this line up together and I’m looking forward to some great things in the near future.

You have scheduled a performance at the “Keep It True” festival in Germany in April. It should be “A Tribute To Carl Albert” (Vicious Rumors singer from 1988 until his death in 1995) and you even invited Kevin Albert, the son of Carl. Can you share with us some details about this show?

It’s gonna be a really amazing night. Mark McGee will back for the band, Tommy Sisco from the “Word of Mouth” album on bass and Kevin Albert, Carl’s son, on vocals. We’re gonna be doing a sort of tribute to the Carl Albert era of music that Vicious Rumors did. Actually that was all set up even before we had Brian in the works. That night, we’re definitely gonna be doing a special thing, it’s gonna be a great historic show, and it’s also gonna kick off our “Razorback Killers” world tour, we’ll be back in Europe for the month of May. Yeah man, it’s gonna be great!

Can you say a few words about Kevin Albert? We mean how much is he alike his father and what is he doing vocally apart from singing with Vicious Rumors on that night?

He is a very talented young musician and he’s got a lot of his dad’s genetic qualities, he looks so much like him and his personality is so much like him and he’s got a lot of the same talent too. He’s also a guitarist. Normally he prefers a little more modern sounding stuff, because when you’re a kid you hardly ever like the same music your parents like, you know what I mean, you usually go for something else. (laughs) But he understands the music that Vicious Rumors does, and I think he’s gonna do a great job. And he’s also got Mark, Larry (Howe, drums) and myself to help back him up. It’s gonna be really good.

You have worked with many different singers but do you regret not being able to continue working with any of them?

I think that right now the excitement around our new album is really at a high level and people really get what we’re doing. When you have a band together for 33 years, things are gonna change – it’s just the way life is. I think if you have a company, or a relationship or anything for 33 years, there is gonna be changes. I have kind of learned the role of those changes and I don’t let them stop me or get me down, I just have to deal with what’s in front of me. When the wheel is broken you just fix it and you get back out on the road. We’ve got a great combination right now and I’m living with the present, my friend. I value my past, I’m very thankful to all the fans that supported us over the years, and I think that any fans of Vicious Rumors will really enjoy our new album. I think a lot of new people who don’t know Vicious Rumors will also enjoy it. I’m living for today, my friend. I think Brian is doing a great job and I want to see this band work as much as possible and bring the music to the people.

You handled the vocal parts yourself on the album “Something Burning” (1996). How did you like this experience, and why did you decide not to do it again on subsequent albums?

It was very much of a challenge for me. I gained a lot out of it because I basically taught myself how to do it more. It really gave me a lot of respect for a lot of musicians that I see playing guitar and singing at the same time doing such a great job at it. It wasn’t the most natural thing for me so it took me a lot of work to do that. The one thing that is great about it is that I really improved my voice overall. Since then I still sing a couple of songs on every record. In fact, I sang lead vocals on 2 songs on “Razorback Killers” – track number 6 “All I Want Is You” and track number 8 “Let The Garden Burn”, I do lead vocals on those songs. Mainly the reason that I didn’t continue is that I really wanted to continue the sound of Vicious Rumors. I don’t have a really high voice, I have a much lower voice, so I thought that we get a frontman we could really do the old material again. I thought that if I was to continue as the singer that I needed to go in a solo direction or we needed to change the name. I wanted to be able to recreate Vicious Rumors’ sound and then take it further, that’s why I decided to go back to having a lead singer and having a five-piece band again.

A couple of years ago you reunited with the original Vicious Rumors singer Gary St. Pierre for the gig at the Headbangers Open Air Festival. How did this reunion happen? What was Gary doing for all the years after “Soldiers Of The Night” (1986)?

(laughs) That was a really interesting situation. The promoter was a big fan of our first album and when he first suggested to me, “Hey, let’s get Gary back in the band to do some songs”, I was kinda shaking my head because I hadn’t even talked to Gary for so many years. I lost contact with him and I didn’t know what happened. And just out of the blue Gary contacted me and I started thinking like, “Wow, maybe this is meant to be”, you know. I started talking to him about it, I said, “Hey, there is interest for you to come and do some shows, a big festival with us in Europe”. And Gary was very excited to do it because he never toured in Europe before. He actually went on and started forming some other businesses, but these are not related to the music industry. Actually we got together and his voice sounded really good, so I was convinced that he could still do it. We went over to Headbangers Open Air and just rocked people, we brought Gary up in the middle of our set and he did 4 or 5 songs with us. It was great, he really had a lot of energy and sounded good. When you have a band like Vicious Rumors that’s been around for so many years, I think it’s kinda cool to celebrate some of the past and some of the history of the band. We had a great time doing it, that’s kind of what lead to do the Keep It True festival this year with Mark and Kevin. That’s another chance to honor some of the history of the band.

How did you originally find Gary back in the 80s? As far as we understand, he was the only member of the “Soldiers Of The Night” line-up who had recording experience before. Is it correct?

I also had experience before that. Yeah, Garry was originally in the group Hawaii with Marty Friedman. I also grew up in the island of Hawaii and I first met Gary St. Pierre way back in the 70s. (laughs)

Vicious Rumors are one of the very few cult metal bands who have never re-released their early demos. Have you ever considered publishing songs like “I Can Live Forever” on CD or maybe re-recording them?

Oh wow! That’s interesting that you know that song, my friend, you have really done your homework. (laughs) Normally I just think about moving forward rather than going backwards and trying to re-record songs like that. But I think that was a pretty good song as I think back on it. I haven’t thought it in years. In general we just move forward and keep writing new material, but you never know.

What was the role of Mike Varney and Shrapnel Records in the history of Vicious Rumors? Did he really help the band, or did he want the band to do what he was telling you?

Oh no, he never tried to control our direction or anything like that. He helped the band a lot in the early days by signing us to Shrapnel Records, our first two albums really paved the way for me to continue all these years. Mike Varney was a very big part of getting Vicious Rumors started and he helped the band very much.

Yes, but we heard that it was his idea to invite Vinnie Moore in the band, and we heard that you weren’t happy with this collaboration in the end…

Actually what happened was that Vicious Rumors had always been a two-guitar band and when we started negotiating with Mike Varney I was still looking for a guitar player. Since he was the guitar Guru at that time and had had an arsenal of all these incredible players, he just suggested, he gave me tapes of three guys. One of them was Joe Holmes, the guy who played with Ozzy at some point later on, one of them was Vinnie Moore and one of them was… Oh God, I can’t remember who it was, but someone really good. And all three of them were amazing. But there was something about Vinnie Moore that made us think that he was the one we wanted. So we went with Vinnie. Mike was just trying to help complete the line-up and make a great band and a great record. Of course it didn’t really turn out because Vinnie was more interested in being a solo artist, but the exposure that “Soldiers of the Night” and “Digital Dictator” (1988) got really set the groundwork for me to continue all these years, so I have no regrets.

You wrote the song “Digital Dictator” in 1988, and now all these digital technologies are real. What do you think about this?

(laughs) Well, we could see it coming, that’s for sure. I think “Digital Dictator” is a real classic album, one of our best records, and it’s interesting to see the technology taking in full force now, but, you know, that was to be expected. It wasn’t that hard to predict the progress of mankind, but it’s definitely interesting to see that album still standing the taste of time, and it’s something I’m really proud of.

Looking back what do you now think about you collaboration with Atlantic Records? Was it a right step for the band to get signed to this label in 1990?

It’s very difficult to get signed to a major label in the United States, so any time you can get that opportunity it’s a real dream come true. When we signed to Atlantic, it was the same label that had AC/DC and Led Zeppelin, so we were pretty much had stars in our eyes and thinking like, “Oh, this is it”. But sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. In hindsight, there was also interest from Roadrunner Records at that time, and we were very much interested in going with Roadrunner Records. But if I remember correctly, there was lack of communication and all of a sudden we had this offer from Atlantic Records… When you’re a young metal musician and you have a chance to sign with a major company like that, there’s an overwhelming urge to do it. And the again, the first two records on Shrapnel/Roadrunner and the next three records on Atlantic really set the whole stage for me to continue Vicious Rumors for years and years to come. We had a lot of incredible experiences with the band, a lot of ups and downs and it all makes an incredible story.

What inspired you to write such lyrics as “Children” from the “Welcome to the Ball” album (1991)?

Actually Larry and myself became fathers three years before that, and we were inspired to have a song of hope for the kids. That’s what lead to that.

And what do your children think about the music you’re doing?

You know, it’s a trip. They are very supportive of it, they see how hard we work and they see the value of doing something they you enjoy doing in your life. There’s also been a lot of sacrificing that goes with it, with being on the road and stuff like that, but overall we have a great relationship and they are very supportive of it. I always encourage them to follow their dreams.

Do they have anything to do with music nowadays, or do they plan to do something musically?

I don’t think so. Even though they are musically inclined, they are heading down different directions, but we are lucky we’ve got such great kids.

You recorded cover versions of Led Zeppelin (“Communication Breakdown”) and Rolling Stones (“Paint It Black”) for the EP “The Voice” (1994). Who came up with this idea?

(laughs) Actually we had a couple of off days in Hannover, and the record company asked us if we come in and do a couple of bonus tracks. But it was a real last minute things, so we were like, “OK, sure, we have a couple of days, let’s go do it”. We were sitting around in the recording studio just thinking, “Hey, what are we gonna do?” We were talking about doing a couple of cover tunes and just decided, “Hey, le’s go for the real classic stuff – Led Zeppelin and the Stones. It’s something everybody knows”. We sat around in a little circle and started figuring out the songs. I think that engineer of that day – Steve Mann, formerly of Michael Schenker Group, was kind of rolling his eyes, going like, “Oh God, it’s gotta be a long day”. He thought we were kind of unprepared, but once we started playing he realized that we were a pretty good band. Actually we had really a good recording session.

Don’t you want to record another cover version of any band now?

We didn’t do it on our latest album but I’m not saying that we’ll never do it again. I could see us doing a couple of good covers again, for sure, it’s kinda fun to do it. I just have a lot of material of my own that I wanted to get out through the last couple of records. But that’s certainly not out of the question, if we can do a really good version of somebody else’s song.

When we spoke about singers you said you wanted to continue the original sound of Vicious Rumors but still the albums “Something Burning” and “Cyberchrist” (2008) were a little but different in their musical direction. What kind of influenced did you have at that moment? What kind of response did you have to these records?

There was definitely the changing of the guard in the 1990s, metal was really moving around, it was a dark time in metal, grunge was getting really popular. I had lost my singer, there was a lot of things going on, a lot of change in the air and I just wanted to still make a heavy metal album but I was dealing with different chemistry in the band and with different people. Each one of these albums is really a postcard of time, you know, where you are at that time of your career, the time of your life, so those albums are what they are for the people that I had at that time and the things that we were going through at that time. I think there’s some really good music on both of those records. Some people liked them very much, some people didn’t, but they were definitely more experimental albums than the classic Vicious Rumors sound and I just wanted to return to the sound of Vicious Rumors and try to perfect that.

What album was the hardest one to record in your career? And which album would you call your most successful one?

(pause) This is a very difficult question. This last one was not easy because we did all on our own, from an unsigned perspective, and then went out and got a deal. So I would say the last one that we made was the most difficult. And as far as our most successful album, I’m not really sure. I would say it was one of Atlantic albums, you know, maybe that first Atlantic album (“Vicious Rumors”, 1990), it made a big splash in the early 90’s right before things started changing so much.

All your cover artworks have something in common – this round thing with blades connected do it. Who came up with it, and how did it happen?

A good friend of mine, an artist named Steve Pollutro was sketching out different ideas when we were working on the original logo. And he came up with the VR ball, the ball of the blades, it’s kinda loosely based on a Japanese weapon shuriken, though not exactly like that. He is a buddy of mine and a professional artist and he came up with the concept of the VR ball and we sort of stuck with it ever since, it just went through some changes over the years.

Vicious Rumors were born in the famous Bay Area, the cradle of thrash metal. What can you say about your relationship with such bands as Metallica or Exodus and the response you have got from thrash metal fans?   

Yeah, we grew up with all those guys, I have friendships with all of those bands – Death Angel, Testament, Exodus, Metallica, Laaz Rockit, Forbidden. Some of our past and present members have been playing with them, too. The Bay Area is a small place and there are five bands from the Bay Area that have really stood the taste of time which are Vicious Rumors, Death Angel, Testament, Exodus and Forbidden. It’s pretty cool to see that many bands still doing really well, putting out great music over all these years. I wanna say that Vicious Rumors and Testament are maybe only ones that never broke up. I’m proud to be in one of them.

We took a look at the band’s official website, and we only saw news and press releases about your tour dates in Europe. How much do you play in the United States nowadays? What is the current status of Vicious Rumors in the Bay Area?

The current status is we have not begun to tour here yet with the new record, so along with our deal with SPV they’re also releasing the album here in the U.S. We think this year is gonna be the start of us doing more work in the United States. We definitely plan on touring the United States as well in Europe and Asia. You know, I’d love to come to Russia, on God, I’ve never been there. It would be a very incredible experience and I would love to get the opportunity to do it some time if the promoters wanna bring us over.

Geoff, now you’re the only original member of the band. What inspires you to keep the band alive all these years?

My friend, the metal is in my blood, just like it’s in yours. You know what I mean – I love the action, I love the traveling, I love to meet the people, I love the music and there is always something around the corner for me to be excited about. So this is my dream and I’m living my dream all the way to the end.

Vicious Rumors on the Internet: http://www.viciousrumors.com

Special thanks to Maxim Bylkin (Soyuz Music) for arranging this interview

Konstantin “Hirax” Chilikin, Roman Patrashov
January 25, 2011
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