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| | An Interview with Bill
Leverty of Firehouse by Kara
Uhrlen
The New Album
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With Firehouse's latest
release, the band wanted to keep everything "kind of a raw simple
live production," and they had actually finished recording the entire
album in about a month's time, though Leverty points out that it wasn't
really a rushed release.
"Well the thing that
takes longest is the writing of the songs, I've found, unless you've got
one really great song like a lot of bands do. You've got one really good
song, and then you just slap together nine other ones. And then you put out
an album that just really disappoints your fans, because they go out there
because of that one song and they buy the album and they go, 'I just got
ripped off, I've bought one song for an album's price.' And we've tried to
establish a credibility with our listeners that when they lay their
hard-earned money down for a Firehouse record that they're going to get
their money's worth and that all the songs will be up to a quality.
You may not like all the
songs, because we do stretch out to different genres or we will stretch
into different styles a little bit - at least in that particular style
that we're experimenting with, it'll be a song that's of good enough
quality to put on a Firehouse record. Instead of like when I was a kid I'd
go out and buy an album and get ripped off like I told you about and it
really disappointed me." |
One of the stretches on this
particular album can be found when Leverty handles lead vocals on a track called
"I'm in Love This Time." He explained that he usually puts his voice
on the demos he writes just to get the idea across, but in this case he found
that the song just fit his voice very well. Since he thought that it was a song
that had a style he could probably pull off, he asked vocalist CJ Snare if
he'd mind him singing, because Leverty wanted to make sure he wasn't stepping on his
toes.
Fortunately, Leverty had gotten
nothing but positive feedback from the band, and he says that they are even
planning on fitting the song into the live set. In fact, Snare is looking forward to
the break, and they think that it will give him a chance to rest his voice.
Leverty says that he hopes it will be a time to take the band someplace else for a
bit, and since
"I'm in Love This Time" is a fun song, he is looking forward to doing it live.
What
Goes Into a Song
When it comes to writing, Leverty
also says that they have to follow their hearts…
The Transition
As most are well aware, it is not common for
a band to maintain its sound and its original members for many years...
A
History Lesson
When asked how they had initially
succeeded to win double-platinum success with their first album, Leverty said...
Life
On The Road
"One of the things that's
real frustrating, when you're out on the road, a lot of these radio
stations will...
Conclusion
Before concluding the interview,
Leverty wanted to extend a special thanks to the band's fans...
For more information about Firehouse visit their official site at www.firehousemusic.com,
and also check out Bill Leverty's personal site at www.leverty.com.
Live photos were taken by Kara
Uhrlen and are property of The Pure Rock Shop.
Go back to the introduction.
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