M3-fer: Sebastian Bach, Lita Ford, Tesla’s Brian Wheat

The frost is gone (well, mostly), the warm weather is coming, and with it comes another season of outdoor music festivals and amphitheater shows. As if wagging a defiant middle finger at the Fireflys and Coachellas, the annual M3 Rock Festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD has become the late Spring celebration of the hair metal glory days of the ’80s.

Now in its 6th year, the M3 Rock Festival will feature two days of music on two stages, with artists such as Tesla, Kix, Lita Ford, Night Ranger, Extreme, Stryper among others.

We had a chance to talk to 3 M3 artists in the week leading up to M3—Brian Wheat of Tesla, Lita Ford, and Sebastian Bach. We got their take on M3, vinyl, and quite a bit more.

Tell us what you’ve been up to lately.

BRIAN WHEAT, TESLA: Well, we’ve been making a new album—we just finished a new album called Simplicity which comes out June 10th on our own label. It will be out on vinyl as well!

LITA FORD: Well, lately I’ve been writing my book. I’ve taken a little bit of downtime just to focus on the book. We’ll go out and do some shows, then I come back and work on the book. We’re almost ready to turn it in to Harper Collins, and it should be out soon! Pretty gnarly stuff. I let it fly.

SEBASTIAN BACH: I’ve got a new album, called Give ‘Em Hell, that comes out April 22nd. I’ve got a new video called “Temptation,” with John 5 and Duff McKagan in it, and they’re also in my band on the record. Also, Steve Stevens from Billy Idol’s band, and Bobby Jarzombek is the drummer. I have a new TV show called Sing Your Face Off on ABC TV that’s premiering on May 31st at 9pm. I also have a book deal with Harper Collins…I’m working on my book. I’ve got about sixty or seventy concerts this summer to do, so that’s what I’ve been up to.

Give us your thoughts on playing the M3 Rockfest.

BRIAN: It’s a really cool festival. We played it a few years back with Whitesnake, and they asked us to come back and headline this year, so we’re pleased. We’re happy to be going back and playing that festival again.

LITA: First of all, I’m bringing along a special guest that nobody knows about.

TVD: Are her initials CC? [referring to Cherie Currie, singer of The Runaways]

LITA: Uh, could be! [laughs] Might be a guy, I don’t know. Hmm, who could it be, let me guess? [laughs] It’s gonna be great. We’re so excited just to be together again, and singing together. It’s just awesome. We’re really looking forward to the show. I’m glad we get to go on a little bit early. Sometimes the audience doesn’t always make it through the entire day, so I’m glad we get to go on early and kick some butt, and give the other bands a run for their money. Did I just say that? [laughs]

We’re excited about it. They’re always fun, these festivals. Especially M3, it’s the best. I have relatives in Baltimore, so they’re coming. I get to see my relatives, which is great. It’s gonna be a good time.

SEBASTIAN: Well, I played it a couple of years ago, and it was a great crowd, a great, great turnout, but unfortunately, the last time we played there, we played in Portland, Maine the night before. We really underestimated the drive from Portland, Maine to Merriweather Post Pavilion. We did that show on like, no sleep. It was very difficult. This time, when we play it again, my whole mission is to get a good night’s sleep the night before. [laughs]

What differences have you seen or experienced playing and touring back in the heyday of the ‘80s and ‘90s versus now in 2014?

BRIAN: Well, obviously in the ‘80s and the ‘90s, we were playing much bigger venues with the style of music that Tesla plays, that genre. Today we’ll play anywhere from 1500-seaters to 4,000-seaters. Then we play these big festivals. That’s the main difference. In 1989, melodic hard rock was real prevalent. Today, it’s not. I’m just happy to be in a band that’s had a thirty-year career. I think, if you asked me in 1989 would I rather have one record that sold ten million copies, or have the band still together in 2014, I would have told you I would rather have the band together in 2014.

LITA: Wow, oh my god. You can go back to the ‘70s, people forget that about me, you know. “Oh, Lita’s an ‘80s band.” I don’t want to give my age away, but I do go back a little bit further. I started young, I’m probably one of the younger “living legends,” which is nice.

The touring back then was absolute insanity. You can’t describe it. Now, things aren’t so crazy in the audience. You get a crowd every once in a while that is off the hook, but back then they were all off the hook. Just doing crazy stuff like, in the punk era, for instance, people would spit on you. That meant they liked you. It would be like it was raining, you would have gobs of spit on you, all over your guitar neck, on your chest, your arm, in your hair. You would just have to play through it. You couldn’t take a rag and stop between songs and wipe off. You’d just play through it. It was pretty gnarly.

People would be slicing themselves up with razor blades, and carving your name in their chest. Seriously! People like The Ramones, or the Sex Pistols would have to put up chicken wires and block stuff that was flying at them. The audience meant it in a loving way, that’s what’s really wild. Like “Here, I love you, let me spit on you.”Oh, goody. [laughs] There isn’t really too much that I haven’t been through, as far as the touring goes.

Now, things are pretty mellow, as far as touring. The audience comes, watches you play, they yell and scream and cheer you on, and that’s always awesome. I’m just happy to be on the show, be a part of the show. I’ve got a great band! Mitch Perry plays guitar, Bobby Rock on drums, who is a monster. Marty O’Brien on bass guitar, Marty’s a badass! He’s just the ultimate bass player, to me. Finding bass players was one of the most difficult things for me. It took a long time. He plays with his fingers, he doesn’t use a pick…he’s a real bass player. A slammin’freakin’monster bass player. We’re like rolling thunder when we get together onstage.

SEBASTIAN: Well, back in the heyday is a relative term. You can’t compare the music industry of the ‘80s to the music industry of 2014. It’s a completely different industry in every way. You can’t compare having to go to the store and choose one record as opposed to being able to press a button and being able to have every song ever recorded by mankind downloaded in one second. It’s a different thing.

The first Skid Row album came out over 25 years ago, and I’m putting out my new CD next week. My last cd debuted at 67 on the Billboard Top 200. When you’re my age, and you’re still doing this, as far as putting out new albums, and going on tour and all that, I don’t have any more energy to give you. It’s not like I’m looking to rock. I have enough rock and roll in my life. 25 years ago, I was doing phone interviews, typing my new CD, and coming to your town. Today, I am doing the exact same thing.

Give us your stance on vinyl—not interested, casual listener, or total junkie?

BRIAN: Total junkie. I rediscovered vinyl a few years back. I have a friend who plays guitar in a band called Led Zeppelin, and another guy named Ross Halfin, who’s a photographer. Those two guys are two of my good buddies. They had been telling me about vinyl for years, and they would go to these record fairs, and I would just fuck off and go get a cup of coffee or something. Wasn’t interested.

Then one day I actually hooked up my old turntable to my system, and started listening to my vinyl, and said “this sounds way better than CDs!” you know? Then I went nuts! I went out and re-bought all my stuff on vinyl that I could find. I’m buying like five or six records a day—online, or whatever record shops were around wherever I was at. I bought a McIntosh amp, and a McIntosh preamp, a Music Hall turntable and Sona speakers. I’m a total junkie now, I’m all about the vinyl.

I wish that vinyl…it is selling more and more every year. The sales of vinyl are up. I mean, look, it’s not 1989 vinyl, or 1987 again. You’re not ever gonna see that, but CD sales are down. Vinyl sales are up. People now make 5,000 copies of a vinyl album, and maybe 100,000 CDs. Those 5,000, every year, it gets more and more. For me, I have kind of outgrown the CD age, and have gone back to a simpler time with vinyl. The whole experience, the warmth, and the bigger package.

Now kids are buying music that they can’t even hold in their hands. It’s in the cloud, they just play it off of their device. The cool thing about vinyl—12-inches, box sets, all that stuff—was you could hold it in your hand, the artwork, you could clean your marijuana on it. [laughs] All those cool things. When CDs came out, people were chopping blow on them, that’s what they were good for. Album covers you could clean your marijuana, it was more natural. Vinyl and marijuana, coke and CDs, synthetic, you know. I love vinyl.

LITA: Vinyl? Oh, god, vinyl’s become kind of a collector’s item, I guess. I think they’re going to start reinventing the phonograph soon, if they haven’t already started. Making record players again. Vinyl is something people demand. Not everybody, but they still do. “Please tell us it’s out on vinyl!” I’m like, “Wow, really?” Dude, they want it. I got rid of all my vinyl a long time ago, because I had so much! Now I wish I hadn’t! But I did. Living Like a Runaway came out n beautiful red vinyl. It’s just gorgeous. It’s something that you just want to have, even if you don’t listen to it.

SEBASTIAN: I am a total vinyl junkie. I put out a couple of 180-gram deluxe gatefold sleeve editions, one for Kicking and Screaming, one for ABachalypse Now, and I’m doing another one for Give ‘Em Hell. It’s just, it’s a different sound, you know, when you put on a record. A couple of years ago, I said “Fuck it, man. I’m gonna get back into records.”I got a turntable, and started buying albums again.

The one thing I forgot, was that at the end of side one, you’ve got to stand up, walk over to the thing, and turn it over. [laughs] That’s only like 12 minutes or 15 minutes, then it’s like “Oh shit! I forgot about that!” The needle is stuck on the inner part of the album, you’re walking around the house, and all you hear is “DUN-DUN, DUN-DUN, DUN-DUN.”I gotta go turn it over. Other than that, they’re great I love them.

Tell us a little about your vinyl collection and home setup.

BRIAN: Mostly rock and pop. Mostly ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, some ‘80s but not much. Some stuff in the ‘80s I’ve gone back and revisited. Right now I think I just picked up Achtung Baby by U2, and that was hard to find. I think I got it on red vinyl. Mostly ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, and it’s pop-rock, classic rock, R&B, Motown, Stax, all of that. That great stuff. Not much new stuff or new bands on vinyl. I think part of that is that new bands—their records, there might be three or four songs, then you have six songs that aren’t very good. The whole industry has changed so much. They live and die by the single. The stuff in my collection is stuff where you can listen to side one, and side two, and it’s an experience.

SEBASTIAN: That’s an interesting question. Well, I lost my home in a hurricane, so I have a new home. I’m in Beverly Hills now. I have a kickass stereo in every room. My new album that Bob Marlette did with Tom Baker sounds incredible. I’m really into good sound, I’m not so much into Mp3s and all those wav files. CDs and records, I like the sound of that.

What’s one album that’s an old gem, the prize of your collection, or brings back a great memory for you?

BRIAN: Revolver. The greatest record ever made. The first record I can ever remember playing on a turntable. When I was a little kid, I had four older brothers, with my oldest brother being fourteen years older than me. There was a lot of music coming from my house.

I was born in 1962. Imagine in 1966-67, I’m five years old, I got this close-and-play record player for Christmas, with like “Supercalifragilistic” or some bullshit like that. I sneak into my brother’s room, grab the first record I see off of his pile, because the cover looked cool, which was Revolver. I put that on, and I heard “Eleanor Rigby,” and from that day on, in my opinion, on the eighth day, when he was done resting, he invented Paul McCartney and the Beatles. That’s the one record that I just….mmm. Also Band on the Run and Abbey Road. Those three. Revolver is the main one, though. That’s the record for me.

LITA: Oh, god, I had ‘em all! I had all the Hendrix albums, all the Led Zeppelin albums. Of course Aerosmith. Probably my Led Zeppelin collection would be the ones that stick out the most, because I played them so much, and I remember pushing the needle back in the groove of the record, trying to figure out Jimmy Page’s guitar solos. You could hear everything. You could hear all the mistakes, along with everything. There weren’t that many overdubs on those Led Zeppelin albums, those were real raw, true blue emotions on those records.

I think a lot is said on those records, because they captured the artist right from the very beginning. There weren’t massive amounts of demos done. A lot is lost when you demo stuff. There’s a lot of feel that you can’t recapture. It’s like having sex for the first time. It’s hard to recapture the moment. The second time is different from the first. It’s the same thing with recording a song. I think those older records were captured right from the very beginning, right off the top, which makes them great and gives them the feel and the emotion that they haven’t.

SEBASTIAN: There’s too many, they’re all different, you know? An old album that brings me back? All of them! [laughs] One single record…well I always liked Kiss’ The Originals and Rush’s Archives, because they had three albums in there. I thought that was really cool, with all the packaging, and posters and stickers, tattoos and whatever. Those are a lot of fun, definitely.

I also remember Double Platinum by Kiss, because it came with a platinum record, and you could put your name on it. I was like “Oh, man this is killer!” [laughs] They sure don’t make packaging like that anymore, that’s for sure.

What’s next for you after M3?

BRIAN: Well, the record comes out on the 10th of June, then we start touring to promote the new record. We’ll go through October, then we’ll take a break, then come back out in January and do a bunch more dates, both U.S. and international. Europe, hopefully we’ll get to do Japan and Australia this year again. We haven’t been there in a while.

LITA: We’re going to finish the book. We’re going to put out a single, for the fans. Something fun and exciting and ripping guitars. Some special guests. Just a little goody, a trinket to put out until the album is released.

I will be doing a promo tour for the book. Harper Collins has been great, I’m very excited to be working with them. It’s the same group of people who did The Heroin Diaries for Nikki Sixx. I’m really excited about it.

We’re working on a new record right now. Should be out early 2015. We’re gonna be on the Monsters of Rock 2015. I’m guessing by the time Christmas rolls around and the book comes out, it’ll probably be 2015 by the time my new album comes out. I’m about halfway through it now.

SEBASTIAN: You gotta check out the new album, it’s insanely cool. It’s me and Duff McKagan. If you like Skid Row and Guns n’ Roses, you’ll like this album. It’s me and Duff. I mean, that’s it! If you’re into that, you’ll like this album. The new TV show on May 31st on ABC. Eight episodes, Sing Your Face Off, then tons of concerts. That’s what I’m doing.