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Recently, acclaimed Circus Diablo frontman Billy Morrison (ex-The Cult, Camp Freddy, to name only a few) was kind enough to take a break from his decidedly hectic schedule to speak with us regarding, among many other things, the forthcoming release of the group’s highly-anticipated self-titled debut…
Todd: How was Circus Diablo formed?
Billy Morrison: “I’ve read a lot of interviews where people talk about (the formation of their band) being an organic process, but…we weren’t aiming to start a band, ya know? I had been in The Cult and have known (lead guitarist) Billy Duffy for over twenty years. Billy said ‘…ya know, you and I should write some songs together…’. It started with me and Billy Duffy in my home studio and we wrote one song which didn’t even end up being on the record. …It’s a great song and it might end up on someone else’s record. I’m not gonna say anything more about that (laughs). …What it showed us is that we work really well together. That’s how it started and it grew pretty quickly. (Guitarist) Ricky Warwick is a long-time friend of both Billy and me. He had moved to America, so he came over and started writing. Before we knew it, we had fourteen or fifteen songs written. At that point…we didn’t think about record deals and large checks because basically, that doesn’t exist anymore (laughs). What we thought was ‘…wouldn’t it be fun to go grab (drummer) Matt Sorum?’ …He’s part of the family. We just thought it would be fun to go into his own studio, which is a top studio, and record this shit. Somewhere along that line, we realized we were making a record. ...I swear to God, some of the solos were literally done with Billy having his feet up. That’s why the solos on the record sound so good. There was literally no pressure. We weren’t sitting in there trying to make a record, ya know? Obviously when you’ve recorded seven tracks and you’re sitting in the studio listening to them play back, you start thinking ‘…I might have a band here. This is pretty cool…’ (laughs).”
Todd: What inspired the name Circus Diablo?
Billy: “…I could spout some shit to you for an answer, but the real honest truth is that there is no story (laughs). I thought the two words went well together and the imagery it conjured up was quite good. And then we went through a whole three month cycle of thinking of all the other crap names that you think about when you’re trying to name a band. We cam full circle and realized that Circus Diablo…the devil’s circus…a freakshow was perfect. I don’t know about you, but I relate to that. If it conjures up freakshow, then fuckin’ a, ya know? I have many pierced holes in my body, I’m covered in tattoos and I’ve always been the outsider, so welcome to my freakshow.”
Todd: Do you consider Circus Diablo a supergroup?
Billy: “I didn’t even think about it when we decided to do this as a band. …My reaction to the word supergroup is…I really hate that name. It puts so much expectation on the product and the band. And at the same time, it kinda dooms it to failure because there are so many bands that come out of the ashes of other bands and people are so quick to label them as supergroups. And lot of them don’t ever do anything. …All that I’ll say it that it is rather super to be able to play with these guys and it is a group. Take that as you will, ya know? Is Velvet Revolver a supergroup? No. I hate that term, but people are gonna use it so, whatever.”
Todd: Realistically, at this point, what are your expectations for the group?
Billy: “…This is really honest. I have learned through the course of my career to not have any expectations. …Right now, the music business is completely in the shitter. For me personally, my expectation is July the 3rd. On July the 3rd, the album we didn’t even know we were making gets released. And it gets released worldwide as well, ya know? We didn’t even know we were making a record. …We saw something through to completion on our own dime, we paid for it ourselves, we wrote it and we played on it. There’s no auto tune. We didn’t fake this shit and we wrote some great Rock songs. My expectations for it are that it actually gets released. Everything after that, for me personally, is a bonus. The fact that we might sell a few is fantastic. The fact that were gonna go on tour is amazing, ya know? I count my blessings every day that I don’t have to get up and go work down a coal mine or something…ya know? I live a blessed life and don’t have any expectations. Any day that I get to pick up a guitar is a fantastic day to me. …If you’re out there thinking you’re going to get a million dollar record contract… …The only way to be in the music business these days is to be passionate about making music, not about being famous. All of that shit is a bonus and sometime is comes and sometimes it doesn’t. This business is really hard and unforgiving. You’ve got to love making music. Luckily for me, I like making music.”
Todd: So no Pro Tools were harmed in the making of this record?
Billy: “You listen to the record and tell me. It’s so obvious on our record that we just didn’t do that. There’s a couple of tracks on there that we did in one day. We literally went in there, recorded everything in the morning and mixed it in the afternoon. …The whole record was done in three or four weeks.”
Todd: It definitely has a very live and loose feel to it…
Billy: “Yeah, and that comes from not Pro Tooling the living shit out of it. When we made this record, Matt Sorum didn’t own Auto Tune, so the vocals that you’re hearing…that’s me singing. That’s not a machine putting me in tune. The guitar solos…that’s Billy Duffy playing it in one take. …Half the fun of making this record was that we didn’t go in thinking we had to make the next Appetite For Destruction. We didn’t even know we were making a record, so we were just having fun. And I believe it translated. There’s an interesting track that ended up on the record called “Commercial Break”. It’s spoken word over some weird Billy Duffy soloing. The reason that’s on there is that albums are expected to have eleven songs on them. We chose to record ten songs, so I literally did spoken word poetry over a Billy Duffy solo in my front room and submitted that as the eleventh track and called it “Commercial Break” to make a statement.”
Todd: How did the group become involved with KOCH Records? What was the final deciding factor?
Billy: “…The reason we signed with KOCH is that KOCH understood what we’re doing. It wasn’t the only record deal that we were offered, but it was the only record deal that we were offered that looked like people believed in Rock music, guitars and actually promoting something, which is totally rare in this business (laughs). …To be honest, we were trying to stay true to what we were doing in the first place, which is a home-grown…affair. This wasn’t ‘…let’s form a supergroup, glossily produce a fantastically expensive album and go and try and fill arenas…’. That’s not what this is. How could you do anything but choose a record label that believes in the same thing? We’re kinda putting our money where our mouths are by not taking a bunch of money for this, ya know?”
Todd: What are your current touring plans?
Billy: “We’re going out on OzzFest and OzzFest is free, thanks to Sharon and Ozzy. What that also means that people don’t realize is that the bands don’t get paid either. The bands on OzzFest are not getting paid. We are not getting paid. Why are we doing it? Because we actually believe in making music. …I don’t believe a kid should pay three hundred dollars for a ticket. So therefore, we are doing our little bit to try and make something change here. …You can make your own record on your own money, put it out without having a million dollars and you can go out on tour across the country without two million dollar tour support.”
Todd: Financially, how does a group survive on tour without getting paid for the gigs?
Billy: “You’ve got to be resourceful and you’ve got to get clever. There are people out there that are big fans of what we are doing. Our bus, for instance, will be donated to us. We’ll also be doing another twenty four shows in amongst the OzzFest dates which we obviously will get paid for. That will help us with the budget, our label will give us a little money and we’ll put our own money into it. I’ve sunk a lot of personal money into this. We all have. The alternative is to sit around and complain about the music industry and not do anything, which a lot of people are doing. …Get out there and do something. Get out there and make a record, ya know? Embrace new media and the web, embrace digital downloads instead of buying it, embrace YouTube and embrace MySpace. Put a band together, get in an Enconoline van and go on fuckin’ tour, ya know? I’m not tryin’ to be controversial here. I live in Beverly Hills, okay? (laughs) …It doesn’t suck for me and I don’t drive a Bentley and I don’t have a big mansion in the hills. What doesn’t suck is that I’m makin’ music. I think we should all be grateful that we are still able to make music. …It’s a business in change and influx. You need to find a way to roll with that and groove with that.”
Todd: Any idea what type of set list you’ll be working with?
Billy: “Well, the OzzFest set is like twenty fucking minutes or something (laughs). Basically, you’re gonna get the best five. We’ve got a couple of covers that we like to do, which is also a good move to do. OzzFest is a heavy audience and we’re not so heavy, but that’s fine. I embrace that kinda of thing. We’ll play the single, the fast track off of the album and a cover or two and that’s it. We’ll be off in twenty minutes (laughs). …On the club dates, what we’ll be doing is giving you the best of the album. We’ll also maybe give you one or two tracks from the bands we’re associated with…maybe as well as a couple of tracks from bands that have influenced us. We do an Iggy Pop song, we do a Sex Pistols song and we covered an Adam And The Ants song on the record. So we’re not against doing a few covers. It’s always nice for an audience…they like a good cover. I think our aim is to show people the album is a good album, so we’ll be playing songs from the album. But I’m also no one for overkill, ya know? We won’t be onstage for an hour and a half. I’ll be asleep if we’re onstage for an hour and a half. You go on there, do a strong fifty minutes and you say ‘…see ya later…’. …Dude, do an hour and leave (laughs). That’s a fucking long time to watch a band, ya know?”
Todd: Once it became apparent that you would need to find a touring substitute for Matt, did you find it difficult to choose someone?
Billy: “Yeah, we did (laughs). …As much as I love Charles Ruggiero, who is now our drummer…Matt Sorum is, in my opinion, one of the best drummers in the world. In the last seven years, he’s been in the bands that I’ve been in, ya know? He was in The Cult when I was in The Cult and he’s been in Camp Freddy with me for five years. The dude is incredible. But you have to adapt and change. Having said that, we had a kid named Jeremy…play the gig last year, but he’s out with Steve Vai this year. Everyone needs to pay the bills, so he’s out with Steve Vai, which is fantastic. We found Charles, he played in a New York band called Slunt. Basically, Charles came in and smacked the shit out of the drums, much like what Matt does. Matt plays just really hard and tight. Charles play exactly the same way and it was pretty obvious that he was the guy. He also has a great sense of humor, plays like a motherfucker and wants to be on tour and that’s what we need because this is a Rock ‘n’ Roll band. …Charles is in.”
Todd: What is the current status of Camp Freddy?
Billy: “Camp Freddy goes from strength to strength and considering four years ago, we were gonna do one gig and call it a day, I think we’re doing pretty well. I think we’ve turned into possibly the biggest cover band in the world. We recently played a twelve thousand seat arena in Miami as part of the Bacardi Live series of gigs, so it was a completely full and amazing gig. Obviously with Velvet Revolver and Circus Diablo on tour, it’s a little hard to get together right now. But we are pursuing…I’ve got to be carefully here. I don’t want to blow anything. There are a lot of other things a band can do besides play gigs, ya know? There’s television and records. Camp Freddy is pursuing other things that we can do without having to get together. I think by the end of the year, once all of the touring has subsided, we’ll get together and do a couple of shows. Luckily, Camp Freddy live in the background like a fuckin’ Rottweiler tied to a chain that every now and again we take the collar off of and let it run around.”
Todd: Are there still plans for Camp Freddy to record an album?
Billy: “It’s still in the process. …We don’t have a major label breathin’ down our necks, tellin’ us what to do. We’re doin’ it with our own money. I think we’ve recorded seventeen songs. It’s been quietly ticking away in the background. Mike Clink in the producer and he owns his own studio, so… …Lack of pressure tends to produce better recordings. …Every now and then we’ll go in and record a guest or mix a song. Stuff has slowly been leaking out. We did a cover of Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” for the movie Employee Of The Month and I also think they put “20th Century Boy” in that movie as well. We released a Christmas song…a cover of Slade’s “Merry Christmas Everybody” last year. There’s recorded shit out there now. …We’re takin’ our time. Sooner or later, the album will get finished and be done.”
Todd: At what point did you realize that your time with The Cult was coming to an end?
Billy: “…The Cult is Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy. That’s the core. If you look at their history, there’s a string of bass players and drummers. I am just proud and happy to be a part…a small part of that band’s legacy and history. It wasn’t really realizing that things were coming to an end. The Cult does everything in cycles and I was a part of the Beyond Good And Evil cycle. When that came to a halt, the bad stopped touring and I went off and formed Camp Freddy, formed another band that I did for a little while and just carried on. …They never have the same line-up for more than two years. I was just a small part of that story. ...And quite rightly because Ian and Billy write those songs. That is the band…but I thank them both for letting me be part of Rock history, really.”
Todd: Musically, what are your influences?
Billy: “I’m very well known for putting the Sex Pistols at the top of the list. The Pistols really changed my life. The Pistols made me realize that I could actually do this. That I didn’t need to go to work in a factory. Beyond the Pistols, I think of David Bowie, the Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane eras… …Of the more modern, (Nine Inch Nails frontman) Trent Reznor is a huge influence and I have a massive amount of respect for him…”
Todd: Wow…
Billy: Does that surprise you?
Todd: Yeah, it does actually…
Billy: Why is that?
Todd: When I think of Trent Reznor, I think of Pretty Hate Machine and “Head Like A Hole”…
Billy: “I thought you would say that. Here’s the thing…I don’t necessarily have to like what I sound like. The lyrics that I write come from the same part of the head that Trent writes from. We just write in different ways. He’s had some tortured times in his life as have I. I relate to that and greatly respect the way he has translated his tortured times into his music. I think the imagery that goes with Nine Inch Nails is fantastic. I also have a very wide and eclectic taste in music. I love English bands like The Wildhearts…they're one of my favorite bands, I think. Obviously I love the classics, the staples like AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and the Aerosmith’s of this world, ya know? But I also have a great love for Stone Temple Pilots, Alice In Chains and some of the Soundgarden stuff. I’m basically a Rock ‘n’ Roll guy. I love anything that seems real.”
Todd: Where do you see yourself in ten years?
Billy: “On a beach in Hawaii running a coconut shack. No, I don’t know. Recently, I started acting. I’m in the middle of shooting a horror move right now called Evilution. I shot a movie last year…it was just a small part and this movie now is a three week shoot. It’s bigger and it’s fun. I love acting and would like to do a lot more of it. Where do I see myself in ten years? I would not deem to even try and answer that because ten years ago, if you had told me what I would be doing right now, I would have called you a liar. To come from where I was to where I am now is nothing but someone else’s doing, because I always try and fuck everything up. So someone’s looking after me and they obviously have a plan for me (laughs). Where do I see myself tonight? At the party down the street that I’m going to. That’s about all that I know.”
Todd: You sound like your own worst enemy?
Billy: “Yeah, I have been, but when I stop trying to control shit and the end result and just focus on the process and enjoying the journey of whatever it is that I’m doing, the results take care of themselves. With that kind of headspace, me thinking about ten years from now…who the fuck knows? Someone might see this movie that I’m doing and I’ll end up being the next Jared Leto. Who knows.”