When you are a multi-platinum selling rock band who rose to fame in the mid-eighties, toured your rear-ends off and lived the "Lifestyle" full tilt for a decade; why would you ever split? Better yet; what caused the split and how or why does one re-unite?
Well, Tesla is the band and for answers to these questions as well as to find out more about their new single, their current road effort, dubbed the "Let's Get Real Tour;" featuring a stop with Lynyrd Skynyrd at the PNC Bank Center in Holmdel, NJ on August 27 and much more we have turned to guitarist Frank Hannon who quite candidly takes us from then to now. So; you're getting the band back together huh Frank?
"Yeah we are," he began while having his morning cup of coffee. "The time off from the pandemic, ironically for us was a good little break because we've been hitting it hard since we regrouped in 2000. We hit it super hard from 1986 until '96, a solid 10 years straight; we call it the first chapter of our career. The first group of albums that we did, "Mechanical Resonance," "The Great Radio Controversy," Psychotic Supper," "Five Man Acoustical Jam" and all that stuff; we got so burnt out after 10 years of doing that and we started hating on each other and we broke up. We should have just taken a break but we decided to do the break-up route which was a bad call but then we got back together four years later realizing that our music and our songs meant a lot to some people. So, we reunited in 2000 and it has been non-stop for almost 20 years. The first chapter was 10 years and the second chapter has been 20 years of making albums; so, the break was maybe not long enough (laughs), we could've used a little bit more time off but we are grateful that this is happening and we're real excited because we've got a new song. In the 90's the band fell apart due to a lot of personal reasons and just being burned out after hitting it so hard on the road."
"Our singer, Jeff Keith had given me a call because he had another band together and needed a guitar player in a pinch to bail him out on some shows. I hadn't heard from him in a few years and it was great to hear from him and I flew out and filled in on a couple of shows and that was the spark of his and my chemistry being reunited again. The local radio station here in town started getting a ton of calls from people asking when Tesla was going do something because they were fans of our music; first and foremost they were playing our songs a lot on the radio here. So, they put together a Halloween concert in 2000 and that was the Tesla reunion and once we got together and saw the reaction, we just decided to keep it going as much as we could and try to work on those personal problems that we had. We created an album called "Into The Now" which was titled that because we were trying to let go of the past and be in the present. That album, to some of our fans and to ourselves, we feel is as strong as our debut album; it's like a second debut for us and that triggered the second chapter of what we did."
The band is opening for Skynyrd, Styx and Kid Rock with some solo shows in between on this sojourn which began on August 5 and runs through November 1 and when asked about going back on the road, let alone with Lynyrd Skynyrd who had a recent "Farewell" tour; Hannon emphasized once again that it's all about the music.
"We're getting back to our old behavior," he said with a laugh; "Lynyrd Skynyrd is a good example of how the music carries it. The music and songs live on, people love hearing the soundtrack of their lives and a band gets tired and thinks; yeah, we need to hang this up and take a break but the songs are so important to people that they still want to come hear them live. That's why the "Let's Get Real" has so many meanings for us; one of our mantras has always been, "No machines," we used to print that on our album sleeves, meaning that it is real, we are playing the instruments, there is nothing fabricated by a computer. So, it is real songs and we're just keeping it raw and it comes from a lyric from our new song "Cold Blue Steel" that we are releasing which was ironically influenced by Lynyrd Skynyrd. JK and I were in the garage and I was jammin' on a guitar riff and he was listening to a Lynyrd Skynyrd song on his way over and we decided to get inspired by that and we found out two weeks later that we were going to be doing a show in Holmdel, New Jersey with Lynyrd Skynyrd; it all fell together cosmically (laughs). We toured with Lynyrd Skynyrd in the 90's and we were hoping for the best for Gary Rossington because he was always very cool to us and I have to say that he probably had a hand in choosing Tesla to come on tour with Skynyrd because as I said, we were friends with those guys years ago."
Skynyrd, Styx and Kid Rock, all veteran rock acts who have had hectic tour schedules both before and after the pandemic; acts which rely heavily on playing the "Hits" from their catalog even though they have released recent new material. So, how does Tesla plan to approach their time on stage?
"We are doing all of it; new songs, new material, the tour is themed after the "Cold Blue Steel" song and we are going to play obviously some of our hits but we are actually going to retire some that are kind of tired and worn out. We are going to be digging deeper into our catalog off of our third album called "Psychotic Supper" because there are some tracks on there that we haven't played in a long time and it is the thirtieth anniversary; we've been celebrating all of these thirty year anniversaries from that era of 1986 to 1996 that I mentioned earlier, chapter one. "Psychotic Supper" is the album that has "What You Give," "Edison's Medicine," "Song & Emotion," "Freedom Slaves" and songs like that which we're going to dig deep into which are gonna be deeper cuts on this tour."
When asked if as an artist he or the band find playing the "Expected" tunes such as their wildly popular version of the Five Man Electrical Band hit "Signs" a challenge now; Hannon was straight forward in his response.
"Ya know, you've got to appease the crowd," he stated emphatically, "That's what we're there for, to entertain and make people feel good but luckily we love playing the song. Again, it's the soundtrack and people love the music. There are other songs and maybe even some that we may have written that I would have that feeling about but in this case, the song "Signs" is such a great lyric and great song that it is fun no matter what and as soon as I start singing it, even if I'm doing a solo gig I'll still play it because the crowd loves it and I love the song; that's the difference. I'll let you in on a little secret, "Little Suzi" is gonna sit on the bench this year (laughs). She's a little tired and she's gonna sit down for a while; you have to find a balance and even beyond that some of the fans on the internet will be posting how they want to hear these deeper tracks. So, there's the hits, the new songs and the deeper tracks and you have to divide it up and try and play all three of those. I've heard stories where the guys in Aerosmith hate playing "Dream On;" how crazy would you have to be for that (laughs)? So, it's a balancing act and you've got to keep your pride and your ego in check and realize that you're just damn lucky to be able to walk on stage in front of thousands of people and make them feel good!"
The "Let's Get Real Tour" is somewhat of a statement from the group as they travel from city to city but Hannon mentioned a new single; does this mean there is another album in the works? Not so fast he claims; things are a little different...
"It is a single for now and it will end up being an album but it is the type of approach like in the old days when The Beatles and The Stones would do that. When rock and roll was first born, bands would put out singles and then those songs would end up on albums in the future. This is a new premise for us because we were always hammered with deadlines and had to have an album out by such and such a date; what that does is force you to write songs in a manner of trying to get them done in a hurry and you'll have one or two great songs and maybe eight that aren't so great because they didn't get a chance to develop. So, we're not going to put that on this now; for the first time in our career we are just going to do what we want to do independently. We produced it ourselves in my garage and it is raw and it's real and we're going to do one song at a time at our own pace and not worry about making it a fabricated 10 or 12 songs in a group kind of thing. Now, that being said, it is going to be up to us to continue to force ourselves to get together and collectively create a single at a time and then by the end of the year we'll have a group of songs that grew organically."
"Besides being 35 years older," he said with a hearty laugh. "The Tesla then was like a young; have you ever heard the story of the two bulls on top of the mountain (laughs)? The one is young and the other is old, well that's how we are; let's walk down there and fuck'em all instead of running down and only fucking one of them. That's pretty much the difference; honestly, when we were young; I have a poster of us playing at the Texas Jam in 1987 in front of 90,000 people, I was 19 years old or I think I had just turned 20 and we were on 10 man! We had driven thousands of miles across Texas to get to this gig after playing all of these bars and we ran out on that stage and everything was hyper. Nowadays we pace ourselves a lot, we plan and just how I described how we recorded our new single and produced it ourselves, we're going to take our time to make a record with our own schedule. That's kind of the difference now, we pace ourselves and plan better and we don't get all fucked up and as drunk and high like we used to (laughs)."
To discover more about Tesla, the tour or the August 27 show; please visit www.teslatheband.com.
That's it for this week! Please continue to support live and original music and until next week....ROCK ON!
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