| Such
great things are happening for David Defeis and Virgin Steele that it
totally amazes me! No wonder heavy metal lives more in Europe – in Germany
an Opera company has decided to give selected Virgin Steele albums a
go on the opera circuit with full theatrical production! Never before
have I heard of such a thing for an actual heavy metal band. Sure the
Who had “Tommy” and King Diamond had Granny and Missy and “them” but
this is something just as special. I urge all fans within Germany’s
proximity to attend this monumentous occasion! Is this truly Dominion
Day…? -Josh
Cook
I
hear from Noise that you have just completed the new album!
“The first act (act one) of a double album.
The first part, “The House of Atreus-act one Kingdom of the Fearless”
(that’s the full title) is due out September 27th. Act two will be out
probably January or Febuary.” Will
this be kind of like a Marrige of Heaven and Hell part two double
concept album?
“Yeah! Yeah, it’s a heavy metal romantic
opera based on ancient Greek myths.”
Invictis
had a basis in Greek mythology correct?
“Well there was some filtering of Greek,
Roman, Nordic, Sumerian… all different kinds of mythology in there
but it wasn’t really based solely on Greek myths per se. It was a
story of my own invention-my own mythology. Invictis was actually
the 3rd part of a trillogy that began with the Marrige of Heaven and
Hell part one. And that’s also going to be an opera that’s going to
be staged in the year 2001 in the spring season in the German city
of Memingen (I doubt I spelled that right! –JC) the same ones that
just put on the “House of Atreus” opera. The same company will be
doing it.”
You’re
doing an actual staged production Opera?
“yeah!”
Wow!
“The Atreus work has already premired
June 3rd in Germany.”
That’s
really amazing!
“Hey, we don’t fuck around here with Virgin
Steele ya know? Ha ha!”
How
many characters are in an opera like that?
“Uh, the stage production had I belive
11 characters.”
How
long is the well, can “set” be the right word?
“The set was about 2 hours… between the
two albums that are coming out I actually wrote about 3 hours worth
of music. The Act One CD is a little over 74 minutes and the second
part will be about that long too, they didn’t use all the music in
the stage production, they couldn’t possibly have cause it would have
been about 5 hours long! They did use a good collection of the material
and I made special edits for them…”
(The
following is a jumble of my excited questions combined with David
trying to answer them all so I’ll go to the next spot on the tape
where I shut up and let him talk…)
“…I
prepared special edits on CD for them so only their vocals were live
and we’re pounding away in the background. It was the easiest course
of action to take because I couldn’t really be there because I had
to be in the studio making the records by the deadline, so I kinda
did double duty that way.”
Have
you been able to watch the entire show?
“Yeah, I saw it, I saw the premire, it
was quite good. It was quite successful, people really liked it it
was getting standing ovations, they added extra shows to the performances
and they sold out in a matter of hours people are very keen to see
it.”
How
many shows did they do for that?
“I think to date it’s 18. We’re gonna
take it on tour once the second CD comes out then we’ll play it live,
like the Who did “Tommy” or anything like that but we’re not gonna
do any major touring until the second CD comes out. So I’m kind of
finishing the first CD, now I’m going back into the studio and finishing
up the second one.”
Since
they’ve become operas we can assume that obviously there is gonna
be a lot of symphonics on these records?
“Yeah, it’s kinda like Invictis was but
a little more so. There’s quite a bit of variations of styles, there’s
very aggressive things and all of a sudden it breaks down into something
more classical sounding and then comes back, there’s all kinds of
elements. It’s still heavy, still metal but it’s also quite symphonic
at times.”
You
know I noticed that there was no photo inside the Invictis CD was
there a reason for this?
“There wasn’t a photo in Marrige in Heaven
and Hell part two either… I just got to the point where I wasn’t interested
in photos anymore. There’s just so much text we just couldn’t be bothered
at the time to do a shoot, there was nothing I really liked when it
comes to the photos – maybe if there’s something I like we’ll put
it in.”
What
do you think of the rebirth of heavy metal in the spotlight again?
Do you think Noise opening up an office here again will assist bringing
metal back into the US?
“Well, if they do their job correctly
and get some co operation from the media here then it could happen.
I’m not expecting it to be super huge like it was in the 80’s but
it should be something. And that’s OK, I’m not concerned with it whatever’s
gonna happen will happen. If everything is working and people wanna
get into what we’re doing and get back into metal then great ya know?
As long as they get into it seriously and not like a trendy thing
where it’s big for a year and then it’s out again. I’m not interested
in that. If they’re really keen on it then let’s go, we got the music
let’s crank it out!”
Has
Virgin Steele been playing Greece lately, I remember seeing plenty
of features on Virgin Steel in the Metal Invader magazine- they seem
to love Virgin Steele…
“Greece is a good home for us, Greece
Germany most of those countries are quite good. We finished up (the
invictis tour) last year in August at the Wacken Open Air Festival
we played in front of 15,000 people it was quite good. Ever since
then I came back wrote this opera, recorded all the first album and
most of the second album and went over there (to Germany) for the
premire and now at some point I’ll be going back over there for promotion
for the first part, act one.”
Do
you have any favorite tales from the road?
“Tales from the road, I have many tales
from the road, but uh heh heh heh, yeah! There’s been some amazing
cities we’ve played and adventures traveling to get to some of these
cities. I really enjoyed going through the Pirinees in Spain, the
Pirinees mountains was pretty scary in a tourbus. But I think one
of the best sights for me we had played over in Italy and we were
going to Greece for the first time and we went by ferry and
dawn was just coming over the horizon and we were seeing this gorgeous
blue water and these mountains and I said “We are in the home of the
gods”, it was the most amazing thing I will always remember that.”
I
remember reading that Defeis (pronounced: Dee-Fay) was rooted in Celtic/Druidic
mythology, are you interested in Celtic mythology?
“I’m interested in all mythologies,
I read it all wether it’s Celtic, Sumerian whetever it is, I enjoy
it. I find that all the myths are similar, they have their differences
but they are all quite similar as well, there’s like a core thing
that they all have. It makes you think of like, language. We’re all
speaking words a German or Greek person might have a different word
for a chair than we have in the States but it’s the same thing, it
serves the same function. So I think theres quite a lot of overlapping
similarity, moreso than their differences. It’s something you see
the more you read these things.”
How
has the line up been through the years of Virgin Steele I thought
I heard about some guy from Foghat being in there?
“No, nobody from Foghat was ever in the
band. I was in a band with the bass player for Foghat, it wasn’t Virgin
Steele. It was a band called Smokestack Lightening, the old blues
term “smokestack lightening”, that was a cool band! It’s just that
we never recorded anything, we just did strictly live shows. Unfortunately
the band broke up before we could record anything. It was me, Jack
Starr (who was the original guitarist for Virgin Steele), Craig MacGregor
(the Bass player from foghat), and um, this young kid named Kieth
Zabrowski on drums. It was a good band but it wasn’t Virgin Steele.
“Virgin Steele has had some memebrs changes
but it’s remained stable for great lengths of time. The original line
up changed one member, the guitar player changed. We got Edward Prissino
in the band since 1984 (replacing Jack Starr) he’s been here. We only
changed the drummer full on the Invictis album. The bass player, the
bass player was a strange thing, he was in the band up until the Age
of Consent and a little beyond but he didn’t actually play on Age
of Consent. So as far as recording goes we’re mostly in house we don’t
have gues people come in I played bass mostly on that record, Ed played
a little bit of the bass. Rob DeMartino who is the bass player on
a large part of Invictis, he did all our touring with us, or major
touring through Europe. He wasn’t there on the Marrige albums
though, it was strange the kinda guy who comes and goes. But we never
got anybody to replace em we just did it ourselves. So the core of
me and Edward has bee pretty stable since 1984.”
Anything
that you would like to mention in closing?
“I say, check the records out, and have
a good time with them – ha ha! I think will like the new album if
they like the Invictis album, it picks up where that one left off
and goes several places beyond, so if you like the symphonic element
and you like the aggression the album should work for you. I say hello
to everybody in the states, I hope you can get this record a lot easier
than you could the last ones, and at some point we will get around
to touring here again –ha ha! We do want to cause we do live here!”
(in the USA)
It
must be bothersome not to be able to find your own albums here.
“Well, I kinda got over that a long time
ago, I sort of forgot all about it because there was no cooperation
from any labels or radio here so I said well fuck it let’s concentrate
on Europe, and Europe has been good to us. But if anybody in the states
has a problem getting any of our stuff just write to the fan club
and I will personally see that you get it, no problem!“
Final
comments?
“By the gods to your magazine and your readers
and hopefully we’ll see you on tour or somewhere out in the world!” |
