Recently, legendary Lillian Axe guitarist Steve Blaze was kind enough to take a break from his decidedly hectic scheduled to speak with us regarding, among many other things, the forthcoming release of the group’s long-awaited “comeback” Waters Rising…

Todd: How was Lillian Axe originally formed?

 

Steve Blaze: “…I formed the band on Halloween night in 1983.  It was a while ago.  We had four members at that time.  …The name just kinda popped into my head while I was driving around.  I had just seen the movie Creepshow and wanted to have a strange sinister old lady name.  It just popped into my head with no real meaning to it.  …For the next four years, we played all through the south and built up a big following before we even got our first record deal.  …We were just young pups playin’ everywhere…learning a lot.  Let’s just put it that way.  At that time, the live music scene was a whole lot different than it is now.  Just throughout Louisiana, there were probably twenty five or thirty good Rock clubs.  You could play four or five days a week in different clubs every single month.  But it’s a lot different now pretty much worldwide.”

 

Todd: In hindsight, do you feel it’s fair the group was so often categorized as a Hair Metal or Glam Metal band?

 

Steve: “...That’s something that you can never get out of, so instead of like trying to argue about it or worry so much about it…  People are gonna do and say what they want.  They’re gonna pout you in a category no matter what.  You can’t control it no matter what you say.  We came out in the ‘80’s, but our biggest selling records were all in the ‘90’s, so…I don’t even know what to say about it.  We we’re on MTV when all that type of stuff was popular, so we got lumped into it, but so what?  It’s not really a bad thing.  Here we are in 2007 and I still have long hair.  I don’t look like I did back then and I don’t dress the same…but people change whether or not you were in a band.  …People do harp a lot about it, but it’s just a lack of more intelligent things for people to say.  …If you’re gonna say that, be intelligent and know the background, ya know?  One thing we are fortunate about is that we didn’t rely so much on our image that it’s difficult for us to try and reemerge right now, ya know?  It was always about the music and people knew we took it seriously.  Comparatively speaking, we were more of a musician’s band than a lot of the bands that had big commercial success that relied on the image to a large degree.  I think that’s kinda helping us right now, ya know?  Take a great band like Twisted Sister.  When they come out now, all people remember to a large part, is this crazy image, ya know?”

 

Todd: As far as opportunities for commercial success are concerned, do you feel the group would have been better off had they relocated to L.A. or even New York?

 

Steve: “You know what?  I have no idea.  I really don’t.  Living in L.A….I think the only benefit it would have had was getting into certain circles, ya know?  Other opportunities, maybe other tours.  But then again, it could have been the kiss of death as well.  You know what they say…you take a right turn instead of a left and the whole entire course of your life changes right there.  So we’ll never know what could have happened.  Us moving out there could have caused somebody to go on a different path or whatnot.  …The fact of the matter is that it’s never good for your spirit to move away from you family and the place you call home, ya know?  I think that may be one of the reasons that we’ve had longevity even though we’ve had a few member changes.  The essence of the band has had longevity because we never did get lumped into that L.A. crowd.  Maybe that’s why no one in the band has OD’d or gone to jail (laughs).  We’ve just tried to keep our heads together.”

 

Todd: What led to (original frontman) Ron Taylor’s departure from the group?

 

Steve: “…After Psychoschizophrenia…we had toured a lot and everybody was pretty burnt out.  After watching (the now defunct) I.R.S. (Records) do a great job and then drop the ball and then go out of business right after that, we were upset with the label, a little tired of each other a needed a break.  I wanted to start a new musical project, so we all decided to just chill for a while.  Everybody went off and did their own thing.  Then, back in ’99, we decided to get back together again.  During the whole time that we had been off, we’d had a lot of fan requests.  The fans worldwide didn’t let us die, basically.  …We were getting a lot of E-Mail requests for us to get back together, so we did some reunion things and they ended up going really well.  …That’s when we put (the compilation) Fields Of Yesterday out.  Then, a couple of years later, we put the live album (Live 2002) out.  During this whole time, I had been writing things for a new record.  I knew I wanted to go back out and do a new Lillian Axe record and the other guys did, too.  But Ron was always not quite sure if he wanted to continue on even playing music because he knew that if we had a new record out, we’d be out on the road, we’d be doing press and we’d have to jump back into it again.  It wasn’t something he wanted to get back into doing.  Plus, I think he wanted to try some different musical things as well.  I guess he really felt he couldn’t balance the two.  The last thing we did with him was like three years ago.  I’m not sure of the exact date.  We played the Bang Your Head festival in Germany and did a show in Switzerland and at that time, he made the decision that he really just wanted to step down.  It was a kinda tough decision, but there wasn’t a big heated argument or anything.  No soap opera thing like people would like to hear, ya know?  He was just like ‘…I don’t really wanna do this anymore guys.  I wanna try some new things with my life and I wanna step down…’.  It was amicable.  …We always got along really well.  We had a few disagreements here and there, but they were usually about band-related things and never on a personal level.”

 

Todd: Did you ultimately find it difficult finding someone who could accurately emulate Ron’s vocal style?

 

Steve: “Well, that’s always a tough thing to do, especially in a singer type situation.  It’s easier to find a drummer or bass player, ya know?  They can pretty much walk into a situation, take over and play the same parts the other guy did and mimic what was done.  But when you’re trying to come in and take over for a singer, you’ve already got an established voice, ya know?  Fans are really, really picky.  That was my biggest fear.  As it is, a lot fans get upset and don’t even wanna give it a chance, not matter what, ya know?  …So I knew we really had a difficult situation.  We listened to a lot of people.  There were some established guys that we were talkin’ to that we had considered that were really good singers but we had seven albums in our back catalog.  If we had brought someone in, regardless of whether or not they were a unknown singer or not…it would have been really difficult no matter how good the new record might have been and how good they sound on that new record.  The fact is, when you have that much history, you have to have someone that fills out what those albums were all about.  We got lucky because (vocalist) Derrick (LaFevre) has been in a lot of bands over the years.  As a matter of fact, he was in a band that used to open for Lillian Axe when he first started.  He called me and told me ‘…I got the gig…this is my gig…’.  He told me that it was his gig and that I needed to stop looking for other people.  …I sent him some tapes of just the music of some things and told him to do his thing so I could hear him on some of our old catalog stuff…  So he did and it was just uncanny how much he sounded just like Ron.  I’ll be honest with ya…for people that aren’t up on all the history of the band and have only heard the new record…they’re not gonna know the difference.  The response has been overwhelming, even from critics that wanted to hate it.  He sounds very similar to Ron but at the same token, he does have a different type of texture which is very refreshing and strong, which brings a new kind of flavor to the band all the while still sounding very similar to Ron.  It was a blessing and we’re very fortunate that we could hook up with this guy.”

 

Todd: Do you consider this to be the definitive Lillian Axe line-up?

 

Steve: “I’ve always thought every single line-up was (laughs).  But there is definitely something fresh, unique and tighter about this line-up, ya know?  …In the past, because we were touring constantly and doing record after record, there wasn’t a lot of time to just chill out because we always felt like we always had to be doing something to further the band’s career from minuet to minuet.  …We never got a chance to sit back and enjoy anything.  There was just constant movement all the time.  I think because myself and the other guys in the band had a little bit of time and weren’t under a ton of pressure other than to get the record done right, it’s made everyone get real excited about getting out and supporting the record.  There’s a kind of freshness involved, ya know?  I hate to use the term reemergence because we never really went anywhere.  We just kinda sat low.  And because it’s the first studio record in such a long time, I think a lot of the fans worldwide are excited about it, too.  And we kinda share in that, ya know?  I know what it’s like when one of your favorite bands hasn’t come out with a record in a long time and they’re finally doing something.  You can’t wait to hear it and you pray that it’s what you want it to be, ya know?  That’s why we spent so much time on the album.  We spent almost four years doin’ it.”

 

Todd: What are your current touring plans?

 

Steve: “…It’ll start in Atlanta and finish up in Baton Rouge.  It’ll run from September 4th to October 13th.  It’s just a little shy of six weeks.  It’s like a forty date stretch and I think we’re playin’ like thirty five of the forty days.  It’ll be the most back to back shows we’ve ever done, so everyone’s getting themselves prepared, getting themselves ready physically and mentally.  We love to do it and the cool part about doin’ it is there’s no time to get bored, ya know?  Days off on tour are always boring to me because you don’t have access, you’re not at home with your girlfriend, you can’t get comfortable and you can’t really chill out.  You’re in a hotel somewhere just sittin’ around waitin’ to get to the next place, so doin’ show after show makes the time go by.”

 

Todd: Any idea what type of set list you’ll be working with?  Will you be trying to represent all of the individual albums?

 

Steve: “Yeah.  We did two one-off shows in Jacksonville and Baton Rouge recently and we had a twenty one song set list that had lots of like musical interludes as well.  What we were doing was testing it out to see how it flows.  It does consist of songs from every record, so it’s very difficult to do.  You wanna represent every record because there are so many songs over the years that have become people’s favorites.   At every show on every tour, if there’s a favorite song that you didn’t play, they’ll remind you of that.  So we try and do a best of, ya know?  And that’s kinda tough, too because we don’t just wanna play the greatest hits.  We wanna play some of the more obscure stuff that goes over well live and I think we’ve been able to do that.  …So we’re figuring out which ones are good, how the flow of the system works…and how the crowd responds to different parts of the show.  I think it’s gonna be pretty good because we are representing every record, even Fields Of Yesterday.”

 

Todd: At this point, what is the status of Near Life Experience?

 

Steve: “It’s still going as strong as ever.  Our guitar player actually had to move to Belgium.  He’s been gone for about a year and a half, so we’ve had a replacement guitar player.  He’s coming back towards the end of the year.  And our drummer, a guy named Rob Hovey…also mixed and engineered the new Lillian Axe record.  He and I are recording a new Near Life Experience record with our bass player Eric (Morris), who’s also Lillian’s bass player.  The three of us are doing a new Near Life record.  We’ve got about half of it done.”

 

Todd: In your opinion, what are the main musical differences between Lillian Axe and Near Life Experience?

 

Steve: “Ya know, that’s a tough question.  For people that have listened to it…I think they would understand the differences more than I do because when I write songs, I don’t really think about which band it could be for.  …It’s all about the chemistry ya know?  I sing In Near Life Experience and my singing style is different than Derrick’s and Ron’s.  If you’re an outsider looking in, you’d probably say Near Life was a lot darker.  We tune down the guitars a little lower than we do in Lillian.  It’s a little gloomier, ya know?  On the new Lillian record, you can kinda see a touch of that Near Life feel on some of the songs.  For example, “Deep And Black” was a Near Life Experience song and I just thought it would be perfect for Lillian.  So until it makes a record and the chemistry of either one of the bands takes over and forms it, you never know (laughs).”

 

Todd: How much of an impact did Hurricane Katrina have on the overall writing process for Waters Rising?

 

Steve: “Honestly, I don’t think it had anything to do with it musically other than the fact that we almost lost some equipment that had some tracks on it.  We were fortunate that our engineer had the foresight to get everything out of the path of danger before it happened.  The room where the tracks were kept got flooded, so we were fortunate to have everything backed up.  As far as influencing me on how to approach it musically or writing wise, it probably did very little.  …Obviously Waters Rising is the name of the record and a lot of people thought it must have something to do with Katrina, but it really has nothing to do with that at all.  That’s why when a lot of people say ‘…oh, you should do something on the album cover pertaining to what you dealt with…’, I said ‘…no, I don’t want to do that…’.  …That would seem like we were trying to take advantage of a situation…  It would have been different if we had written a record about it, but we didn’t.  It just so happens that it kinda falls into some of the themes on the record.  The song “Waters Rising” was written and decided several years before the hurricane actually hit.  …I totally kept away from any references to water on the cover or any references to the hurricane.  There’s already enough of that.  It would have been phony to have done that when the song was written well before the hurricane hit.”

 

Todd: Are you still playing with (reunited ‘70’s Glam icons) Angel?

 

Steve: “Yes, I’m still playing with Angel.  That’s a slow process, there.  The guys are pretty much spread out everywhere and unlike Lillian Axe and Near Life Experience where I handle pretty much everything…Frank DiMino, Angel’s singer, pretty much takes over everything.  I am co-writing songs on the record with him and my voice in the band is pretty strong and has developed into a main voice of the band, but as far as the business and getting everything together, that’s in Frank’s hands.  Right now, we’ve got a new record written, but we’ve been trying to find the right label for a while now.  It’s kinda outta my hands, but I’m sure within the next year you’ll see Angel recording a new record and getting some new stuff out there.  …They’re great guys and we’ve got some great new songs written.  Its’ just a matter of finding the right label to get the stuff out there.  It’s beyond my control right now.”           

 

Select Discography

Waters Rising (2007) **

Live 2002 (2002) *

Fields Of Yesterday (1999) *

Psychoschizophrenia (1993) *

Poetic Justice (1992) *

Love + War (1989) *

Lillian Axe (1988) *

 

* features vocalist Ron Taylor

** features vocalist Derrick LaFevre

 

lillianaxe.com