A special interview with Dave Starr about Vicious Rumors’ third album and everything else!
Dave, what do you recall of the late ’80s/early ’90s Bay Area scene, when a lot of bands were around, such as Forbidden, Testament, Vio-lence, Epidemic, Death Angel, Defiance, Ulysses Siren, Bacchus, Führer etc.?
It was a pretty wild and crazy time! Lots of bands, lots of shows. Seems like everybody was playing somewhere, there was a show every night. It was a great time to be alive. Great time to be in a band. There was an intense competition among bands, I guess you could call it a rivalry of sorts. But I also think there was a healthy respect between bands, especially the better bands, the bands that knew they’re going somewhere.
How much did the scene evolve/change compared to the previous times/periods, when everything has got started at the late ’70s/early ’80s?
There really wasn’t much of a metal scene in the late 70s in the Bay Area. There were a few hard rock bands that were playing. Y & T and Earthquake were a few of the bigger bands. New wave was still big, and so was punk rock. In fact, I used to go see BLACK FLAG, THE DEAD KENNEDY’S, and all kinds of other punk bands play in San Francisco around 79 or 80. It wasn’t so much that I was into punk rock because I really wasn’t, it’s just that I guess I was really interested in the attitude and the volume and that whole environment, it really intrigued me. I was only 18 at the time and it was my first real experience of going to clubs.
Around 81, 82 things started to change for metal and hard rock. There was a club in San Francisco called the Old Waldorf that started hosting shows called Metal Mondays every week on Monday nights, they would have metal shows that were getting really popular and then on the weekends they’d have best of metal Mondays. They just started getting bigger and bigger. (This is where I first met VR guitarist Geoff Thorpe) That was a big deal back then for bands starting to break into the scene. There was another popular club called the Keystone Berkeley, and also THE STONE. They started doing metal shows as well. I started playing those clubs with my band Laaz Rockit, and we did shows with Metallica, RATT, WASP, LOUDNESS, Motörhead, etc. It was pretty exciting.
Were you and your/the other band members deeply involved in the scene at this point?
I guess at the time I thought I was a veteran, but I didn’t know shit! I was only 20 or 21 years old.
I hooked up with Geoff Thorpe in late 1984 and he along with singer Gary St. Pierre and I started looking for a drummer (Larry Howe) and 2nd guitar player (Vinnie Moore) so that we could have a lineup to record the first VR album „SOLDIERS OF THE NIGHT”. We ended up recording that album, the summer of 1985.
When you started working on Vicious Rumors’ third full length, was V. R. an established act? Did you have a loyal, fanatic fanbase?
Yes and no. We were starting to get big shows in the San Francisco Bay area, we would regularly play clubs and draw maybe 500 people but when we were signed to Shrapnel records we didn’t really have any tour support so we didn’t play anywhere in the US outside of the SF bay area, maybe a few times down to LA and I think a few times up to Washington and Vancouver. Basically, just sticking to the West Coast. We did travel to Europe to do some promo shows for the Digital Dictator album, our second release on Shrapnel records, and we also did some shows in Mexico City in 1988 as well, so those were really crazy. I think we played two nights in a bullfighting arena. Absolute chaos. But don’t get me wrong. Those were great times! We did a handful of shows in Europe for the Digital Dictator album one of them being a big festival in Holland with Testament and Megadeth. It was the biggest show we had ever done, it was wild. So definitely the album sales were growing and the fan base was growing. We just didn’t really have any tour support from the record label and we were trying to find a new label at this point to take things to the next level.
At which point did you start work on the album and how were the songs written?
We started writing songs for the third album probably right after the Digital Dictator album came out, maybe even before. Geoff, Mark, and Carl by this time had become the main song writers. Actually, I remember when we did the shows in Mexico City in 1988, the Digital Dictator album had just came out and we actually opened the shows with Don’t wait for Me, but of course that wasn’t even a song on any album yet! That would end up being on the upcoming album, the third self titled album.
The album was recorded and mixed at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, California, how did the recording sessions go?
As I recall, everything went pretty smoothly. We recorded that album, entitled „Vicious Rumors” the summer of 1989. This was our first album for Atlantic records after we signed a contract with them earlier in the year. One of the good things about starting out on Shrapnel records is that we learned to work really fast in the studio, we learned to be efficient and not waste time. We didn’t have time or money to waste because the budgets for those records were pretty small so we had to get in there and get it done. We always started with Larry and the drums, he was really a PRO in the studio. He got the drums done pretty quick, often on the first take. Remember back then there was no digital editing! Usually I would play/track the bass along with Larry so we were both recording at the same time. I think on many of the songs we would get it done together in one take. We really had our shit together! Next up were the guitars. Very complex and time consuming, because those guys had so much going on. Mark would often write harmony rhythm and lead parts to whatever Geoff was doing, so that always gave VR a HUGE orchestrated guitar sound. Mark was a genius at coming up with those kind of guitar parts. Carl would always record last. This is the way we did every album.
Did you have a decent budget to record the album? Was Atlantic supportive of the band in terms of touring support, advertisements, recording costs etc.?
We didn’t really have a lot of money to spend on making the record, but then again, the money Atlantic gave us was a hell of a lot more money than we were used to getting from Shrapnel records in the past! Again alluding to the earlier question, we don’t waste time in the studio, so we got right to work. Even though we had probably four times, maybe five times the amount of money then we had to work with previously, we still didn’t want to sit around and waste any time or money. The album came in under budget as I recall. We were very happy with the way it sounded. It still sounds great today. Everyone in the band did a great job and Michael Rosen did an excellent job producing it. Atlantic gave us money to make one video, and we filmed the „Don’t wait for Me” MTV video in Los Angeles. Tour support was not very good, advertising was OK. Atlantic just didn’t really invest a lot of money into us. It was a low risk deal for them.
How do you view, that stylistically speaking, Vicious Rumors were never one of the heaviest, nor the fastest, yet the band arguably aims for heavier standards than they did on Digital Dictator?
I think the Vicious Rumors album is a bit heavier than Digital Dictator. Looking back, I don’t think that was really intentional. I don’t think it ever is. I think our goal was always to just write 10 or 11 great songs for each album. I don’t think VR ever really cared about being the fastest or the heaviest band, we just wanted to be ourselves. A lot of bands back then jumped on the thrash bandwagon, or the speed metal bandwagon, or whatever. We never did that. We stayed true to ourselves, we were more in the vein of Judas Priest, Queensrÿche, DIO, Iron Maiden, Savatage, etc.
Do you think, that Don’t Wait for Me rouses onward with some early Metal Church-esque intensity to it and it’s a great introduction to the album?
It doesn’t really remind me of Metal Church, but it is a great song. I think it’s a great opening track. The fans really loved it. And the video introduced a lot of people to the band when it was played on MTV and at clubs.
Is it arguably the band’s most well-known song?
I never thought of that before, but it probably is! The video probably has a lot to do with it.
It’s heavy, catchy, and shows some of the band’s great guitar prowess…
Very true. One of the great things about VR was the guitar playing and song writing of Geoff and Mark. They both sounded different, and had different backgrounds. That made them unique. That had a lot to do with making VR a great sounding band.
Would you say, that World Church shows a new side of the band where speed isn’t a necessity in sounding heavy, and this seems to be the general approach of the entire album?
World Church is definitely a great mid tempo song. Like I said earlier, VR did what it wanted to do. We didn’t have to play fast to be bad ass. We made our own rules.
How about the speed metal blitzkrieg of Hellraiser; a merciless onslaught of relentless guitars, pounding drums and thundering vocals?
I think that song just basically shows that we could do whatever we wanna do, and do it very well. I’m not really a big fan of speed metal, but the rare times VR would venture into that genre, I think we proved more than up to the task and silenced all doubters!
Ship of Fools is the band’s first ballad and it’s enjoyable, isn’t it?
Is it a ballad? I never really thought of it before. It’s a great song I know that. Definitely one of my favorite songs on the album. Mark was the main writer on that song, and I told him, Hey how about if the 3 of us all play that guitar harmony melody line in the middle of the song (just before Mark’s solo). We tried it and it sounded so Epic! I love that part.
Is it the album that’s possibly the band’s most representable one?
I don’t know if I can answer that. Some people say it’s the Vicious Rumors album, some people say it’s Welcome to the Ball, some people say it’s Digital Dictator. And there are some that really love the first album Soldiers of the Night. Obviously, that first album is a bit different because it’s the only one with that lineup with Gary and Vinnie before I brought Mark and Carl into the band.
The production values of this album are very nice, everything sounds very crisp and the mix is balanced really well, giving the proper characteristics to each song regardless of its style, do you agree with it?
I give a lot of that credit to the producer, Michael Rosen. He did an outstanding job. He also produced the Welcome to the Ball CD for us as well. You can tell a producer really did his job well when 35 years later, you can listen to the album and it still sounds really great.
By the way, is Vicious Rumors’ third album a most solid effort in many ways?
Definitely! It’s pure music, pure metal that sounds as awesome today as it did when it first came out in 1990.
Is it an interesting example of the immense difference between American and European power metal?
I’m not really even sure the answer to that. As far as I am concerned, music is music. There’s only two kinds, good and bad.
How do you explain, what really sells this album is the terrific lead guitar work and the amazing vocals of Carl Albert?
Carl was definitely one of a kind. He was an incredibly talented and gifted singer, and one of the best in the world. And as far as the guitar work goes, Geoff and Mark always reminded me of Glenn and KK. Very different sounding guitar players but together, they made magic. Too many bands in metal have boring, shred guitar players who all sound the same and don’t know anything about melody, phrasing, or hooks.
Do the tempos vary from song to song nicely, from speedy explosions like On the Edge and Hellraiser to more mid-tempo fare?
Yeah I definitely agree. VR was always about doing things our own way. The thought of writing and recording an album with 10 speed metal songs makes me want to go to sleep. I get bored with that stuff, everything sounds the same, you need to have variety.
What can you tell us about the shows in support of the record?
I think we did two legs of a US tour one before we went to Europe, and then another after we got back. The European tour was Death Angel, Vicious Rumors, and Forbidden. It was pretty crazy. Packed shows every night. Europe was always better for us, much bigger shows. In the USA, we just played clubs where we usually headlined on our own. We could never get on a big tour in the USA.
You appeared on the Dynamo Festival in 1990, was it the band’s first European performance?
No, we came to Europe for the first time in 1988 and did a handful of shows in support of the Digital Dictator album.
What kind of experiences/memories have you gained regarding that concert and as a whole? What do you recall of this particular gig?
I remember I was pretty nervous. It was the biggest show we had ever done at the time. It was outdoors. I normally don’t like playing outdoors because the monitor mix on stage is usually really strange and as I recall the stage mix sounded like shit and I didn’t think we sounded very good. But then years later I heard a mix off the soundboard from that show and we sounded amazing!
Unfortunately Carl Albert is dead for 29 years, how do you want him to be remembered?
We just had the 30th anniversary of Carl passing away April 22, 1995. I think for most people who never met him or saw him perform, the best way to remember him is to listen to those classic VR albums, and hear his extraordinary talent. The fact that we’re still talking about him 30 years later shows what kind of incredible talent he possessed and the impression he still leaves on us! Obviously, I knew him very closely and worked with him for many years in VR. I miss him, and I still think of him every day.
Dave, thank you for your answers, what are your closing words?
Thanks very much for helping to keep the VR music alive! Great music lasts forever!
Stay tuned, I have new music coming out later this year!
