Rock My Monkey: Hello, you are listening to the Rock My Monkey netcast on RockMyMonkey.com. Today we are speaking with Lizzy Borden about his band’s new cd, Appointment With Death. How are you doing today, Lizzy?
Rock My Monkey: Cool. Now, how much of a challenge was it to do a concept record about death without going for the overly morbid clichés that so many metal bands today use?
Lizzy Borden: Well, that was the challenge. I mean, the last album I did was called Deal With The Devil, and I played the devil. So this one, when I decided I wanted to play death, I was trying to figure out how to be able to incorporate that within all the song without just talking about funerals and stuff. Really I was able to just vent through different characters throughout the whole thing. I talk about, you know, pretty much death is in the room on every song, whatever character is talking about suicide, or war, or various different topics that is the main theme throughout Appointment With Death. But yeah, I was trying not to just go for the easy kill there. I was really trying to get inside the minds of the characters and what they were thinking while they were about to do the things that they were about to do.
Rock My Monkey: One thing I noticed about listening to this album is, and with actually listening to all your stuff throughout your career is that there’s a real sense for the craft of songwriting. Do you think that a false sense of brutality has replaced that craft of songwriting in metal today?
Lizzy Borden: In some bands, yeah. They’re just going for the easy kill. It’s about crushing the senses so you don’t even notice that there’s really not a song in there. What we try and do is we are involved in the craft. And even after, you know, usually a song will appear in its basic form, and it’s there, but for the most part you really want to try and dig down deep and see what else is involved. There’s so many different melody lines. There’s so many ways to do guitar solos. There’s so many different avenues that you can make. If you write songs for a long period of time, you would want to chase those down, which is kind of what we do.
Rock My Monkey: How was it working on the new cd with your new guitarist, Ira Black? How did he affect the evolution of the Lizzy Borden sound?
Lizzy Borden: He was instrumental in coming in and giving us kind of a-we wanted to go a little heavier, but we didn’t want to be the clichéd band trying to go heavy. We really wanted to try and adapt the Lizzy Borden, the traditional Lizzy Borden sound, but also update it a little bit. And he was perfect for that because he came in as a Lizzy Borden fan, and that helps a lot because he knew the history, and he knew what the band needed and what it was lacking guitar-wise. So he came in and gave us that and Ira was just absolutely amazing at that. We auditioned a lot of different players, and he came in and nailed it right away. Stuff that he does to the old material just enhances it without changing it, and all the stuff he brought to the new record is absolutely amazing.
Rock My Monkey: Other than the concept of death, is there anything else fans should listen to within the lyrics, like an actual storyline, for example?
Lizzy Borden: Well, in all the records, I make theme records. I just pick a theme and then I go with it. All the songs connect together. I write a little kind of a sketchy script that all the characters go through. They all interconnect together. But at the same time I don’t like to shove a concept down people’s throats. If I ever did a concept record like Tommy, it definitely would be a different sort of record. But this one I want all the songs to individually stand up on their own. And I think they have. But if you dig down deep and you read the lyrics, you can see how they connect together. The different characters that are speaking, are definitely, they’re in the same position throughout the whole album. And we also kind of have a sub-plot in there where we’re playing the four horseman, and each guy is obviously a different horseman. So that’s kind of a subplot through the whole thing. But really it’s down to digging down deep into the lyrics. If you want to dig down deep it’s all there. And if you don’t, you just want to listen to have fun, then that’s there, too. So you don’t have to be tied down to the concept.
Rock My Monkey: You have guest players on here that are an extremely diverse mix of metal legends. Did you go after George Lynch and Erik Rutan with that goal of diversity in mind?
Lizzy Borden: Well, each guy came to the project a different way. George Lynch was a friend of bass player, Martin Anderson. Martin actually plays in the George Lynch band whenever they play around. He’s the bass player. So it was one of those things where we asked him, we said we had a perfect song for him to do. He loved the idea. He heard the song and loved it, so he came in and blasted away. Erik came in because he actually mixed the record, and he was affiliated with Brian Slagel from Metal Blade Records, our label. He was the one who got that connection together. Corey from Trivium, I met him through someone else, and he was a really big Lizzy Borden fan, so when it came time to doing this, I just called him and up and said ‘You want to come down and do a solo?’ They were touring at the time and when they came into L.A. he came into the studio and blasted one out. Each guy came, and then Dave Meniketti who was from Y&T, just a dream guitar player for me, because when I was a kid I was in front of the stage while he was playing his Les Paul, just absolutely amazing memories for me. So to have him on this record is real special for me. So each guy came to the project a different way. They’ve all put their stamp on it. It just really makes, it makes each song really unique.
Rock My Monkey: Did any of the guest musicians add anything that would shock anyone? For example, did George Lynch play on one of the more thrashy songs, or Corey playing on one of the more 80’s sounding songs, like Under Your Skin?
Lizzy Borden: Well, actually Corey played on kind of a traditional Lizzy Borden song, song Abnormal. George played on The Death Of Love, which to me really wasn’t his style, but that’s why I picked it for him, because it was just something a little bit different. When he listened to it, he loved it, but he didn’t know what to do with it. So he just started playing, and for about two hours just playing solos all over the song. And Corey came in, and when he did Abnormal he nailed it. He knew exactly what the song needed, and he put it on there and did it in one take. Each guy had their different idea on what the song needed. I let them run with it when they came in. Dave did it at his own studio. I think he did it one take, too. He just got it. Each guy I kind of gave a song to that I kind of had an idea would grasp what needed to be done. I could hear their soloing on that particular song. So for the most part everyone just got it right away and knew exactly what to do.
Rock My Monkey: You worked with Ralis Kahn on the artwork, stage, and makeup. How much of that was a collaboration, and how much was you just letting him go with the basic concept?
Lizzy Borden: You know, I had everything to do with it. It was basically, Ralis came to us. We did a tour with W.A.S.P. last summer, and I wanted to do some things for that. So he came in on that. So when it came time to do the album cover, I called him up, I told him about the lyrics, I told him about the concept. I told him kind of what I wanted to do, and then he threw a whole bunch of ideas. Just both of us batting ideas back and forth. Once we got what we wanted, and we kind of agreed okay, this is where we want to go, then he just took the ball and rolled. He really put the whole thing together. Him and Alex Solca, who took pictures, they just did, between the both of them set the scene up. It was just, kind of a surreal painting almost, the cover. It’s definitely one of my favorite covers that we’ve done. They did a great job.
Rock My Monkey: What song on this cd do you think has a chance of being a legendary Lizzy Borden song, like “Me Against The World”? What song do you think fans are going to demand for decades to come?
Lizzy Borden: You know, it’s hard for me to say. I have my different favorites that go on. As far as the “Me Against The World” anthem, I don’t know that we even chased down an anthem on this record. But I don’t know. I know the first single, the title track is out there now, “Appointment With Death”. People are really responding well to it. It’s a fun song. But the first video song that we’re going to do is a song called “Tomorrow Never Comes”. We’re actually going to shoot that video. We’re finalizing a director right now. We’re also going to shoot that within the next week or so. But as far as what sticks, I don’t know. There’s different songs that speak different-that’s what we try to do with each record. We want each song to be individual. You never know. I’m just now, every time we go out, there’s fifteen year old kids that come up to me and say ‘We love Master Of Disguise’ and different songs within that album that I never thought would be the song they would hang their hat on, but they do. You just never know. I don’t know. It’s one of those things we’ll have to figure out as we go along. We’re playing a lot of the new album on the set. We’ve had our second rehearsal so far putting the live show together. I know the songs that are powerful in the studio, and I think they’re going to translate well live. We’ll see.
Rock My Monkey: What do you think Appointment With Death offers fans that most metal bands just don’t offer fans anymore?
Lizzy Borden: Well, I think we try and get a visual side where you’re listening to the music, but you’re also getting the picture. It’s not just one dimensional banging your head to the music, or whatever. You’re actually going to get into the storyline of it all, without even knowing what the storyline is, just because it’s kind of poetic in a way, lyrically, so you can really interpret all the lyrics your own way, and how they identify with your own life. So I think that the visual aspect of it, when they’re listening, they can kind of picture things that we bring to the table, where other bands kind of ignore that side of it. So I’m hoping that people identify with it.
Rock My Monkey: What do you think that Joey Scott brought to the cd as a co-producer that would not have been there otherwise?
Lizzy Borden: Well, he’s really the guy, he makes things happen. With all the stuff that we want to do, we say ‘Okay, we want to do this,’ and he actually makes it happen. Makes everything turn on. He’s the only one that knows how to work anything. (laughs) So really, I come with the vision, and a lot of the major ideas, and he opens the door and makes it all happen, makes it, gets it to the position where we can actually do it. Otherwise really we’d be in a situation where we’d have to bow down to whatever anybody else came in with other ideas that were not ours, and it would be kind of a conflict. It’s very hard to find a producer that’s on the same page. We’ve had lots of great producers, but some of them were not making the same record that we were making. So Joey brings that, like, we want to do this. Okay, let’s do it. It’s not about being confined to someone else’s ideas. He’s in the loop. He knows exactly what we’re doing.
Rock My Monkey: You worked for two days with photographer Alex Solca doing photos for this cd. Is this going to be like a live action comic book? What is there that fans can expect if they buy the physical cd release as opposed to iTunes?
Lizzy Borden: Well, we’re hoping we’re creating the imagery of the lyrics of the record, and the music and everything, so when you’re actually looking at these photos, you’re actually picturing the whole concept behind it. That’s the reason why it’s kind of tragic these things are going straight to the iPod, because you’re missing the whole imagery of it all. So we went all out to try and create the imagery of it all, and create the characters within the band, and translate that to the visual. It’s kind of a surreal painting, and that’s kind of what we’re hoping for. So it kind of invites people right in, right out of reality, right into the thing. So it’s kind of a live action comic book, I guess. We wished we could have done even more. If it was a 72 page booklet, we could have easily filled it. There was so many pages, so many different shots to choose from. But we kind of just narrowed it down to two different setups. The reality kind of impact from the lyrics to the picture world.
Rock My Monkey: Maybe a more detailed version can be released as an actual photo book that fans can buy direct from your website or something.
Lizzy Borden: Absolutely. You know, and as we create the show, the show is going to be a huge part, obviously, of the record, so there’s going to be even more of that, too. There could be an actual booklet in the future. Especially if everything goes straight to iTunes. We will never neglect that part of it. So we’ll have to do it on our own and translate that to the fans some way, as far as visual goes.
Rock My Monkey: Now, fifteen hours worth of video footage was also filmed during the two day shoot, I hear. What will be done with that video footage?
Lizzy Borden: Well, we’re working on that now. We’re going to piece some of it together. We filmed the whole ‘making of’ and all of that stuff. We always have the camera on. But we actually filmed the whole experience of the photo shoot, which was kind of a surreal thing in and of itself, because there was the girls on the cover, and the band, and the crew and everybody else spent time to make this whole thing happen, and trying to create art, really. When you’re trying to do that, it’s kind of behind the scenes footage. We’re going to do probably a little trailer right before the album gets released of just kind of snippets of all that. And eventually it’ll probably make it onto a full ‘making of’ Appointment With Death once we kind of do the touring thing, because we would love to add some of the live stuff in there, too, as well. But we have lots of footage from the ‘making of’ on down to the photo shoot, on down to some of the live stuff we did last summer. And now creating the new show right now, we’re even shooting that.
Rock My Monkey: Will there be a video single for this release?
Lizzy Borden: Yes. Tomorrow Never Comes, we’re going to start that in I think in, I would say no more than two weeks. We’re still finalizing a director. And once we finalize a director and get a treatment in and figure out exactly what kind of video we want to do, I’m sure it’ll be on the edges of something surreal, and really kind of-you know, trying to do something interesting, but also traditional. If I can get somewhere in the middle, meet somewhere in the middle where it’s an entertaining video to anyone, it’s not just an artistic statement. To me it’s all about entertainment. I’m not trying to be an art guy, or anything. If we can get something in the middle there, that’s what we’re looking for. We hope to shoot that in the next couple of weeks.
Rock My Monkey: When people see this show live, how much of the theatrical aspect will you be able to bring on tour?
Lizzy Borden: Well, the first little-I think we’re going to the East Coast the end of, next month, I think. These are fly-in dates, so obviously we can’t bring the whole show with us. So we’re going to bring as much of it as we can. And then I think we’re just doing a few dates on the East Coast. And then we’re going to do kind of a mini European tour. And then we finish off in the U.K. And then that’ll take us to the end of the year. There’s some ideas going out as far as us playing with other bands next year that might end up taking as all the way to May. So it might take until May until we actually get the full blown show, headlining show up and running. But we plan on touring for a year, year and a half on this album. The show is being put together now, but like I said, some of them are going to be fly-in dates, so you’ll see partial, parts of the show, of the big show. But as we go along the show’s going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. It’s going to be fun.
Rock My Monkey: Cool. Now, what do you think is more important in a live show? Getting the notes right, or making it a memorable show?
Lizzy Borden: Well, both, really. If you can’t play your instrument and move, then your music is too difficult. And if it’s too simple then it’s not that interesting to play. So you have to have a meeting of the minds there and be able to do both. I always pick players who actually have personalities onstage, and that have an interaction with the audience. I don’t want the audience to be disconnected from the show. I want them to be involved in the show. And the only way that is, is if the people on the stage are actually communicating through their instruments to the crowd. And that’s kind of the way we’ve always done it, that we have are just absolutely the best. They’re amazing players. People, if they’re coming just to see guitar playing or bass playing or drumming, they’re going to be overwhelmed just by that. But they’re also great performers. So you’re going to see everything. You’re going to see everything. And I think that the other bands that just stand there and play, I think that we’re still giving them a run for their money as far as playing-wise. This stuff ain’t simple.
Rock My Monkey: You talked a little bit about hitting the U.K. a little bit, and maybe doing some fly-in East Coast dates. But when will a full coast to coast tour of the U.S. happen?
Lizzy Borden: There’s a big tour happening next year in January. And if we’re on it, we’ll be the support act on it, so obviously we can’t bring our big show as a support act. But it’s a bigger tour so it seems like if we end up doing it, it’s going to be a great tour. It’s a long tour, too. So like I said, by the time we actually get our headlining tour up and running coast to coast, it may be May. It may be May before that happens. But the show we’re working on is utterly amazing and it’s going to be a lot of fun. And it’ll be worth it. And all the stuff we do leading up to that will be pieces of the show. We’re doing so far, the headlining stuff we’re going to do for Europe is a long show we’re doing. A lot of songs from the new album, and we’re doing of course all the fan favorites over the years from all the other records. It’s going to be fulfilling in that way, but also when we bring the big show, that’s going to even take it up a notch, another notch.
Rock My Monkey: Kind of going along with the theme of death, is Starwood dead and gone, or is that going to be picked up again?
Lizzy Borden: The record is just almost done. We got to the point where we were just about, I just needed backing vocals to put on some of the songs, and then mix it, and then it would have been done. But then we got the bug to do another Lizzy record and start touring and doing all that again, so we decided to put it on hold. But it’s almost done. As soon as I get a minute I’m going to actually go in and finish it. And we’re going to release it, and we will tour on it. We just got to find that right place to put it out, the right label to put it out on, everything. It’s a great record. It really is so much better than the first one. So no, Starwood is still alive and well. It’s just sitting there waiting for us when we get a minute.
Rock My Monkey: I do have one final question. All year long we’ve been, we’ve actually been asking bands to join in on our own little death pool of sorts. We’ve asked this question to everyone from classic rock legends to the most extreme death metal bands. Partially to stump people, but also just to see who wusses out and won’t answer. So if you could name any political figure, world leader, musician, celebrity, anybody well known, anybody world wide famous, who do you think might die before the end of the year?
Lizzy Borden: (laughs) Oh man! Oh god.
Rock My Monkey: For a guy that is putting out an album with the concept of death, I’m hoping you won’t wuss out on this.
Lizzy Borden: I think the end may be near. I’m not sure. I sense a collapse there.
Rock My Monkey: Cool. Well, I thank you very much for doing the interview. And anybody that’s listening to the audio version can go to RockMyMonkey.com for the full featured version with clickable links, readable text, and many more wonderful features. I’m asking everybody to click on the album cover above and below this interview to purchase Appointment With Death by Lizzy Borden. And I do hope to see you guys up on tour up in the Northwest, hopefully it sounds like in the spring. And I thank you very much for your time.
