If you were to join another, non-Kiss cover band which would be your first choice?
Meaning a national act? I'd get in with any 80's band that'd have me. Maybe Enuff Z'Nuff, if Donnie ever came back.
Metallica would be another fun one, I think. Aggressive and jamming, without being cookie-monster-ish. Also helps that they were my introduction to learning guitar.
Around here, I've been in several random cover bands doing all kinds of stuff, but I'd always strive to be doing 80's hard rock and hair metal, with a dash of random 80's pop thrown in.
Brett Michaels or Jani Lane?
Oh lord, Jani by a mile. Not that Bret doesn't have a good voice, but there was a quality to Jani's voice that I can't put my finger on, that just captivated. Mr. Rainmaker, by itself, is better than pretty much everything Poison ever recorded. And that's saying a lot, because I like Poison.
Cinderella or Skid Row?
I gotta go with Skid Row here. As much as Cinderella had more of the big-haired boutique-dressed image, Skid Row's songs were better, I think. A lot of Cinderella's songs got to sounding a little samey sometimes.
Tube or solid state (and which do you use)?
Tube. I have a 1978 Marshall Master Volume Mk2 (50W). AKA the Marshall JMP 2203. No channel switching, just preamp and master volume:
I've loved and hated this amp. On its own, it has great built in distortion, when you crank the preamp. However, I found that this rendered it nearly impossible to get good clean tones. I went through a number of different setups trying to get that great Marshall tone and a good clean tone as well. I used an ADA MP-1 Preamp and an ADA rackmount amp, with an Alesis Quadraverb, all controlled by MIDI, I used the Marshall with an A/B switch that also went to a solid state Fender M-80 for clean tones, and whatever else. Couldn't get what I wanted. One day, I was reading around a Marshall forum and someone suggested cranking the master volume and using the preamp volume for overall level instead of the usual other way. I thought "Could it have been this easy all along?"
Yes. It was just that easy. I put my pedal board in front of it, turned on some chorus and my Boss DS-1 and got some bitchin' distortion. So good. Turned that off and got surprisingly beautiful clean tones. That was probably 4-5 years ago and I've not strayed from this setup ever since. I have a solid state Randall head as a backup.
Ever write any original stuff? What does it sound like?
I put together something instrumental once, for my wife for our anniversary. I'm not real good at coming up with original things. I can improvise a lead without even having to think about it, but entire complete songs are difficult for me. Here's the one I did put together.
Soundcloud linkFavorite:
- smell?
- taste?
- sound?
- color?
- sensation?
Smell - Fresh baked bread. Fried onions. Grilled ribeye. A pot of hours-long simmered stock. Salty ocean air.
Taste - Skittles. Beer. Bourbon. Utz potato chips. Salsa (homemade, of course, and very spicy).
Sound - A Les Paul into a hot-rodded Marshall. Or
this.
Color - Blue. Bold blues. Like Royal Blue or something like that. Not like those greyish cornflower blues.
Sensation - A good solid beer buzz and Thursday night in the sheets.
Ever try out for a big-time gig (I know a guy that tried out for both Ozzy (after Jake) and Dio (after Craig) and another guy that tried out for Ozzy (it was a gig that Zakk got, don't remember if it was the first time or one of the times he came back)?
I have not. Bummer, but I've never lived in places where those kinds of connections existed, unfortunately.
Can you name the all the guys that played for both Ozzy solo and Dio solo (two, three on a technicality, or four if you want to be ridiculuous)?
I'll offer a disclaimer to start. I didn't start even getting remotely into decent music until the mid 90's. I found a bunch of things I liked and listened to those pretty much exclusively and obsessively. It hasn't been until the last couple of years that I've tried to go back and catch up on classic albums that I only knew the radio hits from. Like Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman, for example. Heard those for the first time a year or so ago. So with that, my knowledge of those bands is fairly limited. It sounds like you're saying there are a couple of guys who played in both Ozzy and Dio's solo bands. Without looking, I'm not going to be able to say. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Tommy Aldridge and Rudy Sarzo. They've played for like everybody.