OLD MAN WISE

RAG: That's going to be the first single? Can you tell me anything about it? Who wrote it?

BRUCE: Right. It basically deals with, lyrically, like a Yoda to Luke Skywalker. You know OLD MAN WISE is like the guy with wisdom that you hope you can find inside so you don't mess up your life. There is so much temptation and so much violence in the world. You know, you're looking for some higher answers that are good choices. There are some wild sound effects on the track.

RAG: I liked it. It had a real bluesy kind of vocal to it too.

BRUCE: Yeah, well John will always sing kind of bluesy. That's his style and I want him to be who he is. I think he's got a great voice and he sings his heart out. Guitar wise, the intro riffs and the re-intro riffs are from something that I know Gene and Ezrin really dug for CARNIVAL OF SOULS, but we never did anything with it. But that happens.

AROUND AGAIN

BRUCE: One of the earliest things that we wrote together and it kind of evolved. You know it talks about karma and things. A lot of the record, lyrically at least, talks about things John and I were going through that year which I think is important.

RAG: Which is cool because it will make the lyrics more personal.

BRUCE: Yeah, and it is. Even though we had a lot of fun doing it, you know we needed to express what we were going through. Musically, I mean, I just couldn't end it. There's another big riff that comes in at the end. The ending is really long, and goes into a whole kind of flange phase shifter kind of thing that is kind of trippy. I dig my solo especially. I have this kind of interesting distortion peddle on it and John kind of thinks I'm like Ritchie Blackmoore on it. I don't know what it is but I really like the solo and it's a bitch for me to play live.

RAG: That's cool though. Now did you write most of the music for that?

BRUCE: No, but it's very hard for me to nail down. Most of the songs are all three of us. Curt Cuomo, John, and myself.

RAG: So it's all collaborative?

BRUCE: Yeah!

PAIN BEHIND YOUR EYES

BRUCE: That kind of starts off with a picking guitar that's real haunting. That one I did write a lot of the music on actually. Then it goes into this really angry slamming chorus. Then it gets back to the quiet part. It talks about someone that thinks that they have it all figured out, but John can tell that they really don't. You can actually see the pain behind their eyes.

LOVE (I DON'T NEED IT ANYMORE)

BRUCE: Yes, I mean we don't hate women or anything! Again, about some of the issues that come up with how complicated love can be. You can be hurt and all. It starts off with a riff that John had that we just jumped in on and I love the bridge especially. I got to be kind of creative production wise. It's got a couple of little Beatles elements. I feature my signature ESP model on that solo which is kind of cool.

HEAVY D

BRUCE: That's one of the one's from the demo that's real heavy and slow.

RAG: That's such a cool title.

BRUCE: Yeah, it's nothing to do with the rapper by the way.

RAG: No, I didn't think so.

BRUCE: That was kind of the working title for it, and we wound up using it. Obviously we don't sing "HEAVY D, HEAVY D" in the chorus you know? It's got a lot of moods. It's one where you've got to close your eyes and get into it. It actually starts with a heartbeat, because it's about...it doesn't have to be about drugs, but certainly the lyrics can represent drugs. It can be about anything you have an addiction with.

LET IT FLOW

RAG: That one, too me sounded kind of Beatles-esque. It's got some cool hooks in it too.

BRUCE: Well the beginning starts off a little Beatles-esque. I wouldn't disagree with that. It has almost like three parts to it, you know? There's that whole beginning LET IT FLOW part, and then goes into INVITATION which is the chorus, into the solos - which we are going to write into the lyrics as THE JOURNEY. And then the last chorus being THE CELEBRATION. It's like kind of one of those throw back to the seventies.

RAG: Well that is what it kind of reminded me of. It sounded like a kind of trippy kind of song. Like you said it kind of took you on a journey. It was kind of all over the place. I liked that.

BRUCE: Good! Yeah, a little aggressive maybe for a first album from a new band, but that's what we wanted to do.

RAG: Yes, but sitting in the middle of the record like that, I think it kind of fits.

BRUCE: Good, because I didn't want to close the record with it, and I didn't want to start it with it. Just put it kind of in the middle.

EMPTY SOUL

BRUCE: Oh that has got this big, big hook that John sings. "You know you've got to try to look inside." It's just to show you, you know everyone is always looking for outside things to kind of like give you the answers. It's really always been inside, and you know you have to believe in yourself .

RAG: Which kind of fits good with this project.

BRUCE: Yeah, absolutely. We both had to really dig ourselves out of some disappointments. I think it's one of the very strong radio type tracks actually, even though it's a kind of fast song. I love that one, yeah.

OCTOBER MORNING WIND

BRUCE: This is the second single. OCTOBER is an acoustic ditty that I had that I absolutely always adored. Once John and Curt got involved, it was like a miracle when it all came together. Lyrically I had no idea where it would go and as it turned out we were working on it, and it was really November already when we were working on it. The weather was turning rainy and stormy and windy, but NOVEMBER MORNING WIND doesn't sound quite as well as OCTOBER MORNING WIND. So John came up with that concept, and that came together. I think it's a beautiful song. I love that it's acoustic but it's different. There's one electric mixed in on some of the B sections. It's all done on acoustics, and it's got a kind of hypnotic percussion and drum beat going on. I dig that track.

GET OFF MY CLOUD

BRUCE: GET OFF MY CLOUD is John making a statement of being a little angry about things that have happened.

RAG: I had a feeling that might have been what it was.

BRUCE: Oh yeah. "There's no room up here anyway," type of thing, so get off my cloud. I don't need this, I don't need you. I'm OK right here, you know? It also has a couple of different sections to it that really link together well. It's kind of aggressive in some ways like OLD MAN WISE. We cut it around the same time.

TANGERINE

BRUCE: TANGERINE is heavy but it's pop. It's got a very interesting mixture of things musically. It's got some great hooks in it, and it's still heavy but it's disguised as a pop song in some ways. It's kind of interesting. It's hard to... we will see what you think. I think a lot of KISS fans will dig it though. It's got a lot of cool riffs in it. TANGERINE is kind of a strange title, but the words "I want to find my TANGERINE"... John was just trying to use a word that sounds cool. TANGERINE is whatever you want it to be, and that's one of the lyrics too. Meaning, you could be talking about your particular nirvana. That's your particular turn on. It could be watching Star Trek, that's your TANGERINE, OK? Maybe your wife or girl is your TANGERINE. Everyone is looking for it.

RAG: That's kind of cool. If you came right out and specified what it is it might not fit everyone. Everyone is going to be able to take it and make it their own.

BRUCE: Yeah, I mean maybe to some people TANGERINE is money. That's OK too.

ROBIN'S SONG

BRUCE: ROBIN'S SONG is a beautiful love thing, where John is reaching out. It's about someone in his past that he is asking questions of, and basically it is written for that person. It's like a letter that turned into a song. It's also all acoustic. It's two acoustics and then I solo over it. That's it. And there's a couple of like "aahh's" that I did in the background with John and that's it.

RAG: Did you plan on having a ballad basically as the closer to the album, or did it just seem to fit?

BRUCE: Well, when we did the demo for it we knew it didn't belong anywhere but at the last.

RAG: So was that one of the original four demos?

BRUCE: No we didn't shop that, but it was one of the first things we started to demo November or December [of '97]. It came out so beautiful, and I didn't want people to get the impression shopping the tape that that's who we were.

RAG: You didn't want people to think you were going to be an all acoustic band?

BRUCE: Yeah, you know it really would have been left of center. We didn't want to give it up or not have it, but we just used it as the last song.
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The album is killer, and if you haven¼t picked it up yetä what are you waiting for? Get down to the record store and pick up a copy. You won¼t be sorry. This will be in your CD player for a long time to come.