Virgil Donati

[RodrigoAltaf]

Virgil has a new album out, entitled Ruination. I'll be interviewing him this Friday. Questions for him? I'll try to squeeze in a question about the DT audition, Planet X and that dream lineup of him, Billy Sheehan and Steve Vai. Anything else you'd like to know?

[romdrums]

I would ask him about N American tour dates for IceFish and how things are looking for a second IceFish record.  I really like their debut album and would love to hear more from them.

[Podaar]

I would ask him about N American tour dates for IceFish and how things are looking for a second IceFish record.  I really like their debut album and would love to hear more from them.

+1

[RodrigoAltaf]

Good one. I am not yet familiar with IceFish. What do they sound like?

[Max Kuehnau]

Good one. I am not yet familiar with IceFish. What do they sound like?

like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkExYyD2nwE

[Podaar]

Good one. I am not yet familiar with IceFish. What do they sound like?

An eargasm! Very technical but still infectious melodies and vocals.

[RodrigoAltaf]

Wow, that was awesome!!!! Thanks!!!

That's the beauty of doing all these interviews: you're driven to check out things that you wouldn't necessarily pursue otherwise.

[Lupton]

Virgil has a new album out, entitled Ruination. I'll be interviewing him this Friday. Questions for him? I'll try to squeeze in a question about the DT audition, Planet X and that dream lineup of him, Billy Sheehan and Steve Vai. Anything else you'd like to know?

Hi Rodrigo. I love the work you do and enjoyed your recent interview with Ron Thal. You also interviewed Away (Voivod) which makes you a hero in my book. 

Could you ask Virgil about the show(s) he played with Tribal Tech? I've always been curious how that came about and what his take was on the situation? To get an idea, here's Virgil with Tribal Tech. Totally badass!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8itZQQr0pXk

I would also love to hear his thoughts on Allan Holdsworth, considering he was one the last drummers to tour with him while he was still alive.

If you have bigger fish to fry, and don't feel these inquiries fit your narrative, that's totally cool! Virgil has done a lot of work over the years so there are probably too many topics to discuss outside of his solo work.

[RodrigoAltaf]

Virgil has a new album out, entitled Ruination. I'll be interviewing him this Friday. Questions for him? I'll try to squeeze in a question about the DT audition, Planet X and that dream lineup of him, Billy Sheehan and Steve Vai. Anything else you'd like to know?

Hi Rodrigo. I love the work you do and enjoyed your recent interview with Ron Thal. You also interviewed Away (Voivod) which makes you a hero in my book. 

Could you ask Virgil about the show(s) he played with Tribal Tech? I've always been curious how that came about and what his take was on the situation? To get an idea, here's Virgil with Tribal Tech. Totally badass!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8itZQQr0pXk

I would also love to hear his thoughts on Allan Holdsworth, considering he was one the last drummers to tour with him while he was still alive.

If you have bigger fish to fry, and don't feel these inquiries fit your narrative, that's totally cool! Virgil has done a lot of work over the years so there are probably too many topics to discuss outside of his solo work.

Thanks!!! I'll try to fit some of those in. The Tribal Tech stuff is surely interesting to discuss.

[Lupton]

Virgil has a new album out, entitled Ruination. I'll be interviewing him this Friday. Questions for him? I'll try to squeeze in a question about the DT audition, Planet X and that dream lineup of him, Billy Sheehan and Steve Vai. Anything else you'd like to know?

Hi Rodrigo. I love the work you do and enjoyed your recent interview with Ron Thal. You also interviewed Away (Voivod) which makes you a hero in my book. 

Could you ask Virgil about the show(s) he played with Tribal Tech? I've always been curious how that came about and what his take was on the situation? To get an idea, here's Virgil with Tribal Tech. Totally badass!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8itZQQr0pXk

I would also love to hear his thoughts on Allan Holdsworth, considering he was one the last drummers to tour with him while he was still alive.

If you have bigger fish to fry, and don't feel these inquiries fit your narrative, that's totally cool! Virgil has done a lot of work over the years so there are probably too many topics to discuss outside of his solo work.

Thanks!!! I'll try to fit some of those in. The Tribal Tech stuff is surely interesting to discuss.

That would be totally awesome if you can manage it! Either way, thank you for the good work you do for the music community. 

[wolfking]

Virgil has a new album out, entitled Ruination. I'll be interviewing him this Friday. Questions for him? I'll try to squeeze in a question about the DT audition, Planet X and that dream lineup of him, Billy Sheehan and Steve Vai. Anything else you'd like to know?

He's from Melbourne I believe.  You could give your condolences in regards to the fires and hopefully whichever part he originates from is okay.

Ask him to reunite Ring of Fire haha, great band.  I guess they tried Seven the Hard Way, but that kind of didn't work.

[goo-goo]

I spoke to Virgil during a VIP meet and greet in his last tour in Austin. I was the only one doing the VIP  . It was an amazing experience chatting with him. Talked to him for about 30 mins and we touched on the Allan H. subject. He is a great guy to talk to and he even gave me a tour of his drumkit and took a couple of pics with him. Very down to Earth guy.

[Lupton]

I spoke to Virgil during a VIP meet and greet in his last tour in Austin. I was the only one doing the VIP  . It was an amazing experience chatting with him. Talked to him for about 30 mins and we touched on the Allan H. subject. He is a great guy to talk to and he even gave me a tour of his drumkit and took a couple of pics with him. Very down to Earth guy.

I'd love to know what he said. I saw the Holdsworth live stream on 11/21/15 before the CruiseTTE gigs. The whole thing was about as unprofessional as possible. It seems like whoever was organizing (or the venue?) completely screwed the band. Apparently they had no adequate monitoring, so no one in the band could hear each other...sort of important in jazz-type improvisational reliant music!    Whoever did the filming just stuck a camera in front of the band, turned it on, and let it roll. It was little better than an audience iphone recording. I could tell that Virgil was getting SO pissed off.  I literally thought he was going to walk-off the stage in anger at one point! One point he did walk away from the kit and I didn't think he was going to come back, but he did.  Allan just seemed his usual drunk* bemused self, making apologies to the crowd after every song. The thing was a trainwreck and I felt so bad for everybody involved. To think that someone like Allan, after everything he's done, was being handled in such an amateurish way was very saddening.   

*I eventually came to learn that Allan was getting completely hammered for many of the shows in the latter half of his live career and personally witnessed one such incidences at the Kessler theater here in Dallas. Incredible to think that Virgil would continue to work with someone with that level of dependency. Guitar legend or not.

[RodrigoAltaf]

I spoke to Virgil during a VIP meet and greet in his last tour in Austin. I was the only one doing the VIP  . It was an amazing experience chatting with him. Talked to him for about 30 mins and we touched on the Allan H. subject. He is a great guy to talk to and he even gave me a tour of his drumkit and took a couple of pics with him. Very down to Earth guy.

I met him here in September. He did a show with his new band, promoting the new album already. Cool guy, and his band was awesome.

[RodrigoAltaf]

 Virgil was AMAZING!!! We e spoke at length about the new album, working with Vai, Tribal Tech, his old band from Australian called Southern Sons, a possible Planet X anniversary tour, complex versus accessible music, his work with Alan Holdsworth, the second IceFish album which is in the works, and yes, I asked him about the audition for Dream Theater. This will be a great one, guys...stay tuned!!!!

[wolfking]

Virgil was AMAZING!!! We e spoke at length about the new album, working with Vai, Tribal Tech, his old band from Australian called Southern Sons, a possible Planet X anniversary tour, complex versus accessible music, his work with Alan Holdsworth, the second IceFish album which is in the works, and yes, I asked him about the audition for Dream Theater. This will be a great one, guys...stay tuned!!!!

No Ring of Fire? Bah!

Southerns Sons had a couple of massive hits here.  Heart in Danger is a wonderful song.

[bl5150]

Southern Sons actually reformed for a short tour (with Virgil) late last year - minus Phil Buckle .   Not sure if that's it or more is in the works.  Perhaps it is covered in the interview.

[wolfking]

Jones (Thomas) was a good guitarist.  Shame he couldn't really make a decent name for himself after Southern Sons.  I guess the session work and playing in backing bands would have paid the bills.

[bl5150]

The best guitar teacher I ever had .............let me rephrase that .......the teacher who was the best player (big diff) was best buds with Irwin and reckoned he was the best player he had played with.  So based on that Southern Sons was the tip of the iceberg in terms of his playing , as it was for Virgil.   I also saw them together in a Van Halen covers band called Hans Valen where they cut loose a bit more.   

Not sure if Donati was in it but there was a related band called Theater of Dreams (DT covers) doing the rounds..........can't recall.  Might've just been Simon Hosford. 

[Lupton]

Virgil was AMAZING!!! We e spoke at length about the new album, working with Vai, Tribal Tech, his old band from Australian called Southern Sons, a possible Planet X anniversary tour, complex versus accessible music, his work with Alan Holdsworth, the second IceFish album which is in the works, and yes, I asked him about the audition for Dream Theater. This will be a great one, guys...stay tuned!!!!

Awesome! Can't wait to check this out. Wow. Such a large range of topics, it's so cool that you managed it all. Complex vs. accessible music... that's going pretty deep. It sounds like this is going to be very insightful. Thank you so much for your work Rodrigo!