Rock My Monkey: Hello, you are listening to the Rock My Monkey netcast on RockMyMonkey.com. Today we are speaking with ex-Warlord and ex-Fates Warning drummer, Mark Zander, now of Slavior. How are you doing today, Mark?
MARK ZONDER: Great.
Rock My Monkey: One of the first things that I noticed about the cd is it seems that you guys are trying to balance the depth of your average prog cd with a little bit of mainstream appeal. Was that intentional?
MARK ZONDER: Actually no. The way this whole thing started, I wanted to put a band together that basically featured, and was basically based on all the drum patterns and riffs and stuff that I’d been working on. I’m fortunate enough to be able to, basically during the daytime, do a lot of practicing, doing a lot of studying, doing a lot of recording. I’m constantly just putting things together, different drum ideas and that kind of thing. I always wanted someone to be able to play to that. Sometimes they’re a little complex or a little wacky, that you just couldn’t fit them into someone else’s song. So it started there and it was just a matter of me playing, and just playing what I wanted to play. When Wayne came along and we set this up and he started coming up with the ideas and started putting them together, we didn’t want to be a prog band. I didn’t want to be a jam band. I didn’t want to have just stuff all over the place. There was a big concern about songs, which direction they went. It wasn’t really finalized until Greg came into the picture. Because when Greg came into the picture with his lyrics and melody lines really pushed it in that, as you said, mainstream kind of direction. The minute we heard him, all the light bulbs just went off, and it was just like wow, here’s a real, sort of a blessing that was dropped on us, so we’re going with it.
Rock My Monkey: Is Wayne going to do keyboards, bass, or guitars in the live show, and will Slavior stay a three piece?
MARK ZONDER: We’re only a three piece in the sense right now of the recording project, and the recording band for the simple fact that-because you all know when you start putting bands together it’s really tough to get guys to play if you’re not paying them, or that kind of thing. Myself and Wayne had a general direction of where we wanted to go. Since he played all three instruments it just made it easier. We’d get together four or five times a week, because we live close to each other. We did a couple shows at the end of January, and at that time we were technically a five piece. Obviously Wayne played the guitars, we had a bass player, and we had a keyboard player. The way things worked out basically though, what we’re going to be doing is, I’m just going to be sequencing all the keyboard parts, because there’s really not that many keyboard parts that are crucial to a live show. We’re not trying to reproduce the album 100% with every little production trick that we did in the studio. What we did realize by playing these couple shows is that guitar, drums, bass, with a little keyboards and vocals more than represent, more than really bring the live music across. And it translates very well. It’s not like, ‘oh wow, we missed this part, and where’s that part, and ooh, what happened to that part?’ Actually, we were rehearsing. It was just myself, and Wayne, and the bass player, and we were just playing as a three piece and it sounded really good. It didn’t sound empty. Obviously the little keyboard touch here, keyboard touch there, really makes things, adds a little sparkle to it. We can definitely translate this to a three piece as well if we really needed to.
Rock My Monkey: Will there be at least a bass player hired on full time?
MARK ZONDER: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Right now we’re looking at different options of different guys to use for live situations that come up, depending on what the live situations are. We have our eyes on a couple guys. It’s just a matter of see what rolls out. Right now there’s really nothing to offer besides a live show. We come to do our second album, which we’re probably about four or five songs into already, the fact of maybe hiring a bass player to play on the record, that’s always up for grabs, as well. But we’ll see what the future brings there.
Rock My Monkey: You guys did a video at-you guys had two record release parties, and at the first one you guys recorded a video. Will that video be released on YouTube or the band’s MySpace page, Headbanger’s Ball? Where can fans see that other than as an extra on a cd?
MARK ZONDER: Actually, I’m not even sure it was able to get to the-the whole plan-it’s sort of a weird story. Things got pushed back, and things got pushed back. In the meantime we’re like, we’re going to do something. We’re going to play. We need to let people know that we’re a live band. We need to let people know that isn’t the quintessential project super star, whatever, kind of thing, which is so popular today. We were going to play, and then Jim Pitulski at Inside Out said, ‘well, we’re going to come out, so why don’t we film it?’ It’s like, well, I was going to film it anyway, cheapie style. But they brought out high def cameras and the whole bit. Basically what they did was they recorded the show with four different cameras. Not a lot of angles. It was just straight through. Forty five minute bang. We didn’t play any songs four times, or anything like that. Basically they edited it down already. It looks great. It doesn’t look like a $200,000 video, but the shots are clean, the band is tight, the audio’s great. It shows us. It shows the power that the band has. It shows what kind of front man Greg is. What they’re planning on doing, what I’ve heard, is doing three or four other songs, and basically having them available in different markets. The Japanese market might have a different one, the German one might have a different one. Obviously here in America there’s going to be a couple of them. Obviously they’ll be available on the Inside Out MySpace, and their website as well. They have a couple other plans of what they’re trying to do with it, but at the moment that’s where you’ll be able to see it. And I’m pretty sure they’re going to release that very soon. I think, actually, the dub is basically done, and they wanted to release that before the record actually came out. And the record doesn’t come out for a couple of weeks. And I know they’re talking about getting that up and on, whether it be YouTube or just on their site that you just go to the Inside Out website and click on it, and there it is.
Rock My Monkey: One of the greatest things that I think bands have been starting to do is-bands like you guys that, you guys are not a multi-million dollar selling band, at least not now, and what a lot of bands do that are not getting tons of airplay is they’re starting actually their own YouTube channel. So that way there’s one place where all the fans can go to check out three or four songs, and see if they like the album. Hey, the band and the label doesn’t even get charged for the bandwidth. Google pays for it.
MARK ZONDER: That’s a good way to do it. That’s a good way to do it. I think that’s something that they have in mind, as well. That’s sort of the beauty of a label, is let them deal with that. You know what I mean? They know what they are doing. They got guys there full time that that’s what they do at Inside Out. They know who to call, they know what to do, they know what not to do, and what’s going to make your thing look the best. Not, ‘oh wow, the picture looks horrible.’ Or whatever. But they’re all over that. That was the thing that we came away with, the show that we played, beside the fact that we had a great time, the music really translated, the band was super tight, and all that kind of great stuff. But they had all this video, and all these live shots. Because that was so important to us to let people know around the world. Again, this isn’t a project. I think people are really sick and tired of those kind of records, if they can’t go see their band live. So this is to prove it. Like I said, the pictures were taken, the videos were shot, we’re up and going. We’re talking about various tours right now. Different opening acts for us during the summer time, and various things. Everything’s rolling along. It’s what happens.
Rock My Monkey: I hope you don’t take offense to this question, but because of the whole rap core trend of the late 90’s, it’s still fresh in the minds of so many metal fans, most have a zero tolerance towards anything even close to a syncopated vocal. Do you think that that might get Slavior judged unfairly by the fans that normally buy Inside Out releases?
MARK ZONDER: No. There’s so much more going on. If it was an album where you turned it on and the first thing you heard was a beat box and then you hear like a scratchy guitar, and then Greg comes in Shuckin' and Jivin’, okay, maybe. But that’s not the forte. The song opens, it’s rockin’, there’s different elements of different things. You could say the same thing-there’s a jazz part in the middle of a song called Swept Away. There’s real drum machine parts that I play that I’m playing samples for. That’s just for the music. We’re not trying to be anything. When Greg brought that in, my first thought was, oh my god, anybody that knew me in the 80’s would sit down and tell me, okay, there’s going to be a guy rappin’ a little bit on your record in 2007, I would have shot myself. But as it turns out, he comes in with these parts, and I just sit there, and I go, man, this is brilliant. This is absolutely brilliant. I sort of encourage that more out of him. I tell Greg, I go, dude, do whatever you want. If you want to sing in the shower, fine. Do whatever you want, man. The guy is so talented that whatever comes out just works. That’s sort of that beauty of taking three different elements, because myself, Wayne, and Greg, as much as we come from similar places, we come from totally different places. Greg studied a lot of the new stuff that’s going on. Personally I couldn’t tell you any band that’s happening right now. I spend my time listening to older stuff, and just practicing and developing my own stuff, and studying books and studying different styles of music, and trying to incorporate it into what we do.
I couldn’t tell you-I mean, I could tell you, but I’m not listening to the bands that people compare us to. I’m not listening to Sevendust. I’m not listening to Godsmack. I don’t own the record. I think they’re great. I think they’re cool. I’m glad they’re blazing the trail. I’m not sitting here studying what’s going on in it. And that’s the beauty when you look at Slavior that there’s so many different elements that are going into it, it’s not like you can go, oh yeah, all those guys grew up listening to Deep Purple together, so that’s why they sound like Deep Purple. Because that used to be the big thing. I remember people, a lot of people that compare bands, it’s like, that’s what you listen to, what do you think you’re going to sound like? But we’re not all nineteen years old, and there’s been a lot of experiences, and people have different musical tastes and stuff. And that was the whole thing where on that song, Dove, that has the reggae feel. I totally stole that from a Scorpions song back in the 70’s. When they had a tune that had that sort of reggae feel, I thought it was the greatest idea to take that kind of feel and put it into a rock context. So I worked on a groove, came up with it, Wayne came in, researched a little bit, Copped all the reggae stuff with the keyboard and everything, and then we went to town. So it’s just a mix of styles. I don’t think we’re going to get knocked for that. We’re not a progressive band, per se. If you listen closely, there’s a lot of time signature changes going on, there’s a lot of polyrythems going on, but this was made for the masses. This just wasn’t made for a little sect. And that was part of the agreement with Inside Out was that they wanted to take the label in a little different direction, and expand a little bit, and hit more to the mainstream instead of just that really dedicated prog following. Which is great, and god bless them, but there’s a lot more out there of people to reach. That was just part of the sector we’re trying to reach.
Rock My Monkey: Well, I got to say in asking that question, I asked it because some of the press out there is saying that there are rap elements. But I myself am notoriously ruthless against bands that use a straight up rap core vocal nowadays. But honestly I didn’t hear anything that I would call a rap core vocal on there. There is the song Dove, which is more of a reggae, and that’s clearly got a reggae influence, but it was a little syncopated, but I wouldn’t call it actually any rap core vocal.
MARK ZONDER: Well, depends what your definition of rap core vocal is. I would say there is in, not necessarily coining that phrase, but in the song Shatter, but the band’s playing sort of a samba type groove behind it where it breaks down a little bit, and Greg sort of talks in that, but it’s not like hardcore, and there’s no beat box going on, and there’s no scratching going on. It’s sort of just that vocal element with a whole different style of music behind it. So maybe it doesn’t jump out and slap you in the face as much as if we just like broke it down and just tried to really cop whoever, you know, Ice T, Ice Cube, whatever.
Rock My Monkey: You guys have absolutely nothing in common with Limp Bizkit, let’s say. Because I don’t hear anything of that. That’s the kind of stuff I think people would get irritated with, and you guys, I think, are far removed from that.
MARK ZONDER: Yeah, people know me better than that, though. I mean, we’re not going there.
Rock My Monkey: Right. Exactly.
MARK ZONDER: Again, it sort of goes back to what I’m saying as, I’d like to think that common elements would be maybe between whether it’s Kid Rock or Limp Bizkit, or maybe some of those choruses that are really strong, that are just like repetitive phrase choruses, that are more shouted, I guess you could say, without quite hitting that cookie monster thing, but they’re definitely the ‘angry white youth’ kind of thing.
Rock My Monkey: Right, right, right.
MARK ZONDER: That would be a comparison, and I don’t have any problem borrowing from different styles, because there’s people doing it before they did it anyways. Like someone’s always said, music’s just about stealing from different places. And that’s all there is to it. But no, I mean, any of those kinds of things I think are great. When Greg brought those kinds of things in, or when me and Wayne came up with that whole thing where we went to a complete jazz part, and had that complete jazz nightclub feeling. Greg came in and sang perfectly over that. To me, that’s what makes great music. It doesn’t mean it’s going to sell anything. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to sell anything. But when we sit down and create, we’re not going ‘wow, how many can we sell with this one?’ It’s about, wow, does this get you going, does this turn you on, does this make you go ‘oh man, I can’t wait until people here this.’ And that’s what it’s all about. That’s how we’re putting the different styles together.
Rock My Monkey: If this cd was originally supposed to be released through Black Lotus, how long has this material been sitting around?
MARK ZONDER: About nineteen years. No. What actually happened was this record was finished, done, mixed, ready to go a year ago. It was supposed to come out on Black Lotus in April of 2006. They basically strung us along, strung us along, ‘oh, we love it, it’s great, it’s great, it’s great.’ I should have known better that the money they were supposed to be sending never came across. All of a sudden one day I get this phone call. I pick up the phone and there’s this Greek guy on the other end of the phone, and I’m thinking to myself, this can’t be good. Basically telling me that the label is going under, and we’re basically free to do what we want. I was smart enough not to send them the masters. I was smart enough not to send them any artwork. So basically here we are, basically end of March, and sitting flat with a record that’s done, and nowhere to go. So it was just a matter of starting all over again. But I do have to say, and if anybody’s listening to this, there is something to be said about when you shop a master compared to the demos. Because there’s a couple record companies out there, let me tell you, when heard the demos, they dismissed it in 12 seconds flat and the only difference between the demo and the album is the production. Songs were exactly the same. Parts were exactly the same. Okay, there’s a little bit more reverb on them. Okay. But exactly the same. Same performances. Not like a weak vocal performance, not like a sloppy drum part. Exactly the same. But all of a sudden we were shopping the master, and everybody’s ears perked up. So there is something to say about that. The state of the industry today isn’t all about everybody can hear a great song a mile away. It’s more about the presentation I have a feeling, these days, then what hits someone on a gut level-and it’s surprising that they weren’t really looking at the song per se, is that the production jumped out a little bit.
Rock My Monkey: Was the recording paid for by Black Lotus, or by the band members themselves?
MARK ZONDER: Oh, no. This was completely self financed.
Rock My Monkey: You said that you half of the next album already waiting. How long is this album going to sit out there before the next one comes out, do you think?
MARK ZONDER: It all depends on the cycle. With a little luck, if it goes on and explodes, it’s no reason putting a second one out until the cycle sort of runs, and people want a new one. Let’s say if we get really lucky and the gods are shining on us, and it really starts to take off, successful albums could have runs of a year or two, or even longer, depending. If you turn this into, you know, sales are going and there moving there’s no point coming out with a second one. It’s strictly a business decision, obviously. But if you’re out there playing and you’re drawing, and you’re going from clubs to theaters to bigger places, and things are rolling, and it’s all off the strength of the first album, it’s not point in rushing that second one. I mean, we have it ready just because that’s the way we do things, and we’re always overly prepared. But we’re ready to go in right behind it with the second record. Thinking that the worst possible thing of all time could happen and nothing happens with the record, then it’s time to come out with record number two. Which is, I’m not going to say completely different from record number one, but it’s purposely different than number one.
Rock My Monkey: Is there a main song writer of the band?
MARK ZONDER: All three of us. The way we do things is, most, I don’t want to say most, but there’s a good percentage of the songs that start with a drum riff, and then Wayne comes up with a basic idea. I don’t give them a complete song, it’s just a basic idea. But him and I get together and we start hashing it out, and I hear it going here, or this is where I sort of hear it, check this out. Then we jam a little bit and come up with ideas and put them together. Lyrics and vocal are all Greg. We don’t have anything to do with that. We’re a band basically that, whoever does the best job in an area, they do it. It’s not Mark’s going to be writing lyrics and melody lines just because I want to. Greg does a great job. It’s his job. Knock yourself out. If someone else did something better than somebody else, then by all means, let’s get the best thing out of the band possible. That’s sort of the theory behind the whole thing with the different players, and are you going to bring in somebody else. If we can find someone that’s going to help the band, and make the band sound better, we will. But as far as it goes, it’s a three way collaboration. Greg will get something and he can say, hey can you make this part four times longer, or it’s too long, I got a great vocal line, but it just needs to come in a couple bars, or can you go from part a to part b, or whatever. It’s very workable as far as that goes.
Rock My Monkey: What do you think Joe Marlett brought to the cd that would not have been there otherwise?
MARK ZONDER: In the beginning we were basically bringing him in to engineer. The way we do the record basically is he comes in, he gets the drum sounds, he goes home until I get done cutting all the drums. It’s all done. I do it all myself. I just track and I track and I track. Okay, we’re done. Okay, Wayne’s going to play the guitar now. Well, Joe comes over gets the sounds. Same thing with the bass, same thing with the vocal. When it came to the mix, though, what he really brought to it, besides the sonicness and just the sound that he brought-a very modern, in your face, not a lot of reverb, very powerful, dry sound-he also went through as we went and said like, guys, here’s a part, there’s two guitar parts, and there’s a keyboard part, but the keyboard part’s really not doing anything except cluttering it up. So he came and starred as The Butcher, is what I call him, and he was cleaning things up, because sonically, as much as musicians think they know what sounds great in their head, coming out of a pair of speakers in somebody’s car is a whole different story. And he really-that’s why-engineer, and the mastering engineer that we used. I told them both. This is what you guys do, your thing, knock yourselves out, and then we’ll talk about it when you’re done. I’m not going to sit there every day and you know, left kick, right kick, snare drum. You’ve heard this stuff long enough. You know what you think it should sound like. Do your thing, put your creative touch on it. That’s why we’re paying you, basically, to do your thing. Then when you’re done, we’ll talk about it if there’s something myself, Wayne and Greg don’t like. So basically Joe got done, and it was just sort of more like ‘Wow. Wow.’ Got a lot done there, sent it off for mastering, and came back, and it was the same thing. It was like, I told the guy ahead of time, you hear the material, you know it’s supposed to be modern, current, hip, cool on the radio type stuff. Just master it in that kind of theme. No problem. And it came back, and it kicked my ass. Again, it’s that whole thing of surrounding yourself with the right people. And letting them do what they want to do instead of standing on someone’s back. Same thing when it came down to the album, the artwork, Greg did the emblem on the cover, because Greg’s an artist, and Alex Solca shot the pictures. I had a basic, basic idea in the back of my head, sort of what I wanted to see where with the elements that we had. And I just turned them over to a guy named Brian Ames who does a lot of album covers, and he’s done them for me before in the past, and Brian, do whatever you think looks good, and then we’ll talk about it. And again, he does it, and I look at it, and I go, can you move that picture, I don’t like that a little bit, and can you move this a little bit? And that was it. It’s like, I’m not going to sit there and tell somebody who’s a professional at what they do, there’s no point. If that’s the case, I may as well just do it myself. But they’re obviously, like I was saying, getting back to what we talked about earlier, they’re better at it. They know what they’re doing. They’re professional. You hire them to do that job. Again, it’s just knowing the right people. That’s all.
Rock My Monkey: I noticed that as far as everything that I could find, no one is listed as producer. Would you say that the band self-produced the album, or was Joe Marlett a part of that?
MARK ZONDER: Do you have the actual album, or just the promo?
Rock My Monkey: I have just the promo.
MARK ZONDER: Okay. It’s on the album. Produced by Slavior and Joe Marlett. There’s a lot of credits on there. I definitely told him that in the very beginning, we’re just hiring you to engineer, and that’s great, and he was fine with it. When we got done, I said, Joe, we’re giving you production credit. Unfortunately I can’t pay you any more, but we’re definitely giving you production credit. And he was very, very blown away with that. To me it’s not a big deal. Maybe when I was twenty years old, I was a little more uptight, and everything had to be held, and really tight. But you get older, it’s more like, let everybody in on this, and if it happens, it will be enough for everybody, believe me. And I don’t know. He had a big impact. You can’t lie about it and you can’t say that he didn’t. The bottom line is I’m going to have him do the second album, as well. I just wanted to give the guy what he deserved, basically. Just about being fair. A word that you don’t hear much in the music business, but okay.
Rock My Monkey: Very true. Now, when do you think the full Slavior website will be up and running, and what can fans expect when it is done?
MARK ZONDER: We have the MySpace thing going. We had a guy that was going to be doing the website kind of thing. Right now, since the record’s not out, it’s sort of in the limbo stages. We’ve been posting the pictures and so on and so forth. With current things that are happening. Basically when things get up and running, things need to be posted, obviously upcoming shows, videos that are available to download and see, new pictures. At this point in the game it’s not a very active website, because right now the album hasn’t come out. The only thing that we’ve really done is played a couple shows, and that kind of thing, so there’s not a lot to report. I’m not a big fan of going to bands’ websites where nothing’s going on, but they try to make it look like something’s going on. It’s like, come on, check back when something’s going on. We’ll let you know.
Rock My Monkey: What are the chances of a full coast to coast U.S. tour sometime this year?
MARK ZONDER: It’s in the works as we speak. They’re looking to stick us in on opening slot.
Rock My Monkey: Sweet.
MARK ZONDER: The label is totally into it. The label gets it. That’s what the great thing is, the label gets it. They don’t say ‘Oh a prog band.’ They get it. They know where they can go with it. They know what kind of potential it has compared to the rest of the bands. Believe me, Inside Out’s got some great bands, but I don’t think they have anybody that they can legitimately go to American radio with and think that they’re going to be able to crack anything. The style of the bands they have aren’t made for commercial radio. Whereas Slavior there’s three to five different songs on that record that can go to radio without a problem. You’re talking about commercial radio, you can go to alternative radio with a couple tunes, you can go to metal radio with a couple tunes. They know that they have something on their hands that they can work for those places. Let’s face it. The radio is very powerful, obviously. Yes, you can tour, and you can do that, and you can beat yourself to death, but a little luck with the radio can really kickstart the band pretty nicely.
Rock My Monkey: Sweet. I do have one final question, but before I ask that final question, is there anything that maybe we haven’t talked about, any information that you want the readers of Rock My Monkey to know about?
MARK ZONDER: Well, just let them know that Mark Zonder didn’t quite touring, as it was supposedly reported with the whole Fates Warning thing. I didn’t quit touring. Just needed to do my own thing, and just needed to do what I wanted to do. I’m alive and kicking and we’re going, and like I said, we’re putting the songs together. We’ve played. We’re getting ready to play again. We want to go out and play. Definitely want to take this one a little bigger and better than I have bands in the past, that’s all.
Rock My Monkey: Cool. Like I said, I do have one final question. Every year we try and make up one final question that I ask every artist that I speak with, everyone from Jack Blades of Shaw Blades to the most extreme death metal bands, prog bands, everybody. Basically just to end every interview with a bang. So for 2007, I’m asking people to look into their crystal ball and predict what known celebrity, public figure, world leader, politician, musician, recording artist, anybody well known. Who do you think will die this year?
MARK ZONDER: (laughs) Wait. Are you sure you can’t get sued for this one?
Rock My Monkey: No, we’re just making a prediction. We’re not wishing death on anybody.
MARK ZONDER: Boy. Let me think about that one for a second.
Rock My Monkey: And you’re not the only person to be thrown for a loop on that question, so take you’re time.
MARK ZONDER: Wow, I would have had Anna Nicole Smith in there possibly, just because of what was going on up to that point.
Rock My Monkey: Too late!
MARK ZONDER: You should have called me two months ago.
Rock My Monkey: There isn’t any other well known celebrity that’s been partying too much lately?
MARK ZONDER: Yeah, sort of where I was going with that one. Courtney Love’s been out of the news lately.
Rock My Monkey: Courtney Love. Good one! I think you’re the first to predict that one. Britney Spears has been a popular choice lately.
MARK ZONDER: I don’t think so. I think she’s too… I don’t think she’s serious about it enough. (both laugh) Let’s face it. Courtney Love’s sort of been there and back, if you know what I mean. She knows what the real score is. Britney always just reminds me of like, not a kid playing around, but sort of a kid playing around. Yeah. There’s one for you.
Rock My Monkey: I just want to remind anybody that’s listening to the audio version of this that they can go to RockMyMonkey.com for the full featured version with clickable links, readable text, and a whole bunch of other great stuff. I thank you, Mark, for taking your time, and I hope everyone reading this can click the album cover that is above and below the interview to pre-order the upcoming self-titled debut from Slavior.
MARK ZONDER: I really appreciate the time, and your comments. I really appreciate it.
