{"id":1575,"date":"1987-08-01T00:00:55","date_gmt":"1987-08-01T00:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=1575"},"modified":"2012-02-18T02:28:41","modified_gmt":"2012-02-18T02:28:41","slug":"feature-great-white-mf25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-great-white-mf25\/","title":{"rendered":"GREAT WHITE – Putting The Colour Back Into White (MF25, 1987) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

GREAT WHITE – Putting The Colour Back Into White<\/strong><\/span><\/span>
\nDave Reynolds<\/span>
\nMetal Forces, Issue 25 (1987)<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/td>\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
Great White (l-r): Audie Desbrow, Jack Russell, Tony Montana,
Michael Lardie and Mark Kendall<\/b><\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Don\u2019t step into that rockin\u2019 water dudes! Great White are back\u2019n\u2019snap happy. Yup! Since the indie release of the excellent Shot In The Dark<\/em> album put out on their own label, Telegraph, through the now defunct Greenworld distribution system, Jack Russell and company\u2019s fortunes have been on the up\u2019n\u2019up. Capitol Records picked up on the band, re-released Shot In The Dark<\/em> and, more recently, put out a brand new album, Once Bitten…<\/em>, to set hearts fluttering and pop fans racing out of the water in fear of being eaten alive by another slice of potent heavy rock comin\u2019 at \u2019em fast from the radio.<\/p>\n

I have to confess that the first time I heard Once Bitten…<\/em>, an advance tape only an hour before speaking to Jack Russell on the hotline from LA, I wasn\u2019t quite as taken with it as I was with Shot In The Dark<\/em>. \u201cSome of the songs seemed to drag,\u201d I said. Mr. Russell wasn\u2019t too pleased!<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, maybe On The Edge<\/em>. We got a little more bluesy on this record. I personally feel it\u2019s the best record we\u2019ve done. You\u2019re entitled to your opinion, but I wouldn\u2019t say we\u2019ve gone soft,\u201d Jack snapped. \u201cWe\u2019re just playing stuff we wanna play. This is where our roots come from, so fuck anybody who\u2019s not into it! We enjoy this shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh, the experimentation with keyboards on Shot In The Dark<\/em> seems to be working, with Once Bitten…<\/em> they make the band sound more classier. Jack relaxed: \u201cYeah, definitely. The addition of Michael Lardie on keyboards has certainly opened up new avenues for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why is the UK version of Once Bitten…<\/em> going to be different, with tracks being replaced by songs from Shot In The Dark<\/em>? \u201cThat\u2019s a good question. Fuck, I don\u2019t now. Shot In The Dark<\/em> was never released in the UK but I really don\u2019t know why Once Bitten…<\/em> will be different, I don\u2019t get involved in the business side of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hmm. Surely, as an artist I\u2019d want to know why and put a stop to what appears to be nothing short of a rip-off to UK fans who\u2019ve already bought Shot In The Dark<\/em> on import. Oh, well. So what progress has been made since Shot In The Dark<\/em>? \u201cPlaying wise? I\u2019d say the songs are much more Great White. I compare a song like \u2018Rock Me\u2019 to \u2018Face The Day\u2019, our cover of the Angels tune, but the difference is that \u2018Rock Me\u2019 is our song. There\u2019s nine originals on this album and we\u2019re expanding our material all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019re putting the blues into White. \u201cYeah, I love the blues, that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

I take it you got off on that tour you did with Whitesnake over here in 1983 then? \u201cFuck! Yeah, I love Whitesnake. That tour was great. That new album is going to do really big things for \u2019em.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a UK release of Once Bitten…<\/em> could this mean a welcome return to these shores? \u201cI fuckin\u2019 hope so. It\u2019s been a long, long time since we\u2019ve played there. I love London and I can\u2019t wait to get back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t you think it pretty bizarre that Capitol picked up on you when they\u2019re essentially just another part of the company (EMI America) who fucked you over when they dropped you after the Great White<\/em> album in 1983? \u201cHa! Ha! Yeah, it\u2019s kind of strange. We just got a good deal with Capitol so the shark is back; you can\u2019t keep the old fin fucker down.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s happening with that live \/ demo album you were going to release last year? \u201cThat will be coming out in a few months, around the fall. We obviously can\u2019t release two albums at the same time. Once Bitten…<\/em> is doing tremendously well for us, with more airplay than any other of our releases so far, so things look good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you think that you\u2019ve finally lost your \u2018bad boy\u2019 tag Jack? \u201cIt depends. I hope so. I haven\u2019t changed the way I live. I still get into trouble though, but I\u2019m bashing at another kind of rock now and that\u2019s certainly better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was it your idea to include your parole card on the inner sleeve to the Great White<\/em> album? \u201cYeah, that was my idea to show people that you can really rise above anything if you want to. That was to show kids that I\u2019ve been to the bottom, but now I\u2019ve made it back again it\u2019s not impossible. That certainly wasn\u2019t put on there just to show-off. I\u2019m not proud of having been in jail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Could you see yourself doing more rebellious songs like \u2018Stick It\u2019 again, something Great White appear to have stopped? \u201cOh sure, if the mood ever hit me, but you tend to become redundant if you write about the same things. The new album has a theme about it; maybe we\u2019ll do a whole concept next time!\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the theme? \u201cThe theme is cohesive. Listen to the lyrics… women, love, the road, partying. It\u2019s about life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The major news in the life of Great White is that they\u2019ve fired longstanding bassist Lorne Black and replaced him with 20-year-old Tony Montana (the rest of the band is, of course, completed by Mark Kendall on guitars, Audie Desbrow on drums and the aforementioned Michael Lardie on keyboards \/ rhythm guitar).<\/p>\n

Great White, with new bass player in tow, have recently been touring the States, with Night Ranger, in support of Once Bitten…<\/em> and their US hit single \u2018Rock Me\u2019. As for some British shows? Well, we\u2019ll just have to watch for that fin-fucker surfacing off shore. Beware pop fans!<\/p>\n

Interview taken from Metal Forces, Issue 25 (1987)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GREAT WHITE – Putting The Colour Back Into White Dave Reynolds Metal Forces, Issue 25 (1987) Great White (l-r): Audie Desbrow, Jack Russell, Tony Montana, Michael Lardie and Mark Kendall Don\u2019t step into that rockin\u2019 water dudes! Great White are back\u2019n\u2019snap happy. Yup! Since the indie release of the excellent Shot In The Dark album […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-great-white"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575","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=1575"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4284,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions\/4284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}