Victory
Never Lose Again

20.10.2013

*** ARCHIVE ITEM - DATED 2003 *** It’s a strange situation: when German melodic rockers Victory broke up in 1996, nobody considered them a supergroup, they were famous for their music and chart successes much than for the individual merits of their members. But now wherever there’s a news item telling you that Victory is back, the first thing that is mentioned is the band’s more-than-impressive line-up. Guitarist Tommy Newton worked as a producer with Helloween, Conception and many other bands, another guitarist Herman Frank also played in Accept, Hazzard, Sinner and Moon’Doc, drummer Fritz Randow is a current member of Saxon and Sinner and was a key element in the history of Eloy, bass player Peter Knorn is a famous manager, and singer Charlie Huhn has been doing records with Ted Nugent, Axel Rudi Pell, Humble Pie and Foghat. A supergroup, isn’t it? What we felt necessary to do in this situation was to make an overview of the band’s history, which has been totally overlooked in the Russian media. We got Tommy Newton on the phone from his Area 51 Studios to tell us everything…

(EDITOR'S NOTE - THE YEAR 2013: Our first anniversary year is now over, but we keep on putting up archive items that our authors penned before starting to write for HeadBanger.ru. We polled the visitors of our Vkontakte page, and poll results clearly show that these old interviews are still of interest to the readers and they want these texts to be available again to the general public. As to ourselves, this is a good opportunity to re-live some of the great moments of our careers as journalists, and we are naturally eager to share them with you...)

Before Victory, you had a band called Fargo. Why did you and Peter Knorn decide to put an end to Fargo and start a new band?

As a matter of fact, Peter had this band a long time ago, and I just joined it as a guitar player. We did an album together (“F”, 1982), and it turned out that the singer that we had in the band was a real weirdo. For me it was not much fun to be in that band, so I went to Peter and said, “Listen, if you wanna go on like this, it’s OK, but this is nothing for me, so I’m gonna quit the band.” He said, “Well, I’d rather go with you than with the singer, so why don’t we stop this thing and make a new band? First the band started under the name Fargo, but later we decided that this is a new band and a new start, so we should change the name.

What kind of music was Fargo playing? Are Fargo albums still available?

I’m not sure if the albums are still available, they got a release on EMI/Harvest, and I’m not sure if you find them over there in Russia, but even here it’s a bit difficult, sometimes you see them under the label of “Best Price” or something like that, but I haven’t seen them for a long time. I don’t know if they’re still on the market or not. The music was very mellow hard rock, I would say.

How did you first meet Peter Knorn?

I was playing in an Italian band called Sphinx, we had a publishing company, and the guy always loved me as a guitar player. This Italian band was more keyboard-oriented, they were a little bit like Yes or Saga, and I never could really enjoy myself that much playing guitar in this band. We had two keyboardists, and there was not much space for guitar. One day he came up and said, “Listen, there is a band in Hannover called Fargo, and they’re looking for a guitar player. Would you be interested to play an audition?” I called them up and said, “I would be interested in auditioning for the band.” And the first question that Peter asked me was not, “Are you a good guitar player or not?” The first thing he asked me was, “Do you look good?” (everybody laughs) I said, “Well… I look very good.” And he liked that answer. We had an audition, and from that day on I was in Fargo.

How did you get Charlie Huhn to join Victory?

When we did our first demo for Victory, we had a singer from the south of Germany, from Sarrbrucken. We finished the basic tracks – the drums, the bass, the guitars – so it was time to do the vocals. But the singer said, “Oh, I’m ill, I can’t sing!” We said, “OK, take your time off, and when you’re OK, you’re gonna sing.” But later on we saw him always in the nighttime going out of bed and going to a club. There he got completely drunk and the next day he would have a terrible hangover and say, “Oh, I don’t feel well, I can’t sing…” We took this joke for a week or something, and then we said, “We’ve had enough.” At that time our producer was Rick Brody, and he said, “Listen, you can’t go on like this, we have to finish the album and we don’t have much money, and this and that.” So one day the producer came to us and said, “We need a new singer, we’re never gonna make it with this guy.” Before that he was producing a Ted Nugent album, and he said, “I know a really good singer from my Ted Nugent days, and he’s also a great guitar player, his name is Charlie Huhn.” He gave Charlie a call, he was interested, and three days later he was there.

In addition to the demo you’ve just mentioned, did you record any other material before the first Victory album?

No, we did one demo actually, and when we did that demo, we sent it around, and we played this for the Scorpions guys. They really loved it and they played it to their management. The management loved it too, and all of a sudden the whole world was interested in us.

Did the demo contain the songs that later were recorded for the first album “Victory” (1985)?

Yes, exactly.

Is it true that Victory was more popular in the U.S. than in Europe when Charlie was in the band?

Yes. You know what people say – the prophet in his own country is nothing. We toured America, we played Dallas, TX, in front of 90,000 people, we played the Day On The Green festival, we played Phoenix with Aerosmith and stuff like that. We did lots and lots of touring in the United States, we had a much larger audience in the U.S. than we had in Europe, even in Germany. As soon as we got established in America, people in Europe said, “Oh, there’s this band, why didn’t we hear about them?” It’s really strange, but things like that happen.

Why did Charlie leave Victory?

Charlie left the band because he got an offer from a band called Humble Pie, an old English band, maybe you know that name. They were really big in Europe in the 1970s, and they offered Charlie a lot of money. So Charlie decided to go for the money, but later he regretted it. By the moment he left Victory, we already wrote a new album, it was the “Culture Killed The Native” album (1989), and we had the music ready, but just before we went to the studio, Charlie decided to join Humble Pie. Later he regretted it really bad, because we got in the charts all over the world. He always felt a bit sorry for leaving the band, but you always have to learn your lesson. We never had personal problems going on. To some extent, we understood his decision, because he was married and had a child, he had to bring them money, and at that time Victory wasn’t making a lot of money at all.

Where did you find new singer Fernando Garcia?

We found his through extensive auditioning, through agencies looking for singer, and the last cassette we had was from Fernando. That was also good luck. He just had to jump in, we did the album, and we went touring all over Europe… Yeah, it was again an accident, you know.

Is it true that Ted Bullet (later with Thunderhead) came to Germany from America especially to join Victory, but you never hired him?

Yes, that’s true. We also had the singer from Tygers Of Pan Tang auditioning, and we had Ted Bullet auditioning. We liked Ted a lot, but we felt that Ted was not the right singer for us. His range was not right for us. He’s a great singer for what he was doing, but he was not the right singer for Victory.

Can you tell us a bit about the songwriting process during the old Victory days? Who was coming up with music and lyrics?

Herman and I always write the music. I’m playing a completely different style than Herman is playing. Herman is a really melodic guy, he’s a good guitar player, and I’m more into the riffy kind of stuff, I like it more to have a raw edge to it. The combination between Herman and me was always the magic behind the Victory songs, I think. And when it comes down to lyrics, we had different options, but lately we decided that my wife is a very good lyricist, so she writes all lyrics.

Was it the same with the material for the new album “Instinct” (2003)?

Yes.

Can you explain the meaning of some old and new Victory songs? The first one is gonna be “Check’s In The Mail” from the second album “Don’t Get Mad… Get Even” (1986).

Oh, don’t you know what “check’s in the mail” is?

No, that’s why we’re asking.

OK. Do you work for a company or do you work on your own?

We work for a company, both of us.

Then just imagine: you work and work and work, then you look at your bank account and there’s no money. (everybody laughs) You call your company and say, “Listen, where’s my money?” And the boss tells you, “Don’t worry, the check’s in the mail.”

We know this situation. (everybody laughs)

That’s the meaning behind “Check’s In The Mail”, it’s very true. There are two or three different… I know there’s a lady listening, so can you take a bit of heavier jokes?

Sure, no problem.

OK, there are three biggest lies in rock’n’roll. The lie number one: “the check’s in the mail”, the lie number two: “don’t worry, I won’t cum in your mouth” (outburst of laughter), and number three: “we love you guys.” (everybody laughs). “Check’s in the mail” is one of the oldest lies in rock’n’roll. It’s very true, you know it.

What is “The Bigger They Are” from the album “Hungry Hearts” (1987) about?

That’s also very simple. You know those people who are walking around with their high noses and they think they’re the best, but they’ve never worked in their life, they just inherited the money from their parents. Still they think they’re much better, they always put you down, but there’s a saying “the bigger they are the harder they fall.” They think they’re really big, but when they come down, they don’t know how it is to be poor. If somebody’s poor, for him it’s not so inconvenient to be poor again, but for a guy who’s rich and all of a sudden becomes poor, that’s a big step. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

The next song is “Victoria’s Secrets” from the new album…

I think Natalie should know. (laughs) Victoria’s Secrets is an underwear shop in New York. But the lyrics of this song is about a girl called Victoria. We thought that’s a nice catch phrase to use – Victoria’s Secrets is the shop, but it also means “the secrets of Victoria.” We like this kind of double meanings. We don’t necessarily want to change the world, we wanna have fun when we do our rock’n’roll because you see lots and lots of problems in the world and you don’t need any more problems. When you listen to our music, we want you to have at least a little fun, at least for the length of the album, but on the other hand, we have also songs like “Enemy”, which is very serious. It’s not only having good fun, but I don’t like politics in rock’n’roll because there are so many bands, for example, Rage Against The Machine, who always tell you what to do and what not to do. And if they wanna do that, they should write a book, but stay away from rock music.

You also had a very interesting track on the B-side of the “Rock-O-Matic” single (1992), which was called “Die Kohlrulade”. Is it about German ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl?

(laughs) No, that was a gimmick. Our bass player Fargo-Peter does the best Kohlrulade in the world. Die Kohlrulade is a dish, which is made of vegetables with a nice meat filling. We thought, “OK, we’re gonna put this recipe on the back, because we’re all addicted to that dish.” Everybody was going, “What’s about this Kohlrulade?” We said, “OK, we give you the recipe. Here is the B-side, here’s the recipe.” It was meant to be a joke.

Why did Victory break up after the “LiveLine” album (1994)?

That was the time when we did so much extensive touring, I mean, all over the world, except Russia. We always wanted to play in Russia, but there were times when it was not so easy to do, as you all know. But we would really love to do that. Anyway, we did so much touring and touring and touring that we couldn’t see each other anymore. We said, “OK, now it’s the right time to stop.”

What do you now think about the “Voiceprint” album (1996)? Are you satisfied with it?

“Voiceprint” is different from the times when Herman and I wrote songs together, that’s for sure. But the record label came to us and said, “Why don’t we do a Victory album?” We got a new drummer and a new guitar played and we did an album. We worked really hard on that album, but of course, it sounds a little bit different from the normal Victory stuff. Some fans liked it, some said, “This is not Victory.”

By the way, why did you give the album such a name – “Voiceprint”?

“Voiceprint” has a double meaning. Did you see that guy on the cover? This machine really exists in the museum of curiosities. It was done by a scientist, who said, “OK, I speak through the microphone,” and the machine printed automatically on paper what he said. But of course, there’s also a second meaning – we want to stamp on this record where we came from. That’s why it is called “Voiceprint.”

Who are the new people featured on the album – Jake Paland and Matthias Liebetruth? Where do they come from? What did they do after Victory?

Matthias Liebetruth is the drummer who now plays in Running Wild, and Jake Paland is a very famous session guitar player, he’s now in England and doing some stuff with Apollo 440, he’s more into pop now.

Can you tell us anything about your studio? When did you establish it?

We actually had two studios. The first one was in Hannover, it was called Stairway To Heaven, where I did lots of Conception and things like that. I also worked a lot in America, but I spent too much money there, so we started Area 51 Studios here on June 30, 1997. You can take a look at the studio on the Internet, I can give you the address, and you can leave your message in the guestbook, I will be really happy about it. The site is located at http://www.area51recordingstudios.com

Do you remember the first album that you did as an engineer and producer?

Oh yes, I remember it very well, that was Helloween “Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part 1”. I was more producing than engineering this album, and on “Keeper… Part 2” I did much more engineering.

There’s a rumor that it was you who talked Kai Hansen into leaving Helloween. Is it true?

I heard that rumor. That’s absolute nonsense. I was the guy who tried to make Kai Hansen stay in the band. I read this somewhere, and it came from Michael Weikath. I don’t say this very often in my life, but I have to say that Michael Weikath is a complete idiot. He is the reason that everybody has left the band. For me he is the reason that Ingo Schwichtenberg, the first drummer of Helloween, committed suicide. He drove everybody nuts – he drove Ingo nuts, he drove Kai nuts, he drove Michael Kiske nuts, that’s why they left the band. I read this interview somewhere on the Internet where he said that I was talking Kai Hansen out of the band. The truth is that I was with Kai for dinner in the times of “Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part 2”, and Kai told me that evening that he wants to leave the band because he can’t stand working with Michael Weikath anymore. I told him, “Come on, Kai, don’t do that, the band is doing so well, you’re gonna get on with him again.” But he said, “No, I’ve had it, I’m pissed off with this, I’m gonna do my own thing,” and then he started Gamma Ray. That’s the truth.

Unfortunately there are so many rumors about famous people going round the world, and the only thing to find out whether they are true is to ask the people involved directly…

Actually I’m glad that you asked me, you’re the first persons ever who asked me that question.

Can we ask more questions concerning rumors?

Of course, I love it!

Is it true that Michael Weikath didn’t play on the first “Keeper” album at all?

No, that’s not true. I don’t like Michael Weikath, but I have to give him the credit – yes, he played on the first album.

By the way, what do you think about Helloween’s latest album “Rabbit Don’t Come Easy”?

To tell you the truth, I listened to the first album that came out after “Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part 2”, that was “Pink Bubbles Go Ape” or something like that, and for me as soon as Kai and Michael (Kiske) left the band, Helloween was not interesting anymore. Weikath is not a band songwriter, but then again, it’s always the chemistry that makes the difference, you know what I mean? It’s the same with Herman and me – Herman can write songs on his own, I can write songs on my own, but if we write them together, there is more tension in the songs. It’s the chemistry that makes it. Look at Judas Priest – it’s a great band, and Ripper Owens is a good singer, but he will never be Rob Halford. And now Rob Halford is back in the band, so that’s Judas Priest again! There are some things that you can’t change.

And what do you think about Masterplan?

I must say that Masterplan is also a bit of a problem for me, because I produced an album of Ark, it’s called “Burn The Sun”, and I love it, I love the singing on this album, because I think it sounds completely different. And what I think about this Masterplan thing is that they’re all great musicians, there’s no doubt about it. But for me it sounds like a rip-off of Helloween, Dio, etc. Jorn Lande sings like so many people, and he joined so many bands that he has lost his reputation for me. You can hear him on so many albums, to my taste he’s too much after the money. I don’t wanna annoy you by what I’m saying, but I just wanna tell you the background, because I think Ark was much more original than Masterplan ever will be. For me as a producer it’s very important to bring out some music that I think should be heard because it’s different.

There is one more rumor that we would like to clear out. Is it true that Herman had some alcohol problems a few years ago?

(breaks into laughter) Do you know any musician that doesn’t have alcohol problems? And do you know why? Because they can’t afford it. (everybody laughs) He doesn’t drink more than you or I or my wife or whatever. Of course when you’re on tour, sometimes you have a party, and you know that. Of course, you get drunk, but that doesn’t mean that you’re an alcoholic.

How did you get the idea to bring Victory back? Who was the person who suggested the reunion?

Actually it was Fritz, the drummer. He was playing with Saxon at the Wacken Open Air festival, and a guy from Wacken, one of those promoters, said, “I wanna have the original line-up of Victory,” and Fritz said, “There’s no way.” The promoter said, “Yes, I want it.” So it was going back and forth, back and forth, and it took him two years to finally get the line-up back together.

Why did you decide to bring Charlie back, not Fernando? Charlie seems to be very busy with Foghat in the States…

It’s because most of the Victory fans consider Charlie Huhn the real Victory singer, the original singer. His voice means a lot to lots of fans all over the world. As for us, when Fernando joined the band, we got a little bit more melodic, which is not bad, but songs like “Check’s In The Mail”, “The Bigger They Are” – that’s much more the edge where we’re coming from. So we decided to go with Charlie. But there is no bad blood, I’m not saying anything against Fernando Garcia. He’s working on his own band, I don’t know their name, but it seems like it’s not working for some reason.

Fritz also plays in Saxon and Sinner. Will be quitting one of these bands or will he continue playing in three bands at the same time?

(laughs) Actually we wanna keep it like this, because we’re not in it for the money. We do this because we love it, but as you know, I’m very busy with producing, Herman is pretty busy with producing, Charlie is busy with Foghat and his job, Peter is managing several bands. So we said, “OK, we’re gonna keep ourselves together, we’re gonna do an album, then we might gonna do a tour, and then we might gonna do another album, and we’re gonna do another tour, so we do this for the fun of it.” Nobody minds if Fritz plays in Saxon, it’s great, because it keeps him in good shape, so he doesn’t have much time to do nothing. (laughs) I love it, I think it’s great.

And will Herman continue with Moon’Doc?

No, that’s over.

Was the work on “Instinct” somehow different from the work on the previous albums?

This time we could work in my studio, so we didn’t have so much time pressure. We took all the time that we needed, and we had a lot of fun doing this album, I hope you can hear that, I really love the album, everybody in the band loves the album. We had much more freedom, and that’s why I love the album so much.

The new record does not contain ballads, and you never really wrote many ballads in the past. Why?

(pause) We actually wrote three ballads…

But that’s not many for a band with seven albums, isn’t it?

Well, maybe we don’t like ballads that much. (laughs) I hate bad ballads, I can’t sit down and say, “I’m gonna write a ballad,” and Herman can’t sit down and write a ballad. It just comes or it doesn’t. But we’re not necessarily a ballad band now. Sorry…

How did you get a deal with SPV? Are you satisfied with the label so far?

It was SPV that came to us, because they heard that we were gonna play this original line-up show in Wacken. That was supposed to be just a gimmick for the fans, but they heard it and said, “C’mon, please, let’s do an album, give us an album.” We talked about and finally said, “OK, we’re gonna do it.”

What are your impressions from playing at this year’s Wacken Open Air? A lot of musicians say the organizers treat bands quite poorly there…

I thought it was great, it was very well organized, I was there and I can tell you that it was really well organized. It was the first time that we played there, and everything was fine – toilets, Red Cross, no fights, it was really really well done. The only thing is that it was extremely hot, of course.

Has your audience changed over the years? Who are the people coming to Victory’s concerts now?

This is too early to say, because we have only done two shows. It was really funny, because before we played the Wacken show, we played a warm-up show in Hamburg in a club called Headbangers’ Ballroom, which is partially owned by the guitar player of Masterplan, Roland Grapow. We had it limited to 200 tickets, and there was a bus coming from Spain, and God knows where they come from. Everybody wanted to see Victory again to compensate for all the years that they didn’t have the chance to see Victory. It was a big thing happening, it was really good. But we can’t yet say if the audience has changed or not. We will see when we go on tour.

Speaking about the new album, why did you name it “Instinct”?

Well, that’s a good question. When I pick up my guitar or Herman picks up his guitar, we have an instinct for a song. That’s the way it’s gonna be for Victory, that’s the instinct. It’s like when you go out and see a bear, you know his instinct – he wants to have you for lunch. (laughs) It’s the basic instinct. That’s how the name came along. I love it, I think it’s a great name.

Don’t you think that the new album’s cover artwork of the new album is very close to covers of Primal Fear?

I don’t know, I haven’t seen the Primal Fear ones! (laughs)

They’re also using the eagle a lot on their covers.

I guess the reason why they use the eagle has to do with merchandising. Lots of people like to have an eagle on their T-shirts, so we thought that we should use something we also can use for a T-shirt. But eagles are used all over the place, that’s for sure. I agree if you say that this is not the most original cover in the world, but I like it anyway.

You have already released two live albums – “That’s Live” (1988) and “LiveLine” (1994). Which of them is your favorite?

Oh… mmm… Probably the first one, “That’s Live”, because it was really fresh, and I remember the day when we recorded it. It was the last day of the tour, and the night before we put up at a hotel and got really fucked up. But the next day we had such a great feeling despite the hangover, and we really enjoyed the show. I think you can hear it on the album.

By the way, the only mp3 files that are available on your website are from “That’s Live”. What is the reason?

We don’t like piracy that much, that’s something that you maybe can understand. But as soon as the new album is out, I think they’re gonna put some mp3s from the new album online as well. Piracy is a big problem, and you probably have the same problem in Russia. Piracy kills music.

What do you think about mp3s in general?

I think mp3 sounds really horrible. If you have a good cassette machine, every cassette sounds 10 times better than mp3. The problem of mp3 has another aspect. You remember the date when you bought an album. The album has a big cover, and you really treasure it. Now you have an mp3, you listen to it for one week, then you don’t like it, and you erase it and put something else in its place. It’s not something you can treasure anymore, while vinyl records were something special. But it’s just like the environment – nobody takes care about any people anymore, it’s all about this capitalist bullshit and stuff.

Are there any plans for a DVD with Victory videoclips or live material?

As a matter of fact, we recorded the whole live show in Wacken, and we’re just working on a deal. If the deal comes true, there will be a DVD of Victory live in concert. And we’re gonna put some old videos on it as well.

Well, that’s it, it was great talking to you Tommy. Can you say some final words to the Russian audience?

All I can say is that if the Russian fans think they have heard everything, then I must say they haven’t. As long as Victory wasn’t in Russia, they didn’t hear anything.

So we shall be waiting for you to come here some day.

Oh, that’s one of my dreams. I love Russia, I love all these buildings, I’m really into architecture, I really would love to go to Moscow, that would be a dream of mine. We would play for free just to be there, I just wanna be there and have a really good vodka! Russian vodka with orange juice is the best!

Victory on the Internet: http://www.victory-music.com

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

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov, Natalie “Snakeheart” Patrashova
September 17, 2003
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