Riot V
Keep It In The Family

03.11.2019

In the vast majority of cases, when a band loses of its original members, it cannot be considered legitimate. Not only on a formal basis, but also because the music changes, or the vibe morphs into something else. New York’s Riot are a rare exception to this rule. Even though the band’s founder and long-term leader Mark Reale succumbed to Crohn’s disease in 2012, they are still going strong and having respect from most of the long-time fans. The current configuration of the band, known as Riot V, is led by guitarist Mike Flyntz, who has been loyal to it for the last 30 years, and bassist Donnie Van Stavern, who was the main songwriter on such classic albums as “Thundersteel” (1988) and “The Privilege Of Power” (1990). But what’s perhaps even more important, they keep on delivering new material that has both the quality and the spirit of classic Riot. In August this year, Riot V released 2CD/DVD “Live In Japan 2018”, where they perform the above-mentioned “Thundersteel” in full, and this was a good opportunity to team up with Donnie for an interview. Frankly speaking, we were not planning to make it that long and comprehensive, but Donnie turned out a very eloquent interview subject who gave us all the answers we wanted and much more…

Your latest studio album “Armor Of Light” (2018) came out on Nuclear Blast Records, but for the new “Live In Japan” DVD you signed with AFM. Why didn’t Nuclear Blast release the live package? Do you have a long-term contract with AFM, or is it a one-off release?

We’re on Nuclear Blast in Europe and America, those markets. But the original Ward Records deal was a studio record and a DVD video. That was their deal, Nuclear Blast – that wasn’t their deal. What happened was: when Ward Records put it out, they wanted to license it to someone in Europe and the States. They basically came down to business, we had nothing to do with it, because it was part of the original deal with Ward, the money and everything involved a CD and a DVD. When they went to license it, they did approach Nuclear Blast, Markus (Steiger, CEO) and them, and I did as well. But I think AFM might have put down more cash and had a good game plan for it, but like I said, that was a Ward Records Japan deal, and they went with AFM. They had Metal Blade and a couple of other people biting at it, but I think for financial reasons they chose the best offer and stuff. That’s why AFM has the DVD. We’re still on Nuclear Blast Records, that’s our current label, and the next record will come out on Nuclear Blast.

It’s pretty complicated with all those record labels and deals…

Yeah, yeah, I’m on like five labels, I don’t know. (everybody laughs)

Riot and Riot V have had a big number of live albums in the past. In your opinion, what makes the new live release special? If somebody already has a few live albums from the past, why should they also get a new one?

Well, because it’s Riot V! In the past, like you said, Riot has had a number of live records. A lot of them were bootlegs, every band including Riot has a lot of unofficial bootlegs, but some of the records were sanctioned by a label, like – in the early days, “Riot Live” (1989, recorded in 1980), the one with Guy Speranza, and then the other “Riot Live” (1982) with Rhett Forester. Later on, in the Mike DiMeo era, you had “Shine On” (1998). But I think what makes this one special is a number of reasons. I’ve been in Riot for a long time, I took a break for a while, but I had the honor of playing with Rhett Forrester, Rick (Ventura, guitar) and Sandy (Slavin, drums) in the original line-up, and I think what makes this band magical is… When I decided to keep Riot going after Mark Reale passed, we all had the passion to really deliver to the fans, because basically, when you lose an original member like that, it’s a hard hit, we didn’t even know if we’re gonna continue. I said, “I have to assemble a band that’s really gonna represent, and people are gonna move forward with”. Obviously Mike Flyntz is with me from the old days, and then we had a young gun in Nick (Lee, guitar), and Frank (Gilchriest, drums) who had a little bit of time in Riot. Of course, we really sought out for a great vocalist. I told Mike, “Why don’t we grab DiMeo back or Mike Tirelli?” And he said, “We need to get in a guy that is a fresh face and that has got the sound of the power metal era, when I joined, the ‘Thundersteel’ era.” That being said, Riot V is a great line-up, when I get on the stage with them, it is magical. I’m listening to the CD that’s coming out, I’m honored, it’s so good – I mean, the guys play so well, Todd Michael Hall is such a great singer. This DVD that you see, this live CD – there’s not any touch-up on it. We didn’t take it to the studio to fix the vocals or fix the guitars – nothing. What you see and hear is exactly what happened live. I’m very proud of that fact; when people watch it, they’re like, “This sounds great!” But it’s live, it’s true to form, and it’s got a great mix – for some of the past albums, they did a mix off the live mixing board, this was taken into a studio, and Japanese producers did a great job with mixing it. Sometimes we did have to fix a few things – with Tony Moore, little things here and there, but not with this one. That’s what makes it special.  You watch it, this is how it happened live, and we don’t like to use tracks live, we never use pre-recorded tracks or anything. When you see Riot, you’re getting the real live music! (laughs)

On this live package you are performing the “Thundersteel” album in full. At the moment this album seems to be your most popular one. In your opinion, why do fans value this particular record above all? Why not “The Privilege Of Power”, for instance?

I think there were two pivotal records in Riot’s career. One with me, one without. Obviously, “Fire Down Under” (1981) was one of the biggest Riot records made. Even before I had joined the band, I had “Fire Down Under” in my collection. That’s basically what put Riot on the map, even though we had “Rock City” (1977) and “Narita” (1979) before that. Like I said, it was pivotal. Then after the transformation with Rhett Forrester from hard rock to kind of southern hard rock, we decided to make the change to power metal on “Thundersteel”. Me and Mark thought about moving in a direction that was more happening at that time. Judas Priest was out, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and Iron Maiden were hitting the market. Mark knew I was from the Texas Slayer band (S.A. Slayer – ed.), and I used to write a lot of power metal riffs and stuff like that. When we put “Thundersteel” together, it was the record that changed the sound of Riot. When you do that, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. Fortunately for us, “Thundersteel” became another pivotal record for that era of 1988. When we play live, “Thundersteel” seems to get the best response. We play some old classics from “Fire Down Under”, and we get big response, but whenever we play anything from “Thundersteel”, the crowd goes crazy. Even when we do meet-and-greets, some fans don’t even know of the Riot before that. They think “Thundersteel” is our classic, and I say, “No no, there’s five records before this,” and they’re like, “Wow!” “Thundersteel” was very pivotal, and when we play it live, it goes over great. When it came to the 30th anniversary of it, we decided, “Hey, it’s been 30 years, why don’t we go out and play it in its entirety?” And Japan jumped the board, Ward said, “Hey, look, we’re gonna set up 12 cameras, we wanna do a live DVD – one set of Riot V, and in the second set you’ll do ‘Thundesteel’ in its entirety”. We had to pull out everything from top to bottom, “Thundersteel” all the way to “Buried Alive”. Some of the songs, I don’t think I ever did. We did most of them, but I don’t think we ever played “Run For Your Life”. It was an honor to me, since I was the only one on “Thundersteel” and wrote most of the songs. It’s just one of those records that appeared at the right place at the right time with the right sound, and a lot of people were influenced by it, so it’s very humbling.

Another “special” thing – Riot have always had a special relationship with Japan – even on the first album, back in 1977, there was a song called “Tokyo Rose”, and this relationship continues up to today. In your opinion, what is the reason behind this connection between the band and the Japanese audience?

Japan has always had a special place in their hearts for Riot, and vice versa. A lot of bands feel that way. It’s just a certain market over there where you play, the reception you get is awesome. Like you said, in the early days we had “Tokyo Rose”, and then the very next record is named after the Narita airport in Japan, and we went on to use some Japanese themes and connotations in songs. We first went over there in 1989, and I wrote a song to pay homage to that first time. It was on “Unleash The Fire” (2014), it was called “Land Of The Rising Sun”, and if you read the lyrics, it’s specifically about our first time going over there. Even though Riot was around for a good 10 years before me and they had those five-six records out, they had never been to Japan. So Japan’s first show with Riot was the “Thundersteel” tour and line-up. From that point on, we have always had a great relationship with them. It basically comes down to being Judas Priest or Iron Maiden for a week (laughs), because we’re treated like that – unlike the States or something like that. We play very big halls, we headline, nobody opens, and it’s always sold out, and everybody sings every word to the songs. It’s one of those relationships between the fans and the band that’s been there forever. We’re at the airport, at the hotel, and they’re bringing us gifts, little stuff, animals, our mascot Johnny The Seal… We love going over there, so we thought, “Probably the ‘Thundersteel’ anniversary will work for a number of reasons for Japan – the relationship there plus the 30th anniversary. And we wanna have a good sounding record with a real responsive crowd.” I think it was a good choice.

What is the current status of Riot V in the United States? How much do you play over there as compared to Europe?

Well, we’ve been playing in Europe a lot. It’s a real hard touring situation, and a lot of people from our home country, America, say, “Why have you abandoned us? Play in your home country a lot.” And it comes down to, like I said, business. It’s a different world now. When I joined, when the band was kicking in the 80s, we didn’t have social media, we didn’t have ways to get the music or see footage of the shows, so you were more enticed to get out and see. You would go buy a record from a record store, you would buy a concert ticket to see the band, you didn’t have YouTube or anything. With that being said, in America, the market here is a little tight. We try to put a full tour together, and sometimes financially it’s just really tough because the sales lack a little bit nowadays because of the streaming and the bootlegging. Markets like Europe and Japan have that problem too, but they seem to still stick to the true form. When we go to Europe, when we play Germany and stuff like that, they still have the records, and the enthusiasm is still there. We pack the place, and they go crazy. And Japan, of course, I’ve just told you about – they’re phenomenal. We have certain markets, even as far as Greece, Italy and stuff like that – they like Riot, they still buy the records and they still come out and see the shows. So we do great in Europe. In America, we used to tour a lot, but now we do spot dates. Nowadays a band like us, we have to fly in for like a weekend and play the big markets where we will sell tickets. To try to sell tickets on a Tuesday night somewhere in Montana is probably not gonna work out (laughs), so we have to pick and choose unfortunately, because it is different for us. We’re not a cash cow, we’re not out to make a lot of money, but you still have to pay for gas to get from town to town. America’s market is a little bit more tricky whereas overseas it’s very comfortable, you have festivals over there, and we have very few festivals here, and they’re very commercial. The mainstream metal bands like the Slipknots and the Metallicas and the Five Finger Death Punches do great here, but for the true-to-form bands like Riot, those kind of bands from back in the day, it’s a little bit tougher, because it’s a different generation.

There’s a song called “San Antonio” on “Armor Of Light”, and it sounds like a love letter to the homeland. Do you consider Riot a New York band or a Texan band?

Well… it’s from New York, the roots are from New York, when they started back in the 70s. It was based out of Brooklyn, NY. And the Texas connection came simply when Mark came down here for a concert on tour, and he fell in love with San Antonio. That’s where I met him at, because that’s where I live. That’s how the whole thing came to San Antonio. Mark came down, loved it here, he was into jogging, running, camping, he was a very outdoors type, which a lot of people don’t know. He kind of escaped from the New York cold weather, snow and stuff, and San Antonio has got beautiful weather 80 percent of the year. The way I actually met him is back in the day, I think, on the “Fire Down Under” tour, he came down and was staying with a friend of mine. Riot was very big here, and he was kind of incognito, but my friend said, “Hey, I’ve got Mark Reale staying with me, he wants to jam with a band while he’s not on the road with Riot.” At the time I was with the Texas Slayer, so I said, “I’m a big Riot fan, bring him to our rehearsal.” So Mark came in, and that’s was the first time met him. He walked into our rehearsal, and we played Riot songs and cover songs. That’s where the relationship with us began, and it was in San Antonio. Before I even joined Riot, me and Mark were great friends for at least a few years. He sent me a cassette of Rhett Forrester – “What do you think of the new singer?” We were very good friends, and I actually co-wrote four songs on “Born In America” (1983) – it’s not really out there but anyway. We would jam with him and he would come down here a lot. He would call me and say, “Hey, I wanna come down for the weekend, I wanna stay with you”, and he would stay at my house. He loved the food, it’s a very Latin culture here, he liked the Mexican food, he liked the weather and stuff like that. That being said, it always had a very cool place in Mark’s heart to be in San Antonio, TX. That itself and the radio – because, like I said, back in the day when he would come to visit, Riot was all over Texas radio, they were playing Riot on big FM stations and stuff, it was one of the very big supporters of Riot back in the day. We wanted to pay homage to that. When we wrote that song, as a matter of fact, that was a leftover from “Immortal Soul” (2011), and Mark co-wrote that with me. It’s actually an old one. When Mark was already gone, and we pulled up the tracks, we said, “Hey, that’s one of Mark’s last things we’re gonna use on the record, let’s make it an homage”. We came up with the San Antonio idea, and we wrote about San Antonio where I’m from, where the relationship started, and there’s a big love for Riot here. That’s kind of where it came from.

Todd Michael Hall is a great addition to the band. How did he end up being the singer of Riot V? Was he the only candidate, or did you consider anybody else?

When we decided to move on, we were playing on this heavy metal cruise ship, “70,000 Tons Of Metal” – Mark passed away while we were on that. He had been very sick, but he wanted us, he encouraged us to keep the flame – “Go, play, and when you come back, we will continue.” Unfortunately we got the bad news, and when we came back, we came back no Mark. We talked as a band about keeping it going, which was me and Mike Flyntz, Bobby Jarzombek (drums) and Tony Moore. We were gonna keep the “Thundersteel” line-up going and stuff, but what happened was Bobby started getting very busy. He was playing with several bands like he does now, he’s with Sebastian Bach, he was with Rob Halford’s solo band, he’s with Fates Warning now, with Iced Earth for a while, which made it very hard to schedule him in. And the vocalist situation with Tony Moore… when he rejoined for “Immortal Soul”, he was very hesitant, because he’s a family man, he didn’t really wanna do the travelling and the rock’n’roll anymore, we kind of had to entice him to come back and record one more record and do some shows. After Mark’s passing it was a big change, he said, “You know what, I wanna continue for Mark and the legacy, but I just can’t, I have other things to do in my life”. He got married and that kind of stuff. Bobby was still in, and we took time, we had to rehash everything, and we didn’t know if we were going to continue. Mike Flyntz was very hurt by the situation, because he was very close to Mark as well, so he was thinking, “There’s no way we continue on, no way”. I thought the same thing, and then all of a sudden, I got a call from Olly (Hahn) from SPV / Steamhammer, because we were still contractually obligated to the label, even though Mark had passed. He was a little apprehensive, but he said, “I think you should continue, maybe with a tribute record, let’s try it.” I said, “I’ll start writing music” – and a lot of the music that’s on “Unleash The Fire” is what I started writing. So I started writing music, and that’s when I talked to Mike, I said, “Hey, I’ve got some music going, I’m gonna start putting feelers out for singers and people”. Bobby was still aboard at the time.

I contacted a few people, and believe it or not, I worked with Tony Harnell from TNT, he had played in a band with Mark called Westworld. Tony Harnell, me and him wrote a few songs, but Tony had a different vision for us, Tony wanted us to be kind of like Soundgarden, kind of grungy. We were writing music, and I said, “This is not Riot”, although I love his voice, I think Tony Harnell’s exceptional, and he would have been the perfect choice if he would have sung our type of stuff. But he had a different vision and direction, so we ended up parting ways. I still have some tracks that I had him sing on, maybe I’ll release them one day. What we ended up doing is that we held an audition, I contacted people that were interested. Joey Belladonna from Anthrax, believe it or not, auditioned many years ago, and we talked to him, but he said, “You know, I’m still doing Anthrax, I’m back in, and we’re doing stuff.” So we were looking for something either unique or a common singer that people would be like, “OK, you got him.” We had Sean Peck from Cage, we had a lot of underground metal singers to try out, and we also thought about, like I said, getting Mike Tirelli back, or possibly Mike DiMeo. But DiMeo didn’t want to participate without Mark, and Tirelli, like I said, I didn’t think that was the voice, I thought we needed a fresh voice.

Basically I got Todd from a mutual friend, he has a small label and a promotion/management company, Bart Gabriel. He talked to me about him, he said, “I know a guy that was with Jack Starr from Virgin Steele, and he’s had a couple of other releases, and he’s really good. I think he would fit, and he’s in the United States, in Detroit.” He actually turned me on to Todd Michael Hall, so I contacted Todd, I said, “Send me a video, send me some stuff…” Basically it came down to a couple of guys, there was another guy from Massachusetts, and he sounded real good, too, but in the end, the way Todd Michael Hall sounded was just phenomenal, and then it doesn’t hurt to have a really good looking guy in the band. (laughs) He auditioned, I sent him the songs we were recording for a new record, “Unleash The Fire”, and he sounded great. We asked him if he would like to join full-fledged, and he said “yeah”. That’s how we got him – through a connection in Europe. He was sitting in our backyard, and we didn’t know.

We saw Riot V at Sweden Rock Festival in 2015 and we were very surprised how young Todd looks, we could hardly believe he’s eight years older than us. Do you happen to know how Todd is able to continue looking the way he looks? Has he discovered the secret of eternal youth?

(cracks) When Mark was still alive, he would always say, “It doesn’t hurt to have a good looking fellow because it attracts girls”. And Todd, when we got him, he was already very well-built. The guy’s got long hair, blue eyes and a six-pack on his stomach, and we only found out once he became a member of the band that he’s very athletic. He likes rock wall climbing, he likes to climb of cliffs, he likes to run. He works out a lot, he watches what he eats, he’s really into that stuff, which is really cool. And he does look great. I didn’t think he was as old as he was, I was always like, “You look really young”, but when I found out his age, I was like, “Wow!” (everybody laughs) Todd watches what he does, he’s very professional – he knows that if we have a long tour, he needs rest and go to bed, he’s not a party animal like the rest of us. That’s how I maintain my physique – I drink too much tequila! (everybody cracks) You know, I’m already 56, I’m the oldest member of the band, and I don’t think I look that old, but you know, when I joined Riot back in 1984 I was the baby of the band. And how here we are in 2019, and I’m the granddad, I’m the oldest guy.

In the very beginning I didn’t ask Todd’s age. I just said, “OK, he’s this young man, he looks great, he sounds great”, and we started playing. I remember when I found out for the first time. I think we were getting our passports together to go a festival or something, and I look down and I go, (in an extremely surprised voice) “How old are you? You look pretty good!” We didn’t know he was already in his forties and stuff like that. In essence, it’s a very lucky thing - he’s got his health, he’s got that voice, and he’s able to look like that at the age he is. He’ll probably be the singer of Riot X! (everybody laughs)

There has been a Riot tribute album a few years ago (“Thunder And Steel Down Under”, 2015), and it was actually Bart Gabriel who put it out. What do you think about the record in general? What is your favorite cover version?

There were a few that were really good. Off the top of my head, I would say… Wasn’t there a band called Rocka Rollas that did “Riot”, the song? That was a good one. Of course, Night Demon, good friends of ours, they did a great version of “Road Racin’”. There was also a female fronted band, I think they did “Swords And Tequila” (Savage Master – ed.), which is really cool. It’s really cool that people can remake our music and it sounds real good. It’s humbling that some of the younger generation is influenced by us like Hammerfall, for example. Joacim (Cans, vocals) contacted me when they did “Flight Of The Warrior”, he said “Dude, I’m a big Riot and ‘Thundersteel’ fan, I wanna do ‘Flight Of The Warrior’,” and I said “Great!” And when I heard it, I was like, “Oh, this is fantastic, this is awesome!” They did justice to some Riot stuff. Night Demon did great with “Road Racin’”, but I think Rocka Rollas is my favorite on it. I can’t say Evil United (“Altar Of The King”), because I’m on it. (cracks)

What do you think about the band Riot Act? Is there any kind of competition between you and them?

Oh, that new thing that Rick and Louie (Kouvaris, guitar) are doing? No! They were talking to us about it several years ago when we had them play with us. Not sure if you knew it, but we took Rick Ventura to Japan with us and we did “Fire Down Under” in its entirety, and we did some U.S. dates with him, and then we also took Louie Kouvaris with us to Greece, because he’s Greek, and we played a tour with him and we took him to Japan once, too. I had met Rick, because when I first joined Riot, he was still in the picture. But Louie I had never met, because he was on the first record on a few songs, and then they got Rick to do the tour for “Rock City”. He never got to tour, he never got to do anything. We thought it would be neat if we could keep it in the family and, with the icon Mark Reale gone, get some of the old players. And both Rick and Louie were like, “Yes, great, we would like to play with you guys.” So there’s no competition, animosity, bad feelings, it’s like one big family. As a matter of fact, Riot Act were rehearsing in Mike Flyntz’s studio. And they asked us, they said, “Hey, is this gonna be cool, or is this gonna be weird?” And we said, “Hey, more power to you, we don’t care,” because it’s two different eras. We’re focused on, like we talked about, “Thundersteel” forward, although we do play some of that old Riot for the fans, we have to. With a band like Riot who’s got almost a 40-year career and 16 records out, the 17th coming up, it’s tough to please everybody. But when they said they were gonna do it, we were cool with it, and they actually asked if they could go on the road with us, like Riot Act plays first, and then we play, and everybody comes up for the big finale. They also talked about me managing them, because I manage Riot V, so they said, “Hey, could you help us out and manage the band?” I said I could do what I can. Basically we’re having fun, and then all of a sudden Louie calls me and he’s like, “Hey, some of the European folks want us to play at festivals. Would that be a problem?” I said, “No, no. Basically you’re showcasing you and Rick, that is your era of the band”. They only play the first three records, like I said, they don’t even reach out to the Rhett Forrester era. We’re very good friends with them, and I’m sure we’ll jam again. Maybe we will make that tour happen, I think it’s a good thing. I think people will understand what’s going on, I don’t think people will think it’s another Riot, like some bands do. You know, there’s Venom and Venom Inc., then there’s Sebastian Back and Skid Row, and there are two L.A. Guns, there’s a Quiet Riot without one [original] member… Sometimes fans get confused, but the way we treat it is: we’re playing our era, from “Thundersteel” on, that’s what we’re called the 5th chapter, with Todd’s voice, we’re power metal. Rick and Louie play the rock’n’roll Riot from the early days, from the 70s. It’s kind of cool, I mean, I’d go out and see them. (laughs)

The Riot discography has been expanding at a high pace in the past few years, with the “Archives” series on High Roller Records, and three box sets on Hear No Evil Recordings. What is the source of all these materials? Are you cleaning out Mark Reale’s archives, or are any fans involved in putting these releases together?

Actually what that is… Like I was saying, we keep it in the family. Mike Flyntz still takes care of Mark’s father, Tony Reale, because when Mark died, he was an only child, and his mom passed away many years ago. Tony Reale is a very very old man, we take him to the hospital, we take him to check-ups, because he’s basically in the family still. When Mark died, he had a room full of things. He had recordings from back in the day, and I had recordings, so Mr. Reale thought maybe it would be a cool way to showcase some of these vintage recordings. We don’t have time to do it, but we had a friend of ours, this guy Giles Lavery, he manages Girlschool and Graham Bonnet, and I think he sang with Warlord for a while. Anyway, he helps Riot out, and he was in town in New York, and he said, “Hey, I’ll go do the stuff and maybe we can get a deal for it and give the money to Mr. Reale for expenses, because he’s very old.” That’s basically where it came from, just boxes of archive stuff that Mark had throughout the years. They went through it and they found stuff and they gave it to a certain studio to bake it and make sure… because it’s very old, they had to remaster it and stuff like that. So it came from Mark’s house, it came from his room when he passed away, and his dad Tony owns the estate and all of Mark’s music, so all the royalties and publishing and stuff like that go straight to Tony. He made some good money out of that stuff, and it was a way to financially set him up, because he is by himself, he needs a lot of things going on with him, so that was a way for him to make a little bit of money for his well-being. We’re OK with it, because it’s Mark’s father and it’s Mark’s legacy. Basically they found deals and they put it out, and it was sanctioned by the Reale estate. It wasn’t like a fan thing or a bootleg or someone trying to make money. It actually went through Mark’s father and a couple of producers, and they actually got the best offer and put it out, and most of the money went to Mark’s father.

Are there any plans to continue this series of boxes, or are Mark’s archives already pretty much empty?

They went all the way, and they concluded with my era, when I joined the band in 1984-1985. There’s some stuff on there that Mark and I had written, and they featured it on there. That was almost the last of it. The next era would have to be the DiMeo years on. But they might continue with some stuff, because I still have boxes of archives. Like I said, I joined Mark so early, and we had a solo band back in the day called Narita. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but what happened was when Mark would come down to San Antonio to visit me, we would sit, and we would write. That’s how I have a few songs that I wasn’t credited with on “Born In America”. Mark said, “Hey, let’s make a band,” and we ended up making this band Narita. Actually Narita recorded “Thundersteel”, “Sign Of The Crimson Storm”, “Fight Or Fall”, and a few of them obviously we took to CBS for the “Thundersteel” record. Those were Narita songs basically back in the day, and we revamped them with the new line-up. So there’s a lot of stuff lying around and the last Archives (“Archives Volume Three: 1987-1988”, 2019) had a lot of the Narita songs on there, and some of the outtakes from the Riot stuff. That’s almost ending that era of the box sets. The next thing that we were talking about doing… I was mentioning that band Narita, we are talking about putting some stuff out from that band, which was basically the start of the “Thundersteel” line-up, but it had a different singer, by singer from the Texas Slayer, Steve Cooper, and then it had the drummer, Dave McClain, my brother, who was in Machine Head, how he’s playing with Sacred Reich. We’re talking about releasing the original Narita material - “Thundersteel”, “Flight Of The Warrior”, “On Wings Of Eagles”, a lot of these songs were already written – in some form, as Narita Mark Reale Project, that’s kind of in the works. And the only other thing to cover after my era would be the Mike DiMeo era, if there’s any outtakes of that. They might be working on that, but that’s kind of a different deal with Mike, and I’m not really familiar with that.

You were out of Riot from 1990 to 2008. What were you doing all these years? We heard about the band Pitbull Daycare, but we don’t know much about it…

Like I said, when I joined Riot, I was a very big fan. It was almost like that movie called “Rock Star” that they made in America with Marky Mark – he was a fan and he joined the band. I was very young, I bought “Rock City”, “Narita” and all them and had them autographed by the original line-up, and I was very much into their music. That’s why Mark wanted me in – he knew how passionate I was. I came from being a fan to being a part of the band to make it move forward and stuff like that. By that time they had been on a hiatus for a while, but they decided to come back and continue the “Born In America” tour. Sandy wanted to get out and play drums, Rhett, everybody was willing to play again. When they did that, Kip Leming the bass player decided that he did not want to continue anymore. That’s when I got the call from Mark, because we had played in Narita, we wrote music together. He said, “Hey, I told the guys about you, we want you to join the band”. I said, “Of course I will, it’s my favorite band”. That’s when I first joined them and went out there, and we played a little tour with Harry “The Tyrant” Conklin, I don’t know if you read about that – before Rhett came back.

When we got Rhett back, we started shopping to get another deal, and that’s another thing. “Sign Of The Crimson Storm”, we had written that very early and we were playing it when I first got into Riot, and if you look at YouTube, you can find a version of Rhett Forrester singing it. We were in Hollywood, we were showcasing to get another record deal and have a record after “Born In America”. With all that being said, I joined the band and I was very passionate about it. When me and Mark ended up deciding to go power metal, we let Sandy go, because Sandy didn’t wanna continue, he didn’t wanna play power metal, he wanted to stick to rock’n’roll, so him and Rhett were doing their own things. Rhett, in particular, was working on his solo stuff, Jack Starr and other things. That’s when we got Bobby and Tony, we moved up back to New York, and we started the “Thundersteel” line-up.

When we did that, we got a management to handle us. And the management was cool, but it was a guy who was always… you might have heard horror stories about the management keeping Riot down. I was a little part of that. When I moved to New York, we did “Thundersteel”, which was met with greater acclaim, it was the comeback record for Riot. Then “The Privilege Of Power” came out, and it fell a little bit, because we were losing a little bit of momentum. It was the same management that was holding the ship down, so to speak. It was a lot of things happening. We weren’t paid like we were before, we weren’t making the decisions like we could anymore. “Thundersteel” was such a great record, but when we did “The Privilege Of Power”, the management were just out of their minds sometimes, going like, “We’re gonna put the horns on here. We’re gonna put all these little interludes between songs, you would hear a song, and then there are five minutes until the next song”. We were like, “No, no, no, we have to keep the momentum like ‘Thundersteel’”. I love the horns, don’t get me wrong, I think it was cool, but I think the record fell a little short, and I think it was the management problem. Everything was mounting – the lack of pay, us not having a lot of say on the recordings… I was one of the chief songwriters, and I was feeling a little bumped out that my songs were being mishandled, and I wasn’t having the say anymore. I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was probably when we were supposed to go to Japan for the second time, and the first time we went there, we were paid great, we were taken care of, and the second time they were saying, “You’re not gonna make anything, you have so many debts…” I was just kind of like, “Why am I doing this when I’m the chief songwriter writing almost every song on ‘Thundersteel’ and most on ‘The Privilege Of Power’”, and I’m treated like this?”

For that reason I wanted out for a while. After this disagreement about going on tour to Japan, I sat with Mark on the tour bus, I said, “Hey, I’m not feeling it anymore. You know me, I’m your biggest fan and I love this band, but it gets to a point where you have to stand ground”. I did, and they didn’t like it, and they told Mark, they said, “Well, what do you want to do?” Unfortunately Mark Reale, god bless his soul, he died a broke man, basically, because this management took all the money. I don’t know if you guys have seen the documentaries we had, but there was a lot of hardships in the band at one time. Mark Reale is the man who wrote “Swords and Tequila”, and doesn’t have a penny, it’s like – what is wrong? I didn’t want that to happen to me. I said, “I’d rather go out and do some other stuff and let the new line-up come in and get taken advantage of”. And that’s when I left. I made the decision to leave, they didn’t want me to, Mark said, “Please don’t leave”, but I ended up leaving. I was like, “I’m gonna venture out and do some other things”.

When I first left Riot, I actually made a solo band called DVS, my initials. Then I had one called Crimson Storm. I hired a bunch of guys, and a couple of them ended up being the guys from Pitbull Daycare, which you were talking about. We played Riot songs, I did new stuff, and then it just got to a point where I started getting into another kind of music, which was kind of strange for me, because I’m a metal guy, but I started getting into industrial music with keyboards and samples and stuff. I started digging Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Nitzer Ebb, and Front 242. (laughs) I’m known as a guy from Riot, so it was kind of strange, but I met a few guys, and I ended up deciding to do that kind of music. That’s what I did with Pitbull Daycare for all that time – most of it. We released four records, we had one on Cleopatra produced by Fred Coury from Cinderella, Pitbull Daycare had music in a Rob Zombie movie, the “Saw” movie, “Scary Movie 4”, we were in a lot of motion pictures, so the band started doing real well. I toured with it for a while, we toured with King Diamond, we were the opening act for the “Voodoo” tour, we opened for Lords Of Acid, Ministry and Revolting Cocks. I kind of took a left turn for a while (laughs), I got out of power metal and I started programming music on my keyboard. I had a very gothic industrial band, and one of the engineers that engineered “Thundersteel”, ironically enough, named the band. Even though I wasn’t in Riot, I was in touch with everybody still, and the producer goes, “I have a good name, it’s kind of crazy – Pitbull Daycare”, and we started laughing, we said, “Why not?” So we ended up calling the band that, and we released all those records at the time.

We did some good tours with Ministry and King Diamond, we were flying around, and, like I said, we had our music in a lot of motion pictures. But when we did one of our last tours, Bobby Jarzombek called me. Bobby lives in San Antonio, TX, with me, he’s still my best friend, and we hang out all the time. He called me one day and said, “You know what? When I’m out on the road with all these bands, people keep saying, ‘You guys need to get the ‘Thundersteel’ line-up back together’”. He started telling Mark that, too. That’s what happened – I was on the last days of Pitbull Daycare, and they weren’t getting the response with Mike DiMeo like the “Thundersteel” era. Basically Mark and Bobby called me, I think it was a little before 2008, we had a conference call, we said, “Let’s do it”. That’s how I came back in 2008 to do the “Thundersteel” reunion and record “Immortal Soul”.

Could you tell us a few words about your involvement in the Texas Metal Outlaws project?

Texas Metal Outlaws is this friend of mine in Austin. I still have a lot of friends in Austin from back in the day, like I said, when I was at the forefront of the Texas metal movement. Jason McMaster was there, from Watchtower, he went on to sing with Dangerous Toys, a more commercial band. But we’ve always been friends from back in the day. Just recently I released a few records with a band called Evil United, they’re still out there, but it was a project I couldn’t continue with anymore, because Riot got too busy. But I started doing this Evil United thing, which was like thrash metal, we had a couple of guys from Pitbull Daycare (T.C. “Bird” Conall on guitars and Jason “Snakes” West on drums – ed.), and it was Jason McMaster singing. So Jason McMaster contacted me from Austin, he said, “Hey, Robert Williams is doing this Texas Metal Outlaws thing”. I was like, “What is this?” And he said, “Well, we’re gonna get a lot of the Texas players”, known players like himself and Stu “Batlord” (guitarist of Agony Column and  Ignitor – ed.) and James (Rivera, vocals) and Larry (Barragan, guitar) from Helstar, a lot of the heavy hitters on the Texas metal scene from back in the day. They asked me if I would come in and record a few songs in Austin and record a video. Well, I said, “Absolutely! They’re all my friends from back in the day”. We ended up doing it, and they called it Texas Metal Outlaws. It’s basically just some of the old friends from the early 80s getting together and doing that. It’s kind of cool.

What are the future plans of Riot V? Are you already thinking about a new studio album?

Yes, we’re actually recording right now. We were touring a lot, and then we had to take some time off. We probably have about 15 songs, they’re all demoed right now, we’re in pre-production. We’ve already discussed what direction we think we’re gonna go in on this next record, because… When we did our first record with Nuclear Blast, “Armor Of Light” was even a stretch for Riot, it was a very aggressive record for Riot, very heavy. Frank really overdid it on the bass drums – da-da-da-da-da, Jesus! (everybody laughs) It had positive reviews, and some of the reviews were like, “This is a really heavy record for Riot”. We did it on purpose, because we were getting on one of the biggest metal labels there are, Nuclear Blast, so we said, “Hey, let’s give them a very aggressive record, like half-‘Thundersteel’, half-‘Privilege’, but the heavier stuff with the double bass”. So it was a very heavy record. And now, going to number two with Nuclear Blast, we’ve decided that we want to get back to the basics of Riot. We still wanna be aggressive, we have a couple of very heavy songs like “Thundersteel”, but we wanna have some stuff like “Outlaw” and “Road Racin’”, we wanna get back to half-metal and half-rock, the traditional Riot, almost like “Unleash The Fire” was. We kind of have that attitude. The next record’s gonna include a ballad that’s kind of like “Mary Ann” back in the day, we have a couple of rock songs, and then a couple of metal songs. The band is still kicking, Nuclear Blast is happy, they’ve already picked up the option for the new record, so we’ll have it out on Nuclear Blast and Ward, and it will probably come out towards mid-2020. It will definitely be released next year, and probably followed by a tour. We’re already booked for a few tours, Bang Your Head, Sweden Rock, other ones, too. The band’s still going, we’re rumbling along! (laughs)

Riot V on the Internet: http://www.areyoureadytoriot.com/

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

Roman Patrashov, Natalia “Snakeheart” Patrashova
September 17, 2019
© HeadBanger.ru