{"id":1346,"date":"1986-06-01T00:00:59","date_gmt":"1986-06-01T00:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=1346"},"modified":"2012-02-18T02:18:59","modified_gmt":"2012-02-18T02:18:59","slug":"feature-hurricane-mf18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-hurricane-mf18\/","title":{"rendered":"HURRICANE – There\u2019s A Storm Brewing (MF18, 1986) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

HURRICANE – There\u2019s A Storm Brewing<\/strong><\/span><\/span>
\nDave Reynolds<\/span>
\nMetal Forces, Issue 18 (1986)<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\n\n
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Hurricane (l-r): Robert Sarzo, Kelly Hansen, Tony Cavazo and Jay Schellen<\/em><\/b><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n


\nFor a band to survive the cutthroat LA metal jungle, they\u2019ve either got to be very, very original or at least have some kind of gimmick that will put them a touch above the competition. So far as Hurricane go, it\u2019s definitely the fact that the band\u2019s music is so damn good that lures you into the deep blue water of record buying. Although some would be inclined to suggest that they do have a gimmick in so much as two of the band\u2019s members are none other than guitarist Robert Sarzo and bassist Tony Cavazo, who are of course the brothers of Rudy Sarzo and Carlos Cavazo of Quiet Riot fame.<\/p>\n

Hurricane have most recently put out a superb debut record, a six-track album entitled Take What You Want<\/em>, on the Greenworld label in the United States and Roadrunner in Europe. The record is so good, in fact, that it just had to merit further investigation on the part of yours truly. So I wound up talking to the other two members of the band, vocalist Kelly Hansen and drummer Jay Schellen, on the hotline from Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Now Hurricane have kept their activities pretty low-key up until now. I knew that they existed and who was in the band, but nothing was happening until Take What You Want<\/em> appeared. Jay picks up the story: \u201cWell, Robert and Tony have been together a little over two years after being introduced by Kevin DuBrow. As they progressed, they put out the feelers for a lead vocalist and found Kelly. After a while working with John Shearer on drums, they found me; I was working with Lita Ford at the time. We went into the studio and decided to put out a record straight away because we figured we\u2019d reach more people this way, we weren\u2019t playing any concerts and the only advance press we had was because of the brothers\u2019 connection. We did keep pretty low-key about things until the record came out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The record\u2019s sound and the musical style seems to be a great amalgam of Y&T and White Sister \u2013 the White Sister comparison possibly due to your voice Kelly sounding similar to Dennis Churchill\u2019s, especially on the excellent \u2018It\u2019s Only Heaven\u2019. Kelly: \u201cWell thanks a lot, you\u2019ve given us a compliment. I haven\u2019t really heard White Sister, but the Y&T comparison could be down to the production. Our producer Kevin Beamish produced \u2018Summertime Girls\u2019 by them and we\u2019re also a vocally oriented band with a hard edge like Y&T. Comparisons are all a matter of opinion though.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jay: \u201cKevin helped a great deal on that record, so that\u2019s why it possibly sounds like Y&T.\u201d<\/p>\n

What happened to John Shearer\u2019s (ex-Uriah Heep) involvement in the band? Kelly: \u201cJohn was instrumental in getting me involved. We were in a group together before and he knew I was looking for something, so we got together. But after a while the chemistry wasn\u2019t right so he left Hurricane, but I wish him luck.\u201d<\/p>\n

What were you both doing before Hurricane? Kelly: \u201cWell I\u2019ve been singing for eight years. I\u2019ve been in Top 40 bands and also my own groups doing my own songs, but no name groups to speak of. I\u2019ve mainly been doing session work.\u201d Jay: \u201cI was in Badfinger for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

I know that Robert (Sarzo) has made a career of doing session work with people like D.L. Byron and that Tony (Cavazo) used to be in Snow, Quiet Riot and the awful Dangerface! The Dangerface material has got some hilarious lyrics! Kelly: \u201cHa! Ha! You know all about that eh? Tony wrote most of the lyrics for Hurricane but we all write songs equally, so if there\u2019s a phrase that comes through then there\u2019s three others around to correct it if need be. Some of the Dangerface stuff was very abstract! Actually, Tony co-wrote \u2018Bang Your Head\u2019 with Quiet Riot. I don\u2019t know what the original words were, something about drinking more beer, but Kevin (DuBrow) changed them somewhat!\u201d<\/p>\n

How do you think Hurricane fits in with the LA scene right now? Jay: \u201cI think all of us have been in the LA scene for years. Hollywood crowds know of us as individuals and everybody has a positive outlook to us. Hurricane, musically, is a more melodic band than most of the LA bands, and it\u2019s given us an advantage, especially with the radio stations who really like the record. It\u2019s doing really well and everything is going great and we\u2019re getting very positive reactions, which is encouraging to say the least. We\u2019ve got about half a dozen new songs and we do plan on a new record, but there\u2019s still a lot for Take What You Want<\/em> to do yet!\u201d<\/p>\n

Why did you go with Greenworld? Weren\u2019t any majors interested? Kelly: \u201cAt the time we did the album we felt the buzz on the band was good, especially from Japan, so instead of trying to do showcases for majors we thought it was a good idea to put it out ourselves. Greenworld have been very supportive\u2026 we\u2019d rather be working with a team. We\u2019d rather be a little fish in a big pond than a big fish in a little pond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jay: \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to wait around for some guy at a major to help out. We had the means to finance the record along with total artistic freedom. Greenworld have stretched their involvement with us rather than just distributing the record, which I guess is all Roadrunner are doing in Europe. We\u2019ve gotten so much encouragement from the press and fans that it\u2019s just gonna make us even better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interview taken from Metal Forces, Issue 18 (1986)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HURRICANE – There\u2019s A Storm Brewing Dave Reynolds Metal Forces, Issue 18 (1986) Hurricane (l-r): Robert Sarzo, Kelly Hansen, Tony Cavazo and Jay Schellen For a band to survive the cutthroat LA metal jungle, they\u2019ve either got to be very, very original or at least have some kind of gimmick that will put them a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-hurricane"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1346"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4264,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346\/revisions\/4264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}