An Interview with Bill
Leverty by Kara Uhrlen
What Goes Into a Song?
When it comes to writing, Leverty
also says that they have to follow their hearts…
"We're not going to do any
thing that we don't really like, because we're the guys that have to get up
there and play it 365 days a year, and if it's something you don't like, it turns
into more of a job. It is work. But, it's not really a job because we're
actually playing.
I can't really write anything
that I don't really feel comes from my heart. I can't really write a song that's
kind of like a lot of the music that's out there today…it's just not me. I
think some of it's really good, but it's just not me. And when it comes to art,
I think that if you are an artist you really have to write or create things that
come from inside you instead of trying to be something that you're not and we've
all made a commitment to try to be a melodic rock band and make good records…"
That commitment began more than a
decade ago when Leverty and drummer Michael Foster joined forces with vocalist
CJ Snare and bassist Perry Richardson under the title White Heat. When the band
performed a title search shortly after signing a deal with Epic Records, they
found that the name was already taken, and switched to Firehouse, a name that
Foster had thought up.
Leverty says that during that
time, the band had released a single for the song "Helpless," which
eventually made it on to their first album, but the track on the b-side,
"Crashing Through the Wall," has actually never been re-released.
Though he says he has seen them on e-Bay from time to time, the band had only
pressed up 1,000 of the singles.
While the unreleased track has
never been introduced to Firehouse fans, he still really likes the song because
it was one that he and CJ had written together, and because he found the story
behind it very interesting. Leverty explained that he had read a newspaper
article about a man who worked as a truck driver in Germany, and prior to the
fall of the Berlin Wall, the man actually drove his family through the wall to
freedom, and after sharing the story with the band's vocalist, the song was
written.
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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